Jaime Leonardo v. Phillip Crawford
Filing
FILED OPINION (SUSAN P. GRABER, RAYMOND C. FISHER and JAY S. BYBEE)The judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss Leonardo s petition without prejudice. The government s motion to supplement the record on appeal, filed May 21, 2010, is granted. Each party shall bear its own costs on appeal. VACATED AND REMANDED. Judge: RCF Authoring. FILED AND ENTERED JUDGMENT. [7751267]
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FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JAIME ALDOS LEONARDO, JR.,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
PHILLIP CRAWFORD,
Respondent-Appellee.
No. 09-17495
D.C. No.
2:07-cv-00545SMM
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Stephen M. McNamee, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
October 4, 2010—Pasadena, California
Filed May 13, 2011
Before: Susan P. Graber, Raymond C. Fisher and
Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.*
Opinion by Judge Fisher
*Judge Graber was drawn to replace Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall on
the panel following Judge Hall’s untimely death. Judge Graber has read
the briefs, reviewed the record and listened to the tape of oral argument.
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LEONARDO v. CRAWFORD
COUNSEL
Jon M. Sands, Federal Public Defender, and J. Ryan Moore
(argued), Assistant Federal Public Defender, Tucson, Arizona,
for the petitioner-appellant.
Dennis K. Burke, United States Attorney, Randall M. Howe,
Deputy Appellate Chief, and Cynthia M. Parsons, Assistant
U.S. Attorney, Phoenix, Arizona, and William H. Orrick, III
(argued), U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for
the respondent-appellee.
Judy Rabinovitz (argued), ACLU Foundation, Immigrants’
Rights Project, New York, New York, Ahilan T. Arulanantham, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Los
Angeles, California, and Jayashri Srikantiah, Stanford Law
School, Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Stanford, California, for
amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union Foundation
and American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California.
OPINION
FISHER, Circuit Judge:
Jaime Aldos Leonardo, Jr. appeals the district court’s judgment dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition challenging his prolonged immigration detention without bond.
He contends that his bond hearing, provided under CasasCastrillon v. Department of Homeland Security, 535 F.3d 942
(9th Cir. 2008), violated due process. We write to clarify the
proper procedure for challenging a Casas bond determination:
Once an alien has received a Casas bond hearing before an
immigration judge (IJ), he may appeal the IJ’s decision to the
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). If the alien is dissatisfied with the BIA’s decision, he may then file a habeas peti-
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tion in the district court, challenging his continued detention.
The district court’s decision on the habeas petition may be
appealed to this court. Because Leonardo did not follow this
course here, and thus did not exhaust administrative remedies
before pursuing habeas relief, we remand to the district court
with instructions to dismiss his petition without prejudice.
BACKGROUND
Leonardo filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus
in federal district court, alleging that his prolonged detention
was unlawful. While Leonardo’s habeas petition was pending,
we decided Casas-Castrillon and Prieto-Romero v. Clark,
534 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2008), which held that procedural due
process entitles aliens detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a),
pending completion of their removal proceedings, to a bond
hearing before an immigration judge to determine whether
their ongoing detention is justified. In light of those decisions,
the district court ordered the government to afford Leonardo
a Casas hearing. The court ordered “that the Court will grant
Petitioner’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and order
Respondent to release Petitioner, unless Respondent complies
with this Court’s Order and notifies the Court by August 28,
2009.” Order June 29, 2009, at 5. The government afforded
Leonardo a Casas hearing before an immigration judge, and
the IJ denied bond, concluding that Leonardo posed a danger
to the community.
Rather than appealing the IJ’s adverse bond determination
to the BIA, Leonardo filed a motion for review of the IJ’s
decision in his pending habeas case, arguing that the hearing
failed to satisfy due process or conform to the district court’s
previous order. The district court denied the petition. First, the
court concluded that the government had “complied exactly
with this Court’s Order” by providing Leonardo a bond hearing before an immigration judge. Order Oct. 13, 2009, at 3.
Second, the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Leonardo’s claims that the hearing lacked due process,
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citing 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e), which provides that “[n]o court
may set aside any action or decision by the Attorney General
under this section regarding the detention or release of any
alien or the grant, revocation, or denial of bond.” 8 U.S.C.
§ 1226(e). The court therefore denied the petition and entered
judgment dismissing the action. The court advised Leonardo
that his “only recourse [wa]s to appeal the bond determination
to the Board of Immigration Appeals.” Order Oct. 13, 2009,
at 4. Leonardo timely appealed the district court’s judgment
to this court.
Leonardo also ultimately appealed the IJ’s adverse bond
determination to the BIA. The BIA reviewed the IJ’s determination de novo, affirmed the IJ’s conclusion that Leonardo
posed a danger to the community and dismissed the appeal.
See In re Leonardo, No. A040-464-700 (B.I.A. Apr. 28,
2010). We take judicial notice of the BIA’s decision. See Fed.
R. Evid. 201.
DISCUSSION
I.
[1] The district court concluded that 8 U.S.C. § 1226(e)
deprives a district court of jurisdiction to review a Casas bond
determination for constitutional and legal error. This conclusion was incorrect. It is now clear that “a federal district court
has habeas jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 to review
Casas bond hearing determinations for constitutional claims
and legal error.” V. Singh v. Holder, No. 10-15715, ___ F.3d
___, 2011 WL 1226379, at *1 (9th Cir. Mar. 31, 2011). “Although § 1226(e) restricts jurisdiction in the federal courts in
some respects, it does not limit habeas jurisdiction over constitutional claims or questions of law.” Id. at *3. The district
court therefore should not have denied Leonardo’s habeas
petition for lack of jurisdiction.
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II.
We agree with the government, however, that the district
court should have dismissed Leonardo’s claims, without prejudice, for a failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
[2] We held in Casas-Castrillon that aliens who are held
in custody under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a), while their petitions for
review of their removal orders are pending, are entitled to a
bond hearing before an immigration judge. See CasasCastrillon, 535 F.3d at 951. If they are dissatisfied with the
IJ’s bond determination, they may file an administrative
appeal so that “the necessity of detention can be reviewed by
. . . the BIA.” Prieto-Romero, 534 F.3d at 1059. If they
remain dissatisfied, they may file a petition for habeas corpus
in the district court. See V. Singh, ___ F.3d at ___, 2011 WL
1226379, at *1-3. They may then appeal to this court.
[3] Here, Leonardo pursued habeas review of the IJ’s
adverse bond determination before appealing to the BIA. This
short cut was improper. Leonardo should have exhausted
administrative remedies by appealing to the BIA before asking the federal district court to review the IJ’s decision. See
Rojas-Garcia v. Ashcroft, 339 F.3d 814, 819 (9th Cir. 2003)
(a petitioner “must exhaust administrative remedies before
raising . . . constitutional claims in a habeas petition when
those claims are reviewable by the BIA on appeal”). Once the
BIA rendered its decision, Leonardo could have properly pursued habeas relief in the district court and the district court’s
decision would have been subject to review in this court.
[4] When a petitioner does not exhaust administrative remedies, a district court ordinarily should either dismiss the petition without prejudice or stay the proceedings until the
petitioner has exhausted remedies, unless exhaustion is
excused. See Morrison-Knudsen Co. v. CHG Int’l, Inc., 811
F.2d 1209, 1223 (9th Cir. 1987) (when confronted by an
unexcused failure to exhaust administrative remedies, a dis-
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trict court “may dismiss the action pending exhaustion of
administrative remedies, or it may stay its own proceedings
pending administrative review”); see also Puga v. Chertoff,
488 F.3d 812, 815 (9th Cir. 2007) (identifying factors a court
should consider when deciding whether to excuse the prudential exhaustion requirement in a particular case). Here, Leonardo has not asked for a stay. Nor has he demonstrated
grounds for excusing the exhaustion requirement. We accordingly remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss
Leonardo’s petition without prejudice. To the extent Leonardo
has now exhausted his administrative remedies, he may file a
new habeas action in district court challenging the BIA’s
decision denying bond. We express no opinion on the merits
of any claims he may raise.
III.
[5] We reject Leonardo’s contention that the district court
should have addressed his challenges to the IJ’s decision
based on the court’s authority to ensure compliance with its
earlier habeas order. Leonardo is correct that the district court
had authority to review compliance with its earlier order conditionally granting habeas relief. See Gentry v. Deuth, 456
F.3d 687, 692 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that a federal district
court retains jurisdiction to determine whether a party has
complied with the terms of a conditional order in a habeas
case); Phifer v. Warden, U.S. Penitentiary, 53 F.3d 859, 865
(7th Cir. 1995) (“When a habeas petitioner alleges noncompliance with a conditional order, jurisdiction exists for the
purpose of determining whether the [government] acted in
accordance with the court’s mandate.”); cf. Hamilton v.
Nakai, 453 F.2d 152, 157 (9th Cir. 1972) (“The equitable
jurisdiction of a federal court extends to supplemental or
ancillary bills brought for the purpose of effectuating a decree
of the same court.”). But in this case the district court concluded that the government “complied exactly with this
Court’s Order” by affording a bond hearing before an immigration judge. The district court thus exercised its authority to
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ensure compliance with its conditional grant of relief and construed Leonardo’s legal challenges following the IJ’s hearing
as raising new arguments not covered by the earlier order.
The district court was under no obligation to address Leonardo’s new arguments under the ambit of ensuring compliance
with the earlier order.
CONCLUSION
The judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case
is remanded with instructions to dismiss Leonardo’s petition
without prejudice. The government’s motion to supplement
the record on appeal, filed May 21, 2010, is granted. Each
party shall bear its own costs on appeal.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
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