Moses v. St. Lawerence

Filing 5

ORDER stating that the Clerk is directed to transfer this case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia for all further proceedings. Signed by Magistrate Judge G. R. Smith on 2/2/2012. (loh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
SAVANNAH DIVISION
KENDAL MOSES,
Plaintiff,
v.
H. KRAMER RN and BUREAU OF
PRISONS,
Defendants.

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Case No. CV412-024

ORDER
Kendal Moses has submitted for filing what he styles as a 28 U.S.C.
§ 2241 habeas corpus petition. (Doc. 1.) He alleges that he was denied
proper medical care while a federal prisoner at the United States
Penitentiary at Hazelton, West Virginia and asks that he be awarded
damages and an injunction directing that he be provided “adequate
health care indefinite [e]ly.” (Id. at 4.)
This Court has jurisdiction to issue writs of habeas corpus to
prisoners who are “in custody in violation of the constitution or laws or
treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). A petitioner may
use § 2241 to challenge the manner of execution of his sentence when his
challenge implicates the fact or duration of that sentence. See McKinnis

v. Mosely, 693 F.2d 1054, 1056-57 (11th Cir. 1982) (citing Johnson v.
Hardy, 601 F.2d 172, 174 (5th Cir. 1979), for proposition that “any
challenge to the fact or duration of a prisoner's confinement is properly
treated as a habeas corpus matter, whereas challenges to conditions of
confinement may proceed” as civil rights actions). However, the proper
vehicle for a prisoner to challenge his conditions of confinement is a civil
rights action, rather than a habeas corpus action. Id.; see also Jenkins v.
Haubert, 179 F.3d 19, 28 (2d Cir. 1999) (noting that term “‘conditions of
confinement’ . . . quite simply encompasses all conditions under which a
prisoner is confined for his term of imprisonment,” including “terms of
disciplinary or administrative segregation such as keeplock or solitary
confinement, as well as more general conditions affecting a prisoner's
quality of life,” and stating that “any deprivation that does not affect the
fact or duration of a prisoner's overall confinement is necessarily a
condition of that confinement”). Since Moses is challenging the
conditions of his confinement, the Court recharacterizes this proceeding
as one arising under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the
Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), which authorized
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constitutional tort suits against federal officials. See Castro v. United
States, 540 U.S. 375, 381 (2003) (substance must govern over

nomenclature, so a proceeding’s label that a litigant chooses is
irrelevant).
The events outlined in Moses’ complaint occurred in Hazelton,
West Virginia and the only individually named defendant resides there.
Hazelton lies within Preston County, which is in the jurisdiction of the
United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
28 U.S.C. § 129. Hence, his case must be transferred there. 28 U.S.C. §
1391(b) (venue); 28 U.S.C. § 1406 (permitting district courts to dismiss
or transfer cases suffering from venue defects). Accordingly, the Clerk is
DIRECTED to transfer this case to the United States District Court for

the Northern District of West Virginia for all further proceedings.
SO ORDERED this 2nd day of February, 2012.

çJC.-1
1JN1TED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
SOIJThERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

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