Feather-Gorbey v. Warden
Filing
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MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Richard D. Bennett on 11/6/2018. (c/m 11/6/2018)(ko, Deputy Clerk)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
MICHAEL S. FEATHER-GORBEY
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Petitioner
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v
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WARDEN, FCI-CUMBERLAND
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Respondent
Civil Action No. RDB-18-1602
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MEMORANDUM OPINION
In this Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2241, Petitioner
Michael Gorbey alleges that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has improperly denied him
access to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (IADA) process for a detainer filed against
him by the State of Virginia for an alleged violation of probation. ECF 1. In response,
Respondent filed a Motion to Dismiss or for Summary Judgment (ECF 5), which is opposed by
Gorbey (ECF 7). Respondent filed a Reply. ECF 8. There is no need for a hearing to determine
the issues pending before the Court. See Local Rule 105.6. For the reasons stated herein, the
petition shall be dismissed and Respondent’s motion, construed as a Motion for Summary
Judgment, shall be granted.
Background
Gorbey, who is serving a term of 252 months in the BOP, asserts that he has an active
detainer lodged against him by the State of Virginia, for an “alleged felony probation violation in
Fauquier County, Virginia.” ECF 1 at p. 9.1 He claims that under Virginia law, this is a new
felony entitling him to a fast and speedy trial. Id. He asserts that despite that fact, the BOP is
“openly denying me access to the IADA process resulting in prejudices.” Id.
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Page numbers reference the page numbers assigned by the Court’s electronic docket.
Gorbey further explains that the detainer was lodged on April 25, 2017, by the State of
Virginia’s “use of an illegal or otherwise unconstitutional 2010 Capias . . . issued some 1 month
outside the 7 year statute of limitations.” ECF 1 at p. 10. He states there was a 2003 Capias
which expired and the 2010 Capias was “issued by the Court clerk without being order[ed] to do
so by the Court in violation of double jeopardy and or collateral estoppel.” Id. He characterizes
this action as a “malicious abuse of process.” Id.
On October 18, 2017, Gorbey states, the Fauquier Circuit Court ordered another Capias
issued, which he claims is 7 years, 4 months beyond the expiration of the 2003 Capias. Id.
Gorbey claims that because the detainer and capias were active at his original sentencing
by the District of Columbia court in 2008 and at his remand sentencing in 2014, his “sentence
categories” were increased by one level, “extending the length of my present sentence.” Id. at p.
11. Gorbey expects to be resentenced again because of other alleged sentencing errors by the
D.C. Superior Court and the detainer again presents a problem with raising his sentencing
guidelines, but the BOP will not allow him access to the IADA process to have the open charges
addressed. Id. Further, Gorbey asserts that the detainer prohibits him from progressing to a
lower security prison, or to participate in programming such as entry to a halfway house. Id.
As relief, Gorbey seeks an Order from this Court directing the BOP to “promptly file
IADA fast and speedy trial demands to Fauquier Circuit Court” and unspecified compensatory
damages. Id. at p. 12.
Respondent asserts that the petition should be dismissed because an alleged violation of
the IADA does not state a sufficient ground for habeas relief and, in any event, the BOP properly
concluded that Gorbey’s detainer is not one to which the IADA process applies. ECF 5-1.
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Standard of Review
Summary Judgment is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a) which provides that:
The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law.
The Supreme Court has clarified that this does not mean that any factual dispute will
defeat the motion:
By its very terms, this standard provides that the mere existence of some
alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise
properly supported motion for summary judgment; the requirement is that
there be no genuine issue of material fact.
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 247-48 (1986) (emphasis in original).
“A party opposing a properly supported motion for summary judgment ‘may not rest
upon the mere allegations or denials of [his] pleadings,’ but rather must ‘set forth specific facts
showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.’” Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club,
Inc., 346 F.3d 514, 522 (4th Cir. 2003) (alteration in original) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)).
The court should “view the evidence in the light most favorable to . . . the nonmovant, and draw
all inferences in her favor without weighing the evidence or assessing the witness’ credibility.”
Dennis v. Columbia Colleton Med. Ctr., Inc., 290 F.3d 639, 644-45 (4th Cir. 2002). The court
must, however, also abide by the “affirmative obligation of the trial judge to prevent factually
unsupported claims and defenses from proceeding to trial.” Bouchat, 346 F.3d at 526 (internal
quotation marks omitted) (quoting Drewitt v. Pratt, 999 F.2d 774, 778-79 (4th Cir. 1993), and
citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-24 (1986)).
Analysis
The IADA is an agreement among 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the United
States that “creates uniform procedures for lodging and executing a detainer.” Alabama v.
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Bozeman, 533 U.S. 148 (2001). “The Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned interstate
compact within the Compact Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 10, cl. 3, and thus is a federal law
subject to federal construction.” Carchman v. Nash, 473 U.S. 716, 719 (1985), citing Cuyler v.
Adams, 449 U.S. 433, 438-442 (1981). “Art. III of the Agreement establishes a procedure by
which a prisoner incarcerated in one party State (the sending State) may demand the speedy
disposition of “any untried indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which a detainer
has been lodged against the prisoner” by another party State (the receiving State). Carchman,
473 U.S. at 720–21. The procedure was described the Supreme Court as follows:
Art. III requires the warden to inform the prisoner that a detainer has been
lodged against him and that he may request final disposition of the indictment,
information, or complaint upon which the detainer is based. If the prisoner
makes such a request, the warden must forward it, together with a certificate
providing certain information about the prisoner's terms of confinement, to the
appropriate prosecuting official and court of the receiving State. The
authorities in the receiving State then must bring the prisoner to trial within
180 days, absent good cause shown, or the court must dismiss the indictment,
information, or complaint with prejudice, and the detainer will cease to be of
any force or effect.
Id. at 721. Importantly, Art. III of the IADA clearly uses the phrase “untried indictment,
information or complaint.” Further,
A probation-violation charge, which does not accuse an individual with having
committed a criminal offense in the sense of initiating a prosecution, thus does
not come within the terms of Art. III. Although the probation-violation charge
might be based on the commission of a criminal offense, it does not result in
the probationer's being “prosecuted” or “brought to trial” for that offense.
Indeed, in the context of the Agreement, the probation-violation charge
generally will be based on the criminal offense for which the probationer
already was tried and convicted and is serving his sentence in the sending
State.
Id. at 725.
The central dispute involved in this case is whether the Capias to Show Cause issued by
the Fauquier County Circuit Court is, as Gorbey contends in his Petition, a new felony charge
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that falls within the purview of the IADA process, or it is, as Respondent contends, simply a
violation of probation detainer that is excluded from that process. If it is not a detainer subject to
the IADA process, as Respondent asserts, the issue of whether Gorbey has suffered prejudice
because of the detainer is moot because his sole contention with respect to the BOP is that
officials have improperly refused to process his IADA request for disposition of the detainer.2
Based on the evidence before this Court it is clear the Capias Show Cause is a detainer for a
violation of probation and the IADA provisions do not apply.
Gorbey attaches a copy of the Capias to Show Cause, which was filed as a detainer, to his
Petition which describes the pending charge as “have probation revoked (19.2-306) and be
sentenced in accordance with the law. Original charge(s): pos[session] [firearm] by felon/18.2308.2 (19.2-305) failure to appear/ 19.2-128 (19.2-306).” ECF 1-1 at p. 2. The parenthetical
statutory references are for Va. Code Ann. §19.2-306 which is entitled “Revocation of
suspension of sentence and probation.”
Nothing in that statutory provision indicates that
revocation of a suspended sentence is a “new felony,” as advanced by Gorbey. ECF 1.
In his Opposition Response, Gorbey takes a slightly different stance and maintains that a
violation of probation detainer is subject to the IADA process and further claims his due process
and equal protection rights are violated by the refusal to provide access to that process to him.
ECF 7 at pp. 6-8. He takes issue with Respondent’s failure to cite any Virginia law to support its
conclusion that a violation of probation detainer is not subject to the IADA. Id. at p. 8. Gorbey
then argues that because Virginia law requires appointment of counsel in the context of a
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To the extent that Gorbey claims Virginia has violated its laws through the issuance of the Capias Show
Cause, his challenge to the validity of that order must be litigated in the Virginia court. This Court does not have
jurisdiction to consider an alleged violation of state law. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991) ("it is
not the province of a federal habeas corpus court to reexamine state court determinations on state law questions."),
see also Gurley v. Superior Court of Mecklenburg Cty., 411 F.2d 586, 587 (4th Cir. 1969) (Federal courts do not
have mandamus jurisdiction to command a State court to entertain a motion), codified in 28 U.S.C. §1361.
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violation of probation hearing and requires trial within five months for persons in custody,3
Virginia law provides “probationers due process and equal protection rights.” Id. at pp. 8-9. He
deduces from this that his due process and equal protection rights are violated by the BOP’s
denial of access to the IADA process. Id. at pp. 9-10.
Gorbey’s recitation of case law guaranteeing due process to persons charged with a
violation of probation is misplaced. The due process protections afforded to persons facing
violation of probation charges are not determinative of whether the IADA applies to a detainer
for a violation of probation charge. Rather, as noted above, the IADA is a federal law subject to
federal construction. Carchman, 473 U.S. 716, 719. The indisputable and operative fact is that
the detainer filed with the BOP by the State of Virginia against Gorbey is not subject to the
IADA process requiring the filing State to dispose of the charges because it is not an untried
indictment, information or complaint. “We hold that the guarantee protects the accused from
arrest or indictment through trial, but does not apply once a defendant has been found guilty at
trial or has pleaded guilty to criminal charges.” Betterman v. Montana, _ U.S._, 136 S. Ct. 1609,
1612 (2016). A violation of probation, like a violation of parole, is a case wherein the criminal
defendant has already been tried and found guilty of the underlying criminal charges and the
issue to be determined is whether the probationary requirements have been abridged.
Accordingly, by separate Order which follows, Respondent’s Motion for Summary
Judgment shall be granted.
___November 6, 2018_____
Date
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_______/s/________________________
RICHARD D. BENNETT
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
See Va. Code Ann. §19.2-243.
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