OBIEGBU v. HOLLINGSWORTH

Filing 3

OPINION FILED. Signed by Judge Renee Marie Bumb on 10/1/13. (js)

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
_______________________________________
:
JOHNSON OBIEGBU,
:
: Civil Action No. 13-5576 (RMB)
Petitioner,
:
:
v.
:
OPINION
:
WARDEN JORDAN HOLLINGSWORTH ,
:
:
Respondent.
:
_______________________________________
:
This matter comes before this Court upon Petitioner’s filing
of a § 2241 petition (“Petition”), see Docket Entry No. 1, and
his application to proceed in this matter in forma pauperis.
Docket Entry No. 1-1.

See

Petitioner, a prolific litigant, is a

federal inmate currently confined at the FCI Fort Dix, Fort Dix,
New Jersey, where Petitioner was transferred on July 15, 2013,
from the FCI Petersburg, Virginia (“FCI Petersburg”).1

1

See

This Court’s brief review of Petitioner’s prior legal
actions detected electronic records of at least eleven civil
matters, seven of which were commenced in various district courts
and four in various courts of appeals. See Obiegbu v. United
States, Civil Action No. 09-0283 (JB) (N.D. Tx.); Obiegbu v.
Napolitano, Civil Action No. 09-0459 (JB) (N.D. Tx.); Obiegbu v.
Werlinger, Civil Action No. 10-0277 (KRG) (W.D. Pa.); Obiegbu v.
Werlinger, Civil Action No. 10-0301 (KRG) (W.D. Pa.); Obiegbu v.
Werlinger, Civil Action No. 13-0002 (KRG) (W.D. Pa.); Obiegbu v.
Holingsworth, Civil Action No. 13-0071 (AWA) (E.D. Va.); Obiegbu
v. Wilson, Civil Action No. 13-0226 (AWA) (E.D. Va.); see also
Obiegbu v. United States, USCA Index No. 09-10945 (5ht Cir);
Obiegbu v. Werlinger, USCA Index No. 12-3031 (3d Cir.); Obiegbu
v. Werlinger, USCA Index No. 12-3687 (3d Cir.); Obiegbu v.
Werlinger, USCA Index No. 13-1662 (3d Cir.).

Obiegbu v. Holingsworth, Civil Action No. 13-0226 (AWA) (E.D.
Va.), Docket Entry No. 9.

Three weeks after that transfer, i.e.,

on August 6, 2013, Petitioner executed the application at bar
titling the same, “An Emergency Motion for Preliminary and
Declaratory Injunction Pursuant to . . . 28 USC 2241.”

See

Instant Matter, Docket Entry No. 1, at 1 and 12.
In his instant application, Petitioner asserted that, while
being confined at the FCI Petersburg: (1) he rendered assistance
to another inmate in exchange for compensation in kind; (2) that
transaction resulted in a disciplinary proceeding; (3) Petitioner
was found guilty of a disciplinary infraction but was not served
with a notice of the charges against him; (4) that disciplinary
finding caused Petitioner’s expulsion from the Residential Drug
Abuse Treatment Program (“RDAP”); and (5) having lost the
potential benefit he could have earned upon completion of the
RDAP, Petitioner became eligible for consideration for a transfer
to a community correctional center on a date later than the one
he would have had in the event he successfully completed the
RDAP.

See generally, Instant Matter, Docket Entry No. 1.
Conceding that he did not exhaust his administrative

remedies with regard to this panoply of challenges, Petitioner
asserted that such exhaustion was not required because he was
seeking injunctive and declaratory relief.

See id. at 7.

Petitioner’s application is unavailing.

2

To start, Petitioner unduly conflates his challenges to at
least three different administrative actions or determinations.
His first challenge is a procedural due process attack on the
determination finding him guilty of an infraction without giving
him a proper notice of the charges against him.

His next

challenge attacks another determination: that his disciplinary
infraction rendered him no longer eligible for completion of the
RDAP.

His third challenge is to yet another determination: that,

since he did not earn the credits ensuing from a successful
completion of the RDAP, which credits would have entitled him for
a speedier release and, correspondingly, transfer to a community
correctional center, his date of evaluation for such a transfer
also could not take place sooner.2

2

In addition, it appears that Petitioner is attempting to
challenge the period of his placement in a community correctional
center by speculating that such period might be too short and in
violation of the Second Chance Act (“SCA”), Pub. L. No. 110-199,
effective April 9, 2008.
[T]his Court finds that this petition seeks
adjudication of a speculative claim, which is
prohibited in habeas law. Petitioner conjectures that
he will not receive the maximum 12 month RRC placement
that is permitted under the SCA, and that he must be
evaluated for his [community correctional center]
placement at the time of his choosing, well more than
33 months before his projected release date when he
filed his habeas petition. However, Petitioner does
not have a liberty interest in a vested right to
reduction of his sentence by means of his placement in
a RRC: the decision is statutorily reserved to be
subject to the BOP's discretion. Cf. Magnin v. Beeler,
110 F. Supp. 2d 338, 340 n. 2 (D.N.J. 2000). Rather,
the statutory or ensuing regulatory enactments merely
3

However, under Habeas Rule 2(e), Petitioner cannot challenge
different administrative actions or determinations in a single
habeas petition.

See 28 U.S.C. § 2254 Rule 2(e) (applicable to §

2241 matters through Habeas Rule 1(b)); see also Muniz v.
Zickefoose, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115766, at *13 (D.N.J. Sept.
30, 2011), aff’d, 460 F. App’x 165 (3d Cir. 2012).

Rather, each

of the actions or determinations Petitioner seeks to attack shall
be challenged in a separate habeas application.3

See id.

Next, Petitioner’s argument as to non-exhaustion, that he is
seeking merely “injunctive and declaratory” relief, is also
unavailing.

The very nature of habeas relief is, by definition,

created an entitlement protected by the Due Process
Clause, i.e., these provisions merely protect
Petitioner's expectation to be evaluated for such
placement. Cf. Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal
& Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7 (1979)(addressing
the right to parole consideration); see also Board of
Pardons v. Allen, 482 U.S. 369 (1987); Prevard v.
Fauver, 47 F. Supp. 2d 539, 545 (D.N.J.), aff’d, 202
F.3d 254 (3d Cir. 1999). Correspondingly, Petitioner
has no vested right in either being evaluated for
[community correctional center] placement on a certain
date or in being placed in a [community correctional
center] on a certain date: rather, he has a right to be
evaluated, generally, and to be placed in a [community
correctional center] if the BOP concludes, upon due
evaluation, that Petitioner shall be so placed.
Garcia v. Zickefoose, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133884, at *14-16
(D.N.J. Sept. 18, 2012), aff’d 518 F. App’x 78 (3d Cir. 2013).
3

Petitioner’s position that these determinations followed
one another is immaterial. Cf. Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake
Basin Water Storage Dist., 410 U.S. 719, 731 (1973) (legal
“adjudication cannot rest on any such ‘house that Jack built’
foundation”).
4

injunctive; yet, it has long been established that the
administrative exhaustion requirement applies to all habeas
challenges, including Section 2241 attacks on administrative
determinations.4

See Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218 (3d Cir.

2004); Booth v. Churner, 206 F.3d 289 (3d Cir. 2000); see also
Nyhuis v. Reno, 204 F.3d 65, 75-76 (3d Cir. 2000) (reflecting on
the “myriad policy considerations in favor of exhaustion
requirements”).
Hence, Petitioner’s challenges should be dismissed for
failure to comply with Habeas Rule 2(e) and lack of exhaustion.
Generally, such deficiencies would warrant a dismissal without
prejudice or issuance of an order to show cause as to why the
claims should not be dismissed as procedurally defaulted.

Here,

however, a summary dismissal with prejudice appears proper.
As noted supra, this Court’s review of Petitioner’s
litigation history detected a number of prior actions, see
Instant Opinion, n.1; and one of these matters was Civil Action
No. 13-0071 (“Holingsworth”), a proceeding currently pending in
the Eastern District of Virginia before District Judge Arenda L.

4

Moreover, the courts read a procedural default component
into the exhaustion requirement, holding that the inmates who
fail to fully, or timely, complete the prison grievance process
are barred from subsequently litigating claims in federal court.
See Booth, 206 F.3d 289; Bolla v. Strickland, 304 F. App’x 22 (3d
Cir. 2008); Jetter v. Beard, 183 F. App’x 178 (3d Cir. 2006).
5

Wright Allen (“Judge Allen”) and Magistrate Judge Tommy E. Miller
(“Judge Miller”).
In that action, Petitioner raised challenges substantively
indistinguishable from those asserted in his application at bar;
moreover, Petitioner’s Holingsworth challenges even include the
very same conflation of claims present here.5

As the record in

Holingsworth indicates, Petitioner’s failure to exhaust and the
validity of his substantive claims are currently in the process
of active adjudication, see Holingsworth, Docket Entries Nos. 1217, and a resolution of all these issues is forthcoming.

Yet,

having his application to expedite the Holingsworth action denied
and the final determination reserved by Judge Miller, see id.
Docket Entry No. 13 (order issued on July 25, 2013), Petitioner
executed his Petition: just ten days after the entry of Judge
Miller’s decision.
While Petitioner invites this Court to proceed with an
adjudication of his claims already pending before Judges Allen
and Miller, the Court declines to do so.

5

See Obiegbu v. Holingsworth, Civil Action No. 13-0071
(AWA) (E.D. Va.), Docket Entry No. 16 (Respondents’ answer
grappling with the chain Petitioner’s unrelated challenges
identical to those at bar and providing Judges Allen and Miller
with an administrative record showing that Petitioner’s expulsion
from the RDAP resulted from his “unsatisfactory progress in
treatment despite repeated treatment interventions from
RDAP staff”).
6

The power of a federal court to prevent duplicative
litigation is intended “to foster judicial economy and
the ‘comprehensive disposition of litigation,’” Curtis
v. Citibank, N.A., 226 F.3d 133, 138 (2d Cir. 2000)
(quoting Kerotest Manufacturing Co. v. C-O-Two Fire
Equipment Co., 342 U.S. 180, 183 (1952)), and “to
protect parties from ‘the vexation of concurrent
litigation over the same subject matter.’” Id.
(quoting Adam v. Jacobs, 950 F.2d 89, 93 (2d Cir.
1991)).
Porter v. NationsCredit Consumer Disc. Co., 2003 Bankr. LEXIS
933, at *33 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2003).
Therefore, this Court will direct administrative termination
of the instant matter and dismissal of Petitioner’s instant
challenges as wholly duplicative of those in Holingsworth.6

In

light of Petitioner’s commencement of a duplicative action right
upon having his motion denied by Judge Miller, this Court will
direct the Clerk to serve complimentary copies of this Opinion
and accompanying Order upon Judges Allen and Miller.
Finally, taking notice of Petitioner’s extensive litigation
history and his tendency to raise challenges known to him as
invalid in light of the courts’ prior adjudications of his

6

To the extent Petitioner’s instant challenges could be
read as challenges indistinguishable from the aspect of
Petitioner’s claims with regard to which Judge Miller granted
Petitioner limited relief, see Holingsworth, Docket Entry No. 13,
Petitioner’s challenges will be dismissed under the doctrine of
res judicata. See McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 486 (1991)
(pointing out that § 2244(b) “establishes a ‘qualified
application of the doctrine of res judicata” [to habeas
actions]”) (citation to legislative records omitted),
7

claims, the Court takes this opportunity to advise Petitioner of
the concept of abuse of writ.
Where a habeas litigant is attempting to re-litigate the
very same issue time and again, or where the litigant raises
claims already known to him as facially meritless, it is well
within the broad scope of the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a),
for a district court to issue an order restricting the filing of
such frivolous cases by that litigant.

See e.g., In Re Oliver,

682 F.2d 443, 445 (3d Cir. 1982) (citing Lacks v. Fahmi, 623 F.2d
254 (2d Cir. 1980) (per curiam); Harrelson v. United States, 613
F.2d 114, 115 (5th Cir. 1980) (per curiam); Clinton v. United
States, 297 F.2d 899, 901 (9th Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S.
856 (1962)).

Thus, if Petitioner persists at raising - or

paraphrasing - his already litigated claims or already dismissed
challenges, he risks abusing the equitable nature of the habeas
writ.

See Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 17-19 (1963);

Furnari v. United States Parole Comm’n, 531 F.3d 241, 250 (3d
Cir. 2008).

This Court, therefore, strongly urges Petitioner to

take his litigations in this District (and in all other federal
courts, district and appellate) seriously, since sanctions could
be applied to Petitioner if he continues abusing the legal
process.

“The courts in this nation stand ready to address

challenges brought by litigants in good faith.
means that the judiciary — including
8

Which, in turn,

the Judges in this District

— expect litigants to treat their litigation with utmost
seriousness, without abusing legal process and without unduly
testing of the resolve or common sense of the judiciary.”

In re

Telfair, 745 F. Supp. 2d 536, 580 (D.N.J. 2010).
For the foregoing reasons, Petitioner’s application will be
dismissed with prejudice, as duplicative of the application being
litigated in Holingsworth.7
An appropriate Order follows.

s/Renée Marie Bumb
RENÉE MARIE BUMB
United States District Judge
Date: October 1, 2013

7

No statement made in this Opinion or accompanying Order
shall be construed as expressing this Court’s position as to the
substantive or procedural validity or invalidity of Petitioner’s
challenges currently litigated in Holingsworth.
9