Griffin v. Davis

Filing 3

ORDER TO TRANSFER CASE to USDC ED/TX - Lufkin Division. (Signed by Judge Sim Lake) Parties notified.(gclair, 4) [Transferred from Texas Southern on 11/10/2016.]

United States District Court
Southern District of Texas

ENTERED
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN D ISTRICT OF TEXAS
HOUSTON D IVISION

November 09, 2016
David J. Bradley, Clerk

GERALD GRIFFIN, TDCJ #1927774,
Petitioner ,

CIV IL ACTION NO . H-16-3299

LORIE DAVIS , Director ,
Texas Department of Criminal
Justice - Correctional
Institutions Division ,
Respondent .

ORDER TO TRAN SFER

Petitioner
incarcerated

in

Gerald
the

Griffin

Texas

(
TDCJ

Department

#1927774) is
of

Criminal

currently
Justice

Correctional Institutions Division (UTDCJ'
'). Griffin has filed a
Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus By a Person in State Custody

(
upetition' (
') Docket Entry No.

seeking relief under 28 U . .
S C.

5 2254 , and he has paid the filing fee . Preliminary review of the
pleadings reflects that the Petition was improperly filed here and
that this case must be transferred for the reasons explained below .
Because the petitioner is confined pursuant to a judgment and
sentence by a state court in Texas, which has more than one federal

district, jurisdiction over the Petition is determined by the place
of conviction or the place of confinement , as follows :

Where an application for a writ of habeas corpus is made

by a person in custody under the judgment and sentence of
a State court of a State which contains two or more

Federal judicial districts, the application may be filed
in the district court for the district wherein such
person is in custody or in the district court for the
district with in which the State court was held which
convicted and sentenced him and each of such district

courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain
the application .

28 U . C. 5 2241 (
S.
d). Thus, a petitioner may seek a federal writ of
habeas corpus in one of only two places: ( the district in which
1)
the state court conviction was entered or (
2) the district where
the petitioner is incarcerated . See Wadsworth v . Johnson , 235 F .3d

959, 962 (
5th Cir. 2000).
Griffin reports that he is currently incarcerated at the
Eastham Unit as the result of a conviction for organized crime and

aggravated

robbery

Tarrant County x

with

a

deadly

weapon

in

a

case

from

Griffin does not challenge that conv iction here .

Instead , Griffin seeks relief from a prison disciplinary conv iction

that was entered against

at the Eastham Unitz which is

Houston County .
Tarrant County , where Griffin was conv icted , is located in the
United States D istrict Court for the Northern District of Texas ,
Fort Worth Division . 28 U .S .C .

l24 ( 2). Houston County , where
a)(

Griffin is incarcerated , is located in the Eastern District of

l
petition , Docket Entry No .

pp .

2Id . at
-

2-

Texas, Lufkin Division . 28 U .
S.C.

124 ( 1)
c)(

Because neither

Griffin 's state court conv iction nor present place of incarceration
is located within the Southern D istrict of Texas, Houston Division ,

this court has no jurisdiction over the pending habeas corpus
Petition .

See Wadsworth, 235 F .3d at 961-62 .

The district court for the district wherein an application for
habeas corpus relief has been filed may , in the exercise of its

discretion and in furtherance of justice, transfer the petition to
another appropriate district court for hearing and determination .

See 28 U. C.
S.

224l(
d). The interests of justice would appear to

be best served in this case if the Petition were transferred to the

Eastern D istrict of Texas , Lufkin Div ision , where the petitioner is
presently incarcerated and the challenged disciplinary proceeding
occurred .

Accordingly , the Clerk is ORDERED to TRAN SFER this case to the
Un ited States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ,
Lufkin Division .
The Clerk

provide a copy of this Order to Transfer to the

parties .
SIGNED at Houston , Texas, on this 9th day of November, 2016 .

<

M
sIM LAKE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE