Garcia v. Spaulding
Garcia v. Spaulding
Opinion of the Court
Lorenzo Garcia presents this amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking conditional release from his civil commitment at FMC Devens and placement in a non-penal setting. He completed his federal criminal sentence in 2003, but has remained civilly committed in federal prison medical centers since that time. In 1991, Mr. Garcia's underlying criminal conviction was imposed in the District of Arizona. In 2003, his civil commitment was ordered in the Western District of Missouri. Since 2004 he has been at FMC Devens within the District of Massachusetts. In addition to substantive questions regarding the appropriateness of his confinement, his petition raises complicated issues of jurisdiction generally and the scope of this court's habeas corpus authority under
I. BACKGROUND
A. Procedural History
Mr. Garcia initiated this action by filing a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus on January 28, 2008. The case was originally assigned to Judge Gertner but upon her retirement the case was reassigned to me. After that reassignment, given the complex jurisdictional issues, I relieved previously appointed counsel - who acknowledged less than complete familiarity with the full dimension of the legal questions presented - and appointed Attorney Jeanne Kempthorne pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act habeas corpus rubric.
Through Ms. Kempthorne, Mr. Garcia filed an Amended Petition for writ of habeas corpus. Respondent opposed the petition and moved to dismiss or for a change of venue. Reserving on those motions, I held a bench trial to develop the underlying facts about Mr. Garcia's commitment in order to resolve the jurisdictional issues and advance substantive resolution of the case while the question of jurisdiction remained pending. Meanwhile, Ms. Kempthorne sought to find ways to secure alternative placements for Mr. Garcia but none proved feasible.
As a result of my Findings of Fact in Section I.B. and my Conclusions of Law in Section II, I have determined this case is properly pursued in this court under
*230B. Findings of Fact
In accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 52, I find the underlying facts as follows.
In 1991, a jury in the District of Arizona convicted Mr. Garcia of the aggravated sexual assault of his niece, who was under the age of 13. Judge Rosenblatt imposed a sentence of 96 months for the offense. Mr. Garcia was released in February 1998, but six months later, his supervised release was revoked for sleeping at the home of his victim in violation of a court order to stay away. Judge Rosenblatt imposed a sentence of 60 months in prison for the violation.
Before Mr. Garcia had served the entirety of the revocation sentence, the government petitioned that he be civilly committed. Mr. Garcia has borderline intellectual functioning and began to exhibit persistent psychotic symptoms around 1995 during his first period of incarceration. During his second period of incarceration, he began to express paranoid delusions that a government conspiracy caused his incarceration and that government officials or mafia-like figures had killed his family, although, in fact, his family is still alive and living in Arizona. He also talked about and attempted suicide on several occasions. Eventually, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
While Mr. Garcia was lodged at the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri in 2002, he was ordered civilly committed by Judge Dorr of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri under
FMC Devens is a federal medical facility that primarily houses individuals serving federally-imposed criminal sentences who require substantial medical care. It also houses approximately 60 civilly committed patients, including Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia is housed in the Mental Health Unit known as the N-Building. At its most restrictive, the Mental Health Unit can lock prisoners and patients in individual cells for approximately 23 hours per day. At its least restrictive, the Mental Health Unit allows individuals full daytime access to the prison compound including TV, the library, movies, religious services, and outdoor recreation as well as treatment options including recreation therapy and sex offender treatment. FMC Devens requires patients who are civilly committed to wear prison-issue clothing, subjects them to the prison curfew, and includes them in the same mandatory counts and random cell searches as general population inmates. Devens also employs a full-time staff of mental health professionals including psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers. Mr. Garcia has a treatment team that includes a treating psychiatrist, a treating psychologist, a social worker, a recreational therapist, and representatives from the medical and pharmacy departments.
While serving his civil commitment, Mr. Garcia has generally not been a disciplinary problem, although there have been sporadic incidents of sexual misconduct such as indecent exposure and one incident of assault. He has shown little interest in therapy or mental health treatment, and in fact, has consistently denied both his mental illness and his guilt for his original crime of conviction. He has also gone through significant periods where he has refused to comply with his medication regimen, and the medical staff has consequently *231resorted to administering it by involuntary injection. Despite medication, his delusions persist - including the belief that he is or once was a U.S. Marshal; that he can predict the future; and that government staff killed or somehow stole his family from him. He frequently refuses medication, asserts a belief that he does not require medical treatment, denies misbehavior, and regularly threatens violent behavior, although the record demonstrates that he has rarely, if ever, followed through on his threats of violence while committed. The Risk Assessment Panel has concluded in its evaluation each year that Mr. Garcia should remain civilly committed.
Mr. Garcia contends that his medical condition has deteriorated while serving his civil commitment at FMC Devens. Although he meets the requirements for continued civil commitment, the level of restrictions inherent in the prison setting, he contends, are not optimal for his treatment and this form of civil commitment is not necessary to protect him and others from harm. However, attempts to transfer Mr. Garcia out of FMC Devens and into a state hospital as the locus for his commitment have proven unsuccessful.
The government has made annual requests for the state of Arizona to take custody of Mr. Garcia, and in the last few years has also made the same request of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Both Arizona and Massachusetts have denied the requests. The government's attempts at state placement have been limited to requests under the Interstate Compact on Mental Health. See, e.g. , Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 123 App., § 1-1.
Arizona has offered a variety of reasons for denying his requests including lack of qualifying diagnosis, no suitable placement, and that the state was not accepting any transfers. Massachusetts denied the request on the basis that Mr. Garcia has no ties to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The United States Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") contends that such requests are the only legally viable method to request that a state take custody of Mr. Garcia. Through Ms. Kempthorne, Mr. Garcia contended that the government should be investigating other possibilities for placement as well. In any event, it does not appear the BOP has been particularly energetic or innovative in considering the locus of Mr. Garcia's placement.
II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW: JURISDICTION
The threshold question before me is whether this court has jurisdiction to hear Mr. Garcia's petition at all. He styles this action as one for a writ under
Mr. Garcia's civil commitment clearly qualifies as "custody" under the meaning of § 2241. Cf. Duncan v. Walker ,
However, the government argues alternatively that Mr. Garcia should have brought his claim as almost anything other than a petition under § 2241. The government contends that, given the particular relief that he seeks, Mr. Garcia must bring this action (1) as a Bivens civil rights *232action, (2) as a petition for habeas corpus under § 2255, or (3) as a challenge to his civil commitment under § 4246. The characterization of the action has implications for venue.
The proper venue under § 2241 and a Bivens action
Although this court might be the proper venue for a civil rights action, Mr. Garcia contends that his claim does not sound in civil rights because it does not concern the sufficiency of any particular medical treatment, but rather more fundamentally the appropriateness of his placement at FMC Devens. Mr. Garcia argues that he properly brings this action under § 2241 and that this court may properly assert jurisdiction because he is confined within this District. Rumsfeld v. Padilla ,
Thus, if Mr. Garcia's claim properly sounds in § 2241 or civil rights, venue is proper in this court. If his claim sounds in § 2255 or § 4246, then the Western District of Missouri would be the proper venue.
A. Distinguishing § 2255, § 2241, and Civil Rights Actions
The respective boundaries of § 2255, § 2241, and civil rights actions as bases to challenge various aspects of a person's confinement blur at the edges. As a general matter, § 2255 is the vehicle for collateral attack on the validity of the imposed sentence; § 2241 is the vehicle for challenging the execution of an otherwise valid sentence; and civil rights actions - whether under Bivens for federal inmates or § 1983 for state inmates - are the vehicle for challenges to the particular conditions of confinement. See Matheny v. Morrison ,
*233Crooker v. Grondolsky , No. 12-12106,
This is not a "conditions of confinement" case that might be cognizable as a civil rights action because Mr. Garcia does not seek to improve his treatment in prison. Rather, he seeks to serve his commitment outside the prison setting. The First Circuit has held that a petitioner could proceed by habeas corpus rather than through a "conditions of confinement" case when he sought to reinstate a work release program after his warden revoked it and returned him to standard prison confinement. Brennan v. Cunningham ,
The distinction between challenging the fact or duration of a sentence under *234§ 2255 and challenging the execution of a sentence under § 2241 is a fine one, especially where the remedy the petition seeks is transfer to another location or type of confinement. While some courts have stated that requests to transfer to a new location are appropriate under § 2241, see Jiminian v. Nash ,
Mr. Garcia's petition falls well outside the ambit of Brennan because the transfer he seeks (to civil commitment in a facility other than a federal medical prison center) will have no immediately foreseeable effect on the duration of his confinement. Unlike a work release program which is designed to shorten the term of confinement, transfer to a non-penal setting to serve civil confinement implicates neither the validity of the commitment nor its duration. Transfer simply seeks to place him in a more appropriate facility to serve the full time required by a valid commitment order. Any effect on the duration of the commitment as a result of mental health improvement is incidental.
In an attempt to reconcile existing case law distinguishing habeas petitions seeking a change in location from civil rights claims, the Seventh Circuit has suggested that habeas corpus applies where "the prisoner is seeking what can fairly be described as a quantum change in the level of custody - whether outright freedom ... or the run of the prison in contrast to the approximation to solitary confinement that is disciplinary segregation." Graham ,
The First Circuit applied the Graham framework in Gonzalez-Fuentes v. Molina ,
*235B. Transfer as Challenge to Execution of the Commitment Order
The government contends that because Petitioner seeks transfer to a less-restrictive setting, this action is essentially a collateral attack on his civil commitment. From this overbroad characterization, the government draws two erroneous conclusions: (1) that habeas corpus under § 2241 should not be available because Mr. Garcia has alternative avenues for relief, and (2) that this petition belongs in the Western District of Missouri because it essentially seeks to challenge the validity of the civil commitment as provided by § 4246.
The flaw in Respondent's first conclusion is clear from the face of the civil commitment statute itself. To be sure, "habeas corpus is an extraordinary remedy typically available only when the petitioner has no other remedy," Archuleta ,
When a patient seeks precisely what § 4247(h) provides - discharge from civil commitment - the proper venue would presumptively be the committing court. Archuleta ,
The government's second conclusion is similarly flawed. The government is correct that the proper venue for a challenge to a civil commitment is the committing court, Pledger v. Anderson ,
C. Conclusion
This case falls within the narrow range of civil commitment disputes subject to adjudication under § 2241 by the court in the district of confinement. It does not challenge the validity of the civil commitment, for which the appropriate venue would be the committing court under either § 2255 or § 4247(h). It also does not simply challenge the conditions of confinement, which is the office of a civil rights action under Bivens or § 1983. Rather, Mr. Garcia challenges the particular execution of the commitment that the Western District of Missouri validly imposed and seeks a categorical change in the location of commitment. Such an action belongs in this court as the district of his confinement.
III. DISCUSSION
Absent the assumption of responsibility by either a state in which a patient is domiciled, or in which he was tried, the BOP must itself "hospitalize the person for treatment in a suitable facility."
I continue to find FMC Devens a suitable facility as a general proposition. It is a long-term psychiatric hospital setting, albeit within the context of a prison. It employs a full-time staff of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers specializing in mental health treatment, and Mr. Garcia has a qualified team assigned to attend to his mental health and treatment who meet quarterly to discuss his progress. It is equipped to address Mr. Garcia's mental health medical needs and sex offender treatment related to his offense. His confinement is not categorically restrictive in light of his requirements. The N-building, where Mr. Garcia lives, is a step-down program in which the restrictions range from N-1, which is essentially solitary confinement, to N-4 and N-5, in which Mr. Garcia has full daytime access to FMC Devens facilities. This includes medical and mental health support such as support groups and sex offender treatment as well as recreational activities such as TV, the library, religious services, and the dining hall. On good behavior, Mr. Garcia can step down to the less restrictive stages of confinement. Mr. Garcia argues that FMC Devens is not a step-down facility because there is no option to be released on good behavior, but this proves too much. If Mr. Garcia were transferred to a state hospital to serve his civil commitment, his release would depend on whether he would be a danger to himself or *237others - the same standard governing the potential for his release from Devens.
But the BOP does not fully satisfy its statutory obligations by housing Mr. Garcia in a suitable federal facility. The BOP is also under a statutory obligation to "make all reasonable efforts to cause a state to assume [control over the committed person],"
To be sure, it is questionable whether the BOP, or this court has the power to compel a state to accept responsibility for Mr. Garcia. See
However, I am not persuaded that the BOP has made "all reasonable efforts" to place Mr. Garcia in a state facility. I recognize that the social workers at FMC Devens have made annual requests to obtain state hospital placement for Mr. Garcia in Arizona - Mr. Garcia's original home state and the state in which his criminal trial took place - since 2002, but Arizona has denied each request for various reasons including lack of a qualifying diagnosis. The BOP has not contested further Arizona's position that the state simply would accept no transfers.
Although Mr. Garcia has no relationship with Massachusetts other than his confinement since 2004 at FMC Devens, his social worker has also requested transfer to a Massachusetts hospital, presumably because Massachusetts at this point is effectively Mr. Garcia's domicile. This was also denied and again the BOP has not contested further the position Massachusetts has taken.
I am not persuaded at this point that repetitive and rote requests are all that is reasonable under the circumstances. I will permit further record development to provide a foundation for determining whether they are.
Moreover, the BOP's near-contumacious refusal to provide a meaningful explanation why it has apparently made no effort to pursue two additional alternatives outlined in § 4247(i) : (A) "... contract[ing] with a State, political subdivision, locality or a private agency for the confinement, hospitalization, care or treatment, or in the provision of services to, a person committed ... [or] (B) ... apply[ing] for the civil commitment, pursuant to State law of a person committed to [BOP] custody pursuant to section ... 4246 ..." requires further inquiry. The BOP's twice-repeated answer is that it is not required by statute to do so, but it does not explain, as my inquiry plainly required, its position why it has not chosen to do so.
Under these circumstances, further record development may be necessary to determine whether the BOP's inexplicable refusal even to explore these alternatives is in contravention of its statutory directive to use "all reasonable efforts to cause ... a state to assume control" of Mr. Garcia's commitment.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, I DENY Respondent's motion [Dkt. No. 69] to dismiss or to change venue regarding the First Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus.
It bears noting that the scope of Bivens actions is open to question. A recent opinion by Justice Kennedy for a 4-3 majority, Ziglar v. Abbasi , --- U.S. ----,
I note that the First Circuit since handing down Gonzalez-Fuentes has suggested that something more relaxed than the "quantum-leap" standard is sufficient. See, e.g., Francis v. Maloney ,
Although the civil commitment statute imposes obligations on the Attorney General as the responsible party, the Director of the BOP has by regulation been designated responsible for implementation of
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Lorenzo GARCIA v. S. SPAULDING, Warden, FMC Devens
- Cited By
- 6 cases
- Status
- Published