Doty v. Litscher

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Doty v. Litscher, 40 F. App'x 291 (7th Cir. 2002)

Doty v. Litscher

Opinion of the Court

ORDER

Anthony J. Doty was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide by a Wisconsin state court. Several years after he began serving his life sentence, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections signed a contract with Corrections Corporation of America to place some of Wisconsin’s inmates in CCA’s privately run prisons, and transferred Doty to CCA’s facility in Whiteville, Tennessee. Doty then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He claims that he should be immediately freed because the U.S. Constitution prohibits Wisconsin from exercising jurisdiction over him after transferring him to an out-of-state facility. The district court denied his petition, and we affirm.

We have already recognized the propriety of Wisconsin’s transfer of inmates to private, out-of-state prisons, and we have rejected as frivolous arguments that the practice is unconstitutional. Pischke v. Litscher, 178 F.3d 497, 500-01 (7th Cir. 1999).

The district court treated Doty’s petition as arising under § 2254, but objections to transfers to out-of-state prisons are really challenges under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Moran v. Sondalle, 218 F.3d 647, 650 (7th Cir. 2000). Doty had the benefit of the warnings we offered both in Pischke and in Moran against filing challenges to out-of-state transfers as habeas corpus petitions. Pischke, 178 F.3d at 500; Moran, 218 F.3d at 651-52. Therefore under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) he has earned two strikes because both his petition and appeal are “thoroughly frivolous.” Moran, 218 F.3d at 651-52; Stanley v. Litscher, 213 F.3d 340, 343 (7th Cir. 2000); Pischke, 178 F.3d at 500.

AFFIRMED.

Reference

Full Case Name
Anthony J. DOTY v. Jon E. LITSCHER
Status
Published