Xia v. King
- John Tunheim
- 0:24-cv-02000
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 9
In Xia v. King, Judge Tunheim rejected transfer of Xia’s habeas petition, ruling Minnesota—not Nebraska—was the proper jurisdiction because Xia was confined there.
Zhijun Xia and Mark King, identified as the warden of the Sandstone federal prison; the petition remains in the District of Minnesota.
What happened
In Xia v. King, Zhijun Xia challenged the legality of his Nebraska state-court conviction while serving concurrent federal and state sentences at a federal prison in Minnesota. A magistrate judge recommended transferring the petition to Nebraska.
The court ruled that the petition had to remain in Minnesota because habeas petitions generally belong in the district where the prisoner is confined and must name the warden there. The court did not decide whether Xia’s Nebraska conviction was lawful.
Judge John R. Tunheim sustained Xia’s objections, rejected the recommendation to transfer the case, and allowed Xia to continue his petition in Minnesota. The court deferred Xia’s requests to proceed without paying fees and to pause the case.
The detailed version
- Xia v. King · No. 0:24-cv-02000
- John Tunheim
- Jan. 17, 2025
Background
Zhijun Xia, proceeding without a lawyer, is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota. He is serving concurrent federal and Nebraska state sentences. Xia filed a habeas petition challenging only the legality of his Nebraska state-court conviction and sentence. He also applied to proceed without prepaying court fees and asked to pause the petition for at least 180 days.
Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko recommended transferring the petition and the pending motions to the District of Nebraska under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Xia objected and asked to litigate the matter in the District of Minnesota.
Jurisdiction and Habeas Rules
The court reviewed Xia’s specific objections from the beginning, rather than deferring to the magistrate judge’s recommendation. It applied two rules governing habeas petitions. First, the proper respondent generally is the person with immediate physical custody of the prisoner—ordinarily, the warden of the facility where the prisoner is held. Second, a federal court may issue habeas relief only within its geographic jurisdiction, which generally means the district where the prisoner is confined.
The court concluded that Xia was challenging his present physical confinement, not a future period of confinement. It therefore found that the narrow exception recognized in an earlier Supreme Court case for certain situations involving custody by another state did not apply. Because Xia was confined in Minnesota and had named his current warden, the court held that the District of Minnesota was the only district with jurisdiction to hear the petition. The District of Nebraska therefore could not receive the case by transfer.
Ruling
The court sustained Xia’s objections to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and rejected the report and recommendation. It allowed Xia to proceed with his habeas petition in the District of Minnesota rather than transferring it to the District of Nebraska. The court deferred to the magistrate judge on Xia’s pending requests to proceed without prepaying fees and to stay the petition. The order addressed the proper court and did not decide the merits of Xia’s challenge to his Nebraska conviction.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.