Moussaoui v. Biden
- John Koeltl
- 1:25-cv-00691
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Moussaoui v. Biden, Judge Koeltl transferred Moussaoui’s challenge to prison restrictions to Colorado without deciding its merits.
Zacarias Moussaoui’s case was moved from the Southern District of New York to the District of Colorado. The Colorado court will determine how the complaint should proceed and whether Moussaoui may proceed without prepaying filing fees.
What happened
In Moussaoui v. Biden, Zacarias Moussaoui, who is incarcerated in Colorado and was proceeding without a lawyer, challenged special prison restrictions. He argued that the restrictions burdened his religious practice and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Judge Koeltl explained that a federal prisoner’s challenge to confinement conditions is generally brought as a federal detention-review petition and that the proper location is usually the district where the prisoner is held. Because Moussaoui is confined in Colorado, and the events occurred there, the court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
Judge Koeltl did not decide the substance of Moussaoui’s claims. He directed the clerk to transfer the action and closed the case in New York; the Colorado court will decide whether to treat the complaint as a detention-review petition and whether Moussaoui may proceed without paying filing fees. The court also said no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Moussaoui v. Biden · No. 1:25-cv-00691
- John Koeltl
- Jan. 28, 2025
Background
Zacarias Moussaoui filed a complaint without a lawyer against Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, and Lloyd Austin. The opinion describes the defendants as former federal officials. Moussaoui is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado.
Moussaoui challenged special administrative measures, or SAMs, imposed on him. He alleged that the restrictions burdened his free exercise of religion and that the conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The complaint was styled as a civil-rights action.
Transfer Analysis
The court explained that SAMs are conditions of confinement. It further explained that a federal prisoner’s challenge to conditions of confinement is properly brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a federal procedure for challenging the execution or conditions of detention. A court hearing such a petition must have authority over the prisoner’s custodian, and venue generally lies in the federal district where the prisoner is confined.
Because Moussaoui is confined in Florence, Colorado, the court determined that the District of Colorado was the proper venue. The court also stated that Colorado was a proper venue even if the complaint were not converted into a § 2241 petition, because the events giving rise to the claims occurred there.
The court noted that it ordinarily must notify a plaintiff before treating a civil complaint as a § 2241 petition and give the plaintiff an opportunity to decline that conversion. The court did not make that conversion decision. Instead, it left to the transferee court—the court receiving the case—whether the complaint should be treated as a § 2241 petition.
Disposition
Judge Koeltl ordered the clerk to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the District of Colorado under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). The order closed the case in the Southern District of New York. It stated that the transferee court would decide whether Moussaoui could proceed without prepaying filing fees, and no summons would issue from the Southern District of New York.
The court also stated that the filing did not make a substantial showing of a constitutional violation, so a certificate of appealability would not issue. It certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal. The court did not decide whether Moussaoui’s religious-freedom or cruel-and-unusual-punishment claims were valid.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.