Adorno v. Nessigner

Background

Hector Adorno, an incarcerated federal defendant, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a procedure used to challenge certain forms of federal custody. He placed the petition in the prison mail system on November 21, 2024, while confined at Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The petition challenged a disciplinary proceeding at Wyatt, sought to vacate the discipline imposed, and sought immediate release from custody.

Adorno also asked to remain at Wyatt while the petition was pending. The petition was processed and filed in the District of Rhode Island on November 27, 2024. That court transferred the case to the Southern District of New York because Adorno’s legal custodian was identified as Patrick McFarland, a Bureau of Prisons residential reentry manager in New York. Adorno’s actual custodian while at Wyatt was the facility’s warden, Michael Nessinger.

After the transfer, Adorno was moved from Wyatt to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma and then to USP Florence—High in Colorado. The opinion states that he remained in custody in Colorado and had a projected release date of April 10, 2025.

Jurisdiction

The court explained that a § 2241 petition generally must be filed where the petitioner is physically confined and where the person with custody of the petitioner is subject to the court’s authority. The court also explained that a petitioner’s later involuntary transfer generally does not eliminate jurisdiction if the petition was properly filed while the petitioner was in the district and named the proper custodian.

The court determined that Adorno’s petition was considered filed on November 21, 2024, when he placed it in the prison mail system. He was confined in Rhode Island at that time, and the petition was properly directed against the warden who had physical custody of him there. But Adorno had never been physically located or confined in the Southern District of New York. The court therefore concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the action.

The court noted that there was a reasonable argument for sending the case back to the District of Rhode Island because Adorno’s later transfer did not necessarily defeat that court’s jurisdiction. Instead, because the government consented to transferring the case to Colorado and to substituting the warden of Adorno’s current facility, and because Adorno’s projected release date was approaching, the court found transfer to Colorado more efficient.

Disposition

The court ordered the clerk to transfer the case to the District of Colorado and close the New York case. The order did not resolve the merits of Adorno’s challenge to the disciplinary proceeding, his request to vacate the discipline, or his request for release.