Brister v. Warden NYC Department of Correction
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-06631
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Brister v. Warden NYC Department of Correction, Judge Swain transferred Brister’s detention challenge to the Eastern District of New York.
Maurice Brister, whose detention challenge was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the Eastern District of New York; the receiving court will decide whether he may proceed without paying the filing fee.
What happened
Brister v. Warden NYC Department of Correction concerns Maurice Brister’s petition challenging the lawfulness of his detention while criminal proceedings were pending in Brooklyn. He was detained on Rikers Island and filed the petition without a lawyer.
The court treated the filing as a petition under a federal law allowing people in custody to challenge their detention. It concluded that both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York could hear the case, but that the Eastern District was the better court because Brister’s custodian and criminal proceedings were connected to that district.
The court transferred the case to the Eastern District of New York and closed it in the Southern District. Judge Laura Taylor Swain left any decision about proceeding without paying the filing fee to the receiving court, denied appeal-fee waivers, and declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal.
The detailed version
- Brister v. Warden NYC Department of Correction · No. 1:25-cv-06631
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 20, 2025
Background
Maurice Brister, who was detained in the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island, filed a petition without a lawyer challenging the lawfulness of his detention. The petition was connected to criminal proceedings pending in Kings County, New York, and was captioned for an unspecified state court.
Legal framework
The court construed the filing as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a federal law that allows a person in custody to challenge the legality of that custody. For this type of petition, the court explained that jurisdiction generally exists where the person is confined and where the custodian is located. Rikers Island is generally understood to fall within both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, so both courts had jurisdiction to consider the petition.
Transfer ruling
The court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which permits transfer in the interest of justice. The court relied on the location of Brister’s custodian and the fact that his criminal proceedings were pending in Kings County, which is within the Eastern District.
Disposition
The court transferred the habeas action to the Eastern District of New York and closed the case in the Southern District. It left the decision about whether Brister could proceed without paying the filing fee to the transferee court. The court also stated that no certificate of appealability would issue because Brister had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. It certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.