Burgess v. Warden

Background

Albert C. Burgess, Jr., a federal prisoner, alleged that Federal Bureau of Prisons officials found him in possession of a deadly tool. After a disciplinary hearing, he lost 41 days of good-time credits. Burgess expressly stated that he was not challenging the disciplinary proceedings or the Bureau of Prisons’ authority to punish him for the violation.

Instead, Burgess challenged restrictions on his commissary access. He alleged that the disciplinary hearing officer imposed a commissary restriction and that the warden placed an “Encumbrance” on him. According to Burgess, the restriction limited his ability to buy copy cards and stamps that he intended to use in pursuing lawsuits and a pending habeas petition in another district. He argued that the commissary restriction was a second punishment for the same offense and violated the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause.

Analysis

The court conducted an initial review under Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases, which may also be applied to a petition brought under another habeas provision. The report first observed that Burgess did not appear to have exhausted the Bureau of Prisons’ administrative-review process. The report stated that, although the federal habeas statute does not itself impose an exhaustion requirement, courts have long required federal prisoners to use available Bureau of Prisons administrative remedies before seeking habeas relief.

The report did not reach the merits of Burgess’s double-jeopardy argument. It identified a more fundamental problem: habeas relief is not the proper remedy when a prisoner is not challenging the validity of a conviction or the length of confinement. Because Burgess challenged only the loss of commissary privileges, rather than the loss of good-time credits or another change to the fact or duration of his confinement, the report concluded that his claim was not properly brought through habeas.

The report considered whether to reinterpret the filing as a non-habeas civil-rights action. It concluded that doing so would serve no useful purpose because such an action would almost certainly be dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies before filing. The report also noted that Burgess would owe a $350 filing fee if the habeas petition were reinterpreted as a civil action and then dismissed.

Recommended disposition

The report recommends that Burgess’s habeas petition be denied and that the action be dismissed without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction. Because this is a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation rather than a final district-court order, it is not directly appealable to the Eighth Circuit. The notice states that a party may file specific written objections within 14 days after being served with the report and recommendation.