Mustafaa v. Davis
- Edward Chen
- 3:19-cv-04105
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Mustafaa v. Davis, Judge Chen dismissed the habeas petition because the time-credit dispute belonged in a civil-rights case.
Abdullah W. Mustafaa, also known as Terrance Matthews; the dismissal leaves him able to file a new civil-rights action about the time credits, but the court did not decide whether that claim would succeed.
What happened
In Mustafaa v. Davis, Abdullah W. Mustafaa, also known as Terrance Matthews, challenged the refusal to let him earn good-conduct time credits at a 33.3% rate. He argued that the refusal violated the Constitution.
The court ruled that success on the claim would not necessarily shorten his 35-years-to-life sentence because he would still need to be found suitable for parole. The court therefore concluded that habeas was the wrong type of case, declined to convert the petition into a civil-rights case, and dismissed the petition without prejudice to filing a new civil-rights action.
Judge Edward M. Chen also determined that a certificate of appealability would not issue. The court did not decide whether Mustafaa would succeed in a civil-rights action.
The detailed version
- Mustafaa v. Davis · No. 3:19-cv-04105
- Edward Chen
- Dec. 12, 2019
Background
Abdullah W. Mustafaa, also known as Terrance Matthews, was serving a 35-years-to-life sentence at San Quentin State Prison. He filed the case without a lawyer under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, seeking habeas relief based on prison officials’ refusal to allow him to earn good-conduct time credits at the 33.3% rate provided by California regulation section 3043.2(b)(3).
Mustafaa alleged that the refusal violated the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Ex Post Facto Clauses of the United States Constitution. Prison officials had determined that he was ineligible for the higher credit rate because his lewd-and-lascivious-conduct offense was a violent felony under California law.
Court’s Analysis
The court held that the claim could not be pursued through a habeas petition. Under Ninth Circuit precedent, a prisoner’s claim falls outside the core of habeas if success would not necessarily lead to immediate or faster release from custody and must instead be pursued, if at all, in a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The court reasoned that awarding Mustafaa additional credits might advance the date of his initial parole hearing, if that date had not already passed. But because he was serving an indeterminate life sentence, he would still need to be found suitable for parole before being released. Thus, success on the credit claim would not necessarily shorten his custody.
The court considered whether to treat the habeas petition as a civil-rights complaint but declined to do so. It cited differences in filing fees and other consequences between the two types of cases and determined that the petition did not identify the proper defendant for conversion. The court emphasized that it was not deciding whether Mustafaa could actually succeed on a civil-rights claim.
Disposition
Judge Edward M. Chen dismissed the petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The dismissal was without prejudice to Mustafaa filing a new civil-rights action asserting that he should earn good-conduct credits at the 33.3% rate. The court also determined that a certificate of appealability would not issue and directed the Clerk to close the file.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.