Lopez v. Robinson
- Jon Tigar
- 4:21-cv-00412
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Lopez v. Robinson, Judge Tigar transferred the prisoner's case to the Northern District of California because the relevant events occurred there.
Andrew R. Lopez's case was transferred from the Eastern District of California to the Northern District of California; the order did not determine the merits of his challenge.
What happened
Andrew R. Lopez, a state prisoner representing himself, challenged a prison disciplinary finding for fighting and a resulting 90-day loss of custody credit. The case was filed in the Northern District of California and then transferred to the Eastern District of California.
The Eastern District court determined that the challenge concerned how Lopez's sentence was being carried out, because it involved prison discipline and lost credits. Lopez was confined at Pelican Bay State Prison, where the relevant events occurred, and that prison is in the Northern District of California.
Judge Tigar ordered the action transferred to the Northern District of California. The court did not decide whether the disciplinary proceeding violated Lopez's rights or whether he was entitled to relief.
The detailed version
- Lopez v. Robinson · No. 4:21-cv-00412
- Jon Tigar
- Jan. 12, 2021
Background
Andrew R. Lopez, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He challenged a prison disciplinary proceeding in which he was found guilty of fighting and lost 90 days of custody credit. The petition also referred to due-process and equal-protection violations involving the loss of time credits and parole.
Lopez filed the action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. That court transferred it to the Eastern District of California because it understood the petition to challenge Lopez's state conviction from the Superior Court of Stanislaus County.
Court's analysis
The court explained that the action might be treated either as a habeas petition or as a civil-rights action. A habeas petition challenges custody or the execution of a sentence; a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeks relief for violations of constitutional or federal rights by state actors.
For habeas purposes, the court concluded that the Northern District was the preferred venue because Lopez challenged the execution of his sentence through a disciplinary conviction and loss of credit, and he was confined at Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County. The court found that the Northern District's earlier characterization of the petition as primarily challenging the underlying conviction was clearly erroneous.
The court also concluded that the Northern District was a proper venue if the action were treated as a civil-rights complaint, because the events described by Lopez occurred at Pelican Bay State Prison, which is in that district.
Disposition
Judge Jon Tigar ordered that the action be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The order addressed venue and did not decide the merits of Lopez's claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.