Trevino v. Cisneros
- Edward Chen
- 3:21-cv-05534
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Trevino v. Cisneros, Judge Chen dismissed the prison-discipline claim and transferred the parole claim to California’s Eastern District.
Robert Trevino’s federal petition was affected: the claim challenging the 2012 disciplinary decision was dismissed, and the remaining parole claim was transferred to the Eastern District of California for further proceedings.
What happened
In Trevino v. Cisneros, Robert Trevino, an incarcerated person representing himself, challenged a 2012 prison disciplinary decision and a 2017 parole denial in a federal petition. He stated that the disciplinary decision did not cost him any good-time credits.
The court dismissed the challenge to the 2012 disciplinary decision because it was not a type of claim that could be brought in a prison-release petition. The court concluded that the parole challenge could proceed in such a petition, but transferred the case to the Eastern District of California because Trevino was confined there and was challenging how his sentence was being carried out.
Judge Edward M. Chen did not decide whether the parole claim was legally permitted or filed on time. The order dismissed the disciplinary claim and transferred the remaining matter.
The detailed version
- Trevino v. Cisneros · No. 3:21-cv-05534
- Edward Chen
- Feb. 1, 2022
Background
Robert Trevino, an incarcerated person housed at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran, California, filed this self-represented action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal statute used to challenge certain state-court custody. His petition challenged a 2012 disciplinary decision imposed at a prison within the Northern District of California. Trevino stated that the decision did not cause him to lose good-time credits.
The opinion noted that the court had previously explained that, because the only punishment from the 2012 disciplinary decision was a term in the prison’s special housing unit, Trevino’s potential federal remedy was a civil-rights complaint rather than a petition challenging custody. Trevino acknowledged that the current petition challenged the same disciplinary decision involved in the earlier round of this case.
Rulings
The court dismissed Trevino’s claim challenging the 2012 disciplinary decision because that challenge was not a cognizable habeas claim—that is, it was not a claim that could be decided through this type of custody petition.
The petition also appeared to challenge a February 24, 2017 decision denying parole. The court determined that a parole-denial challenge concerns the execution, or carrying out, of a sentence and may be brought through a custody petition. Although venue was legally available in more than one federal district, the court found that the Eastern District of California was the preferable forum because Trevino was confined there and was challenging the execution of his sentence. Under the cited transfer provisions, the court transferred the remaining parole claim to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
The court expressly took no position on whether the parole claim was legally permitted or timely. The clerk was ordered to transfer the matter immediately. Judge Edward M. Chen therefore dismissed the disciplinary claim and transferred the remaining parole-related matter without deciding its ultimate merits.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.