Weisner v. Salinas

Background

Frankie J. Weisner, identified as a state prisoner at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, California, filed a complaint without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that prison officials had illegally added a second strike to his term to extend his sentence and keep him imprisoned past his lawful release date. He sought injunctive relief and damages. The defendants were listed as L. Salinas and others.

Screening standard

Because Weisner sought relief from governmental officials while imprisoned, the court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. That statute requires dismissal of a prisoner complaint, or part of one, if it is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim, or seeks money from an immune defendant. The court also noted that pleadings filed without a lawyer must be read liberally.

Claims and analysis

The court distinguished between a civil-rights action under § 1983 and a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which is a petition challenging the lawfulness or duration of imprisonment. It held that Weisner’s request for injunctive relief concerning the calculation or execution of his sentence had to be brought through a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 after exhausting state judicial remedies. The court therefore stated that this claim had to be dismissed without prejudice to filing such a petition.

The court separately analyzed the damages claim under Heck v. Humphrey. It explained that a prisoner cannot recover damages under § 1983 for conduct whose unlawfulness would necessarily invalidate the conviction or sentence unless the conviction or sentence has first been reversed, expunged, declared invalid by an authorized state tribunal, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Because a judgment for Weisner would necessarily imply that the duration of his confinement was invalid, and the opinion stated that the confinement had not already been invalidated, the court concluded that the damages claim was not cognizable under § 1983.

Disposition

The court dismissed the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The dismissal was without prejudice to filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus after exhausting state judicial remedies and/or filing a new § 1983 complaint if a cause of action later accrued. Judge Charles R. Breyer signed the order.