Hicks v. Board of Parole Hearings
- Nathanael Cousins
- 5:22-cv-06060
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Hicks v. Board of Parole Hearings, Judge Cousins transferred the parole challenge to the Eastern District of California because venue belonged there.
Michael J. Hicks’s parole challenge was transferred from the Northern District of California to the Eastern District of California; the Board of Parole Hearings remains the respondent.
What happened
In Hicks v. Board of Parole Hearings, Michael J. Hicks filed a petition challenging a parole decision from his August 2021 hearing. He argued that he should have received consideration under California’s elder-parole rules.
The court explained that a challenge to how a sentence is carried out should generally be heard where the prisoner is confined. Hicks was housed in Sacramento County, and the challenged parole decision was made there. Sacramento County is in the Eastern District of California.
Judge Nathanael M. Cousins transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions and transfer the entire case file.
The detailed version
- Hicks v. Board of Parole Hearings · No. 5:22-cv-06060
- Nathanael Cousins
- Oct. 21, 2022
Background
Michael J. Hicks, a state prisoner at California State Prison, Sacramento, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his parole determination. He argued that he should have received "elder parole consideration" at his August 2021 parole hearing.
Venue analysis
The court stated that a petition challenging state custody may be heard in either the district where the prisoner is confined or the district where the conviction occurred. But when the petition challenges how a sentence is being carried out, the preferred forum is the district of confinement. The court treated Hicks’s challenge to his parole decision as a challenge to the manner in which his sentence was executed.
Hicks was housed in Sacramento County, and the challenged parole decision was made there. Because Sacramento County lies within the Eastern District of California, the court concluded that venue was proper there.
Disposition
The court transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a). The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and transfer the entire file. Judge Nathanael M. Cousins did not decide whether Hicks was entitled to elder-parole consideration.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.