Phillips v. Jusino
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:22-cv-05220
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Phillips v. Jusino, Judge Demarchi granted Phillips’s motion to transfer her prisoner petition to Illinois because her current custodian was there.
Lois Latrilla Phillips’s § 2241 petition was transferred from the Northern District of California to the Southern District of Illinois; the order did not decide the earned-time-credit claim.
What happened
In Phillips v. Jusino, Lois Latrilla Phillips, a federal prisoner representing herself, claimed she was entitled to earned-time credits under the First Step Act.
Phillips asked to move the case to the federal district covering her current place of confinement. She had been confined in Dublin when she filed the case, but her current custodian was at a federal prison camp in Illinois.
Judge Demarchi granted Phillips’s motion to transfer the case to the Southern District of Illinois. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions and transfer the entire file there.
The detailed version
- Phillips v. Jusino · No. 5:22-cv-05220
- Virginia Demarchi
- Nov. 29, 2022
Background
Lois Latrilla Phillips, a federal prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 claiming that she was entitled to earned-time credits under the First Step Act. When she filed the case, her custodian was in Dublin, within the Northern District of California.
Phillips later filed a notice of change of address and moved to transfer the case to the federal district covering her current confinement. Her current custodian was at Federal Prison Camp Greenville in Bond County, Illinois, within the Southern District of Illinois.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that a court handling a petition under § 2241 generally must have jurisdiction over the prisoner’s custodian. It also stated that the district where a prisoner is confined is normally the most convenient forum because the prisoner’s records follow her to that location and transfer promotes consistent handling of these petitions.
The court found that transferring the case to the district of confinement was appropriate on convenience grounds and would not create undue delay. It relied on 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which permits transfer to a more convenient federal district.
Disposition
The court GRANTED Phillips’s motion to transfer. The clerk was ordered to terminate all pending motions and transfer the entire file to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The order did not decide whether Phillips was entitled to earned-time credits.
Judge-name note
The opinion is signed by Nia K. Demarchi, although the supplied case metadata lists Virginia Demarchi.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.