Vanes v. Marques
- Joan Ericksen
- 0:18-cv-02376
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Vanes v. Marques, Judge Ericksen dismissed the medical-hold challenge as moot and allowed amendment of the medical-care claim as a Bivens civil-rights case.
Gregory Vanes, whose medical-hold challenge was dismissed without prejudice and who was given 30 days to amend his Eighth Amendment medical-care claim as a Bivens civil-rights claim.
What happened
Vanes v. Marques involved Gregory Vanes’s challenge to a Bureau of Prisons medical hold that prevented his release to a Residential Reentry Center. The Bureau later removed the hold.
Vanes also alleged that prison officials provided inadequate medical care and ignored serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court concluded that this claim concerned prison conditions, not the validity or length of his detention, so it could not be brought in his habeas petition.
Judge Joan N. Ericksen dismissed the medical-hold challenge without prejudice because it was moot and gave Vanes 30 days to file an amended civil-rights claim under Bivens. The order stated that the action would be dismissed without prejudice if he did not amend it within that period.
The detailed version
- Vanes v. Marques · No. 0:18-cv-02376
- Joan Ericksen
- Jan. 7, 2019
Background
Pro se petitioner Gregory Vanes filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. He argued that the Bureau of Prisons improperly placed him on a medical hold that prevented his release to a Residential Reentry Center. The Bureau of Prisons later removed the hold. Vanes also alleged that Bureau of Prisons officials were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs and provided inadequate medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
A magistrate judge’s October 17, 2018 Report and Recommendation concluded that the medical-hold claims were moot because the hold had been removed and recommended dismissing those claims. It also concluded that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the Eighth Amendment claim and recommended dismissing it. Vanes filed no objections.
Court’s reasoning
The court dismissed the medical-hold challenge as moot. It explained that a habeas petition is not the proper remedy when a prisoner is not challenging the validity of the conviction or the length of detention. Vanes’s Eighth Amendment claim challenged the conditions of his confinement—his medical care—not the validity or length of his detention. The court therefore could not consider that claim in the § 2241 habeas petition.
The court also followed the Eighth Circuit’s instruction that, before dismissing a pro se conditions-of-confinement claim improperly brought in a habeas petition, the court should give the petitioner the option to pursue it under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. A Bivens claim is a civil-rights claim seeking relief against federal officials for alleged constitutional violations.
Order and effect
The court ordered that Vanes’s § 2241 petition was DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as to his challenge to the medical hold. The court granted Vanes 30 days to file an amended pleading asserting a civil-rights claim under Bivens. The order stated that, if he did not file an amended pleading within 30 days, the court would dismiss the action without prejudice. The numbered order did not itself state that the Eighth Amendment claim was dismissed at that point; instead, it provided an opportunity to amend that claim.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.