Wolf v. Fikes

Background

Russell Eugene Wolf filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a procedure that allows a prisoner to challenge the legality or duration of custody. He alleged that disciplinary sanctions imposed by the Bureau of Prisons violated due process and equal protection. He asked the court to expunge the incident report, restore some or all of his forfeited good-conduct time, and return a $100 fine.

On December 28, 2019, a prison officer reported seeing another inmate tattooing Wolf, conduct prohibited by Bureau of Prisons Code 228 and classified as a high-severity offense. Wolf acknowledged receiving two tattoos during the preceding week. At a disciplinary hearing, he waived a staff representative, declined witnesses, admitted the charge, and stated that officials had not caught the inmates in the act but had discovered the conduct afterward.

The Disciplinary Hearing Officer relied on Wolf’s statements, the officer’s statement, and photographs of the tattoos and related equipment. The officer found Wolf committed the charged offense and imposed three sanctions: loss of 27 days of good-conduct time, loss of commissary privileges for 60 days, and a $100 fine. Wolf appealed the sanctions twice, and both appeals were denied.

Report and recommendation and objection

Magistrate Judge Hildy Bowbeer recommended denying the petition. The recommendation concluded that habeas relief was not the proper vehicle for Wolf’s requests for monetary relief and expungement because those sanctions did not affect the length of his detention. It also concluded that the disciplinary proceedings were constitutionally adequate, the sanctions were not arbitrary or unreasonable, and Wolf had not stated a viable equal-protection claim.

Wolf objected to the conclusion that he had not supported an equal-protection claim. He identified three inmates who allegedly lived in the same unit, received tattoos during the same period, and received less severe sanctions.

Equal-protection analysis

Because Wolf did not allege that he belonged to a protected class, the court required him to show that the different treatment had no rational relationship to a legitimate prison interest and resulted from intentional discrimination. The court found that Wolf had not provided evidence showing that the other inmates were similarly situated. Even assuming they were similarly situated, however, the court found that the sanctions were within the permissible range for a high-severity offense and therefore were not shown to be unrelated to a legitimate penal interest.

The court also found no evidence that the Disciplinary Hearing Officer or Bureau of Prisons officials imposed a more severe sanction because of discriminatory intent. The court rejected Wolf’s request to obtain the other inmates’ disciplinary records, finding that discovery would be futile because his claims failed on other grounds.

Disposition

Judge John R. Tunheim overruled Wolf’s objections, adopted the report and recommendation in full, and denied Wolf’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The order did not separately grant or deny each requested form of relief; it denied the petition as a whole.