Fiorito v. Fikes
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:22-cv-00512
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Fiorito v. Fikes, Judge Wright dismissed Fiorito’s habeas petition without prejudice and denied his remaining motions as moot.
Michael Fiorito’s § 2241 petition was dismissed without prejudice, and his remaining motions were denied as moot. Warden Fikes was the named defendant.
What happened
Michael Fiorito asked the court to remove two prison disciplinary reports from his record and lower his prison risk assessment. He argued that the reports were retaliatory, violated his right to fair procedures, and were based on conduct he did not commit.
The court concluded that Fiorito’s challenges to the reports could not be brought through his type of prison-release petition. It adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation after finding no clear error in that recommendation.
Judge Wright dismissed the petition without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, meaning the dismissal did not resolve whether Fiorito’s underlying allegations were correct. The court denied Fiorito’s remaining motions as moot.
The detailed version
- Fiorito v. Fikes · No. 0:22-cv-00512
- Wilhelmina Wright
- Oct. 11, 2023
Background
Michael Fiorito was serving sentences for mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. His projected release date was August 22, 2026. Prison staff filed and sustained two incident reports against him in 2016 at FCI Ashland. After a further incident report was filed and sustained at FCI-Sandstone in February 2022, Fiorito was told that his PATTERN risk assessment would increase from low to medium.
PATTERN is the Bureau of Prisons’ assessment of a prisoner’s risk of reoffending. Under the First Step Act, eligible prisoners may earn benefits, including time credits, by participating in qualifying programs and activities. A minimum or low PATTERN assessment allows an eligible prisoner to earn credits at a faster rate.
Claims and procedural history
Fiorito filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a law allowing certain challenges to federal custody or the execution of a sentence. He sought to expunge the two FCI-Ashland incident reports, arguing that prison staff filed them in retaliation for his exercise of First Amendment rights, violated due process when issuing and reviewing them, and accused him of conduct he did not commit. He also sought a reduction of his PATTERN risk assessment to low.
A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the petition without prejudice because Fiorito’s due-process challenges to the FCI-Ashland incident report were not claims that could be addressed through a § 2241 habeas petition. Fiorito objected. Because he was representing himself, the court interpreted his objection liberally, but found that it repeated an argument previously considered by the magistrate judge. The court therefore reviewed the recommendation for clear error.
Ruling
The court found no clear error and adopted the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation. Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright ordered that Fiorito’s § 2241 petition be dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court also denied Fiorito’s remaining motions as moot. The ruling did not decide whether Fiorito’s allegations about retaliation, due process, innocence of the alleged violations, or his PATTERN assessment were correct; it determined that this habeas petition was not the proper vehicle for the challenges presented.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.