A.S.D. v. Decker

Background

The petitioner filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, which permits a person in custody to challenge detention that allegedly violates federal law or the Constitution. He asserted that his confinement at the Orange County Jail during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because Respondents failed to protect him and failed to provide adequate medical care. He requested release, a preliminary injunction, and alternatively a bail hearing. At oral argument, his counsel also asserted a claim based on allegedly prolonged detention.

The petitioner was detained under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 while the government sought a country other than Russia that would accept him for removal. The court determined that the relevant final removal order was issued on April 29, 2020, not February 21, 2020. It therefore found that the petitioner had been detained under § 1231(a)(2) for less than one month when the opinion was issued. The court explained that detention during the statutory 90-day removal period was mandatory and that six months after a final removal order is generally presumed to be a reasonable detention period.

Preliminary injunction

A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary court order issued before final judgment. Because the petitioner sought the ultimate relief—release—the court applied a heightened standard requiring a clear or substantial likelihood of success, a strong showing of irreparable harm, and consideration of the public interest and competing hardships.

The court denied preliminary injunctive relief. It held that the petitioner had not shown that COVID-19 posed an excessive risk to his health. The court relied on the absence of evidence establishing a serious chronic medical condition, the petitioner’s concession that he did not have the type of condition involved in cases ordering release of vulnerable detainees, and the lack of evidence that he was in a high-risk category under immigration-agency guidance.

The court also found no deliberate indifference, meaning no intentional or reckless failure by officials to take reasonable steps against a known excessive health risk. It cited measures at the facility that included screening, isolation, masks, suspended visitation, increased cleaning, medical monitoring, separate housing for exposed or symptomatic people, supplies for sanitation, and health education. The court further found that any future injury was remote and speculative rather than actual and imminent, that the balance of hardships did not favor release, and that an injunction was not in the public interest.

Habeas petition and detention claim

The court treated the petitioner’s two stated COVID-19 claims as a single conditions-of-confinement claim because his failure-to-protect and inadequate-medical-care theories were based on the same alleged risk. It held that the petitioner had not proved by a preponderance of the evidence that his confinement violated due process. The court therefore dismissed the habeas petition.

The court also held that the alleged prolonged-detention claim was not properly raised in the petition. In the alternative, it concluded that the claim would fail because the petitioner was detained under § 1231 after a final removal order, rather than under § 1226(c), the detention provision on which the factors cited by the petitioner applied. The court stated that the earlier detention period became moot for this purpose once the final removal order was entered, and that the petitioner had not yet reached the end of the mandatory 90-day period or the presumptively reasonable six-month period.

Bail request and disposition

The court denied the request for a bail hearing and the request for release under the framework discussed in Mapp v. Reno. That framework permits bail for a habeas petitioner when the petition raises substantial claims and extraordinary circumstances make bail necessary to make the habeas remedy effective. The court found neither requirement satisfied.

Judge Halpern’s final disposition was to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction and dismiss the habeas petition. The court also denied the request for bail and instructed the clerk to terminate the proceeding.