Mood v. Warden Doe
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-00462
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Mood v. Warden Doe, Judge Swain transferred Mood’s federal time-credit petition to Pennsylvania because the district lacked jurisdiction over his custodian.
Tracy Mood’s petition was moved from the Southern District of New York to the Middle District of Pennsylvania; the receiving court will decide whether the petition may proceed without fees.
What happened
Mood v. Warden Doe concerns Tracy Mood’s pro se challenge to the Bureau of Prisons’ calculation of his earned federal time credits. Mood said an unresolved case in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office was preventing him from receiving all of those credits.
The court treated Mood’s letter as a petition challenging how his federal sentence was being carried out. Because Mood was incarcerated at FCI Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, the court determined that the federal district covering that facility was the proper place to consider the petition.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the case transferred to the Middle District of Pennsylvania and closed it in the Southern District of New York. The receiving court will decide whether Mood may proceed without paying fees, and the court denied fee-free status for any appeal from this order.
The detailed version
- Mood v. Warden Doe · No. 1:23-cv-00462
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 26, 2023
Background
Tracy Mood, who was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, filed a pro se letter addressed to another judge of the Southern District of New York. Mood asserted that the Federal Bureau of Prisons was not giving him all of his earned federal time credits because of an “unresolved case” pending in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
The court construed the submission as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the execution of Mood’s federal sentence—that is, how the sentence was being carried out, including the calculation of time credits.
Transfer Analysis
A court considering a § 2241 petition must have jurisdiction over the petitioner’s custodian. For a petition challenging physical confinement, jurisdiction generally lies in the federal district where the petitioner is confined. FCI Schuylkill is in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, which is within the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Ruling
The court transferred the action to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), which permits transfer in the interest of justice. The order closed the action in the Southern District of New York. It left to the transferee court the decision whether Mood may proceed without paying fees. The court also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Mood permission to appeal without paying fees.
Disposition
The action was transferred to the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.