Jeremy Pinson v. Warden Allenwood USP, 4 and I.O.P. 10.6 January 11

Jeremy Pinson, a federal inmate at FMC Rochester, filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition challenging prison disciplinary proceedings that resulted in loss/forfeiture of good conduct time.
Initial disciplinary hearings arose from four October 2015 incidents; Pinson appealed those decisions administratively.
The Regional Director found procedural errors and remanded all four incident reports for rehearing in March 2016.
Rehearings were held in June 2016; Pinson was again found responsible and the sanctions were reinstated.
Pinson did not administratively appeal the June 2016 rehearing decisions; she filed the § 2241 petition seeking expungement and to challenge the sanctions.
The district court dismissed the petition for failure to exhaust administrative remedies; Pinson appealed and sought to expand the record and appointment of counsel.

Issue	Pinson's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Whether Pinson exhausted administrative remedies before filing § 2241	Pinson argued her due process rights were violated at the 2015 hearings and that she could not appeal the reinstated sanctions	Government argued Pinson failed to appeal the 2016 rehearing sanctions and thus did not exhaust administrative remedies	Court held Pinson failed to exhaust; dismissal affirmed
Whether exhaustion should be excused as futile or unnecessary	Pinson claimed the DHO told her she could not appeal reinstated sanctions	Government pointed to rehearing reports stating a 20-day appeal right and that she received the reports	Court held no basis to excuse exhaustion; she received notices and offered no persuasive excuse
Whether merits should be reached despite exhaustion failure	Pinson focused on constitutional defects in 2015 hearings	Government argued sanctions were imposed after 2016 rehearings and she raised no specific constitutional claims about those hearings	Court declined to reach merits; noted her allegations targeted the 2015 hearings but sanctions stemmed from 2016 hearings
Whether expansion of the record was warranted	Pinson sought to add psychological evaluations from other incidents to show non-responsibility	Government opposed expansion as documents concerned separate incidents	Court denied motion to expand as documents were irrelevant to the rehearings at issue

Cradle v. U.S. ex rel. Miner, 290 F.3d 536 (3d Cir. 2002) (standard of review: plenary legal review, clear error for facts)
Moscato v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 98 F.3d 757 (3d Cir. 1996) (federal prisoners ordinarily must exhaust BOP administrative remedies before § 2241)
Woodall v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 432 F.3d 235 (3d Cir. 2005) (circumstances under which exhaustion may be excused, e.g., futility)