JEREMY VAUGHN PINSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. MICHAEL CARVAJAL, BOP Director, Respondent-Appellee. BRUCE R. SANDS, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 21-55175, No. 21-55759
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Filed June 8, 2023
Argued and Submitted January 19, 2023 Pasadena, California
FOR PUBLICATION
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Philip S. Gutierrez, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted January 19, 2023 Pasadena, California
Filed June 8, 2023
Before: Ryan D. Nelson, Bridget S. Bade, and Danielle J. Forrest, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge Bade
SUMMARY*
Habeas Corpus
The panel affirmed the district court‘s judgments dismissing for lack of jurisdiction Jeremy Vaughn Pinson‘s and Bruce R. Sands, Jr.‘s habeas corpus petitions in which they asserted that their incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the Eighth Amendment and sought release from custody.
The district court dismissed the petitions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that Petitioners were challenging conditions of confinement, not the fact or duration of confinement, and thus their claims did not properly sound in habeas.
The panel was asked to decide whether these sorts of claims—that prison officials violated prisoners’ constitutional rights by failing to provide adequate conditions of confinement to protect against the sprеad of COVID-19—may be brought by federal prisoners under the federal habeas corpus statute,
Given Pinson‘s transfer from USP Victorville prior to the court‘s review of her habeas petition, the panel addressed its jurisdiction. The petition sought relief in the form of release from USP Victorville and an injunction requiring that facility to protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19. Because the panel could no longer provide Pinson‘s requested relief, the panel held that she fails to present a live case or controversy, and Article III therefore prohibits jurisdiction over her petition. Because Pinson was transferred before the district court ruled on her habeas petition, and thus her petition was not “[p]ending review” before the court of appeals, the panel explained that
The panel then turned to the main issue on appeal. Sands‘s habeas petition also challenges his conditions of confinement. Notwithstanding this court‘s holding in Crawford v. Bell, 599 F.2d 890 (9th Cir. 1979) (the “the writ of habeas corpus is limited to attacks upon the legality or duration of confinement” and does not cover claims based on allegations “that the terms and conditions of . . . incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment“), Sands argued that his claims that the terms and conditions of his incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment sound in habeas for two reasons.
First, relying on Hernandez v. Campbell, 204 F.3d 861 (9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam), Sands asserted that the requested relief is available under
Second, Sands argued that his conditions-of-confinement claims lie at the “core of habeas corpus” because no set of conditions could render his continued confinement constitutional and, thus, release is the only effective remedy. The panel‘s review of the history and purpose of habeas led it to conclude the relevant question is whether, based on allegations in the petition, release is legally required irrespective of the relief requested. The panel wrote that by collapsing the habeas analysis into a simple inquiry of the requested relief, Petitioners, and the authority they cite, fail to account for the historic purpose of the writ and misapprehend the relationship between the nature of a claim and its requested relief. Stated differently, a successful claim sounding in habeas necessarily results in release, but a claim seeking release does not necessarily sound in habeas. Applying these principles to Sands‘s petition, the panel concluded that Sands failed to allege facts to support his legal contention that his detention was unlawful because no set of conditions exist that would cure the constitutional violations at FCI Lompoc. Because Sands‘s claims lie outside the historic core of habeas corpus, the panel concluded the district court properly found it lacked jurisdiction to hear Sands‘s petition.
The panel concluded the district court was not required to convert Pinson‘s and Sands‘s habeas petitions into civil rights actions, and declined the invitation to remand to the district court to perform this conversion in the first instance.
COUNSEL
Gary D. Rowe (argued), Brianna Mircheff, and Andrew B. Talai, Deputy Federal Public Defenders; Cuauhtemoc Ortega, Federal Public Defender of the Central District of California; Public Defender‘s Office; Los Angeles, California; for Petitioner-Appellant.
Suria M. Bahadue (argued), Assistant United States Attorney; Bram M. Alden, Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Appeals Section Chief; Tracy L. Wilkison, United States Attorney of the Central District of California; Office of the United States Attorney; Los Angeles, California; for Respondent-Appellee.
OPINION
BADE,
In these consolidated appeals, federal prisoners Jeremy Pinson and Bruce Sands (collectively “Petitioners“) challenge the dismissals of their habeas corpus petitions in which they asserted that their incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the Eighth Amendment and sought release from custody. The district court dismissed the petitions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that Petitioners were challenging conditions of confinement, not the fact or duration of confinement, and thus their claims did not properly sound in habeas.
We are asked to decide whether these sorts of claims—that prison officials violated prisoners’ constitutional rights by failing to provide adequate conditions of confinement to protect against the spread of COVID-19—may be brought by federal prisoners under the federal habeas corpus statute,
I.
A.
Jeremy Pinson1 and Bruce Sands are federal prisoners who were serving sentences in, respectively, the United States Penitentiary in Viсtorville, California (“USP Victorville“), and the Federal Correctional Institute in Lompoc, California (“FCI Lompoc“), after each pleaded guilty to multiple violations of federal law. In early 2021, these facilities experienced COVID-19 outbreaks. While the outbreaks were ongoing, Pinson and Sands filed habeas petitions under
In her habeas petition filed on December 14, 2020, Pinson alleged that she was transferred from the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona (“USP Tucson“), to USP Victorville, where she had been “brutally attacked” in 2008. Pinson alleges that she was transferred in an effort “to bypass a potential favorable ruling in a federal case challenging . . . COVID-19 protective measures.” There was a COVID-19 outbreak at USP Victorville “[s]hortly after” Pinson‘s arrival, and Pinson complained that she lacked personal protective equipment and was unable to socially distance. Because of her “multiple comorbidities,” Pinson alleged that her “life [was] in grave danger.” Accordingly, she sought her release or home confinement “as her continued incarceration violate[d] the [Eighth] Amendment.” Pinson also requested injunctive relief ordering the director of the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP“) to protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19 and an emergency adjudication of her petition.2 The same day that Pinson filed her habeas petition, she was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, and then to Coleman, Florida, a few weeks later.3
B.
The district court screened and summarily dismissed Pinson‘s pеtition, concluding that Pinson‘s claim did “not contest the legality of her conviction or sentence.” Instead, the court concluded that Pinson challenged “what she believes are unconstitutional conditions of confinement, which neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit have recognized as proper bases for federal habeas relief.”
The government moved to dismiss Sands‘s petition. The magistrate judge recommended granting dismissal because, although “a Section 2241 petition may be utilized by a federal inmate to challenge the manner, location, or conditions of a sentence‘s execution, it is not the proper vehicle to challenge the conditions of confinement.” The magistrate judge concluded that, because Sands sought “release based on the BOP‘s alleged inability to take certain precautions at FCI Lompoc” against the spread of COVID-19, his “allegations sound[ed] in civil rights, not in habeas.”4 The district court adopted the magistrate‘s report and recommendation and dismissed Sands‘s petition with prejudice.
II.
We review a district court‘s decision to deny a habeas рetition and its determination that it lacks jurisdiction over the petition de novo. Nettles v. Grounds, 830 F.3d 922, 927 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc).
III.
Before turning to the primary jurisdictional question in this case, we must ascertain our jurisdiction over Pinson given her transfer from USP Victorville prior to this court‘s review of her habeas petition.
A.
The United States Constitution limits the “judicial Power” of the federal courts to cases and controversies.
Pinson‘s petition sought relief in the form of release from USP Victorville and an injunction requiring that facility “to protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19.” Pinson is no longer detained at USP Victorville. And Pinson has already had petitions dismissed on these same grounds. In Pinson v. Othon, she brought an Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim while she was detained at USP Tucson. No. CV-20-00169-TUC-RM, 2020 WL 7404587, at *1 (D. Ariz. Dec. 17, 2020). While her motion for a preliminary injunction to remedy the alleged violations was pending, she was transferred to USP Victorville, which led the distriсt court to dismiss the action after concluding Pinson‘s claims had become moot upon her transfer. Id. at *2–3 (citing Munoz, 104 F.3d at 1097–98). Pinson‘s claims here are also moot. Because we “can no longer provide” Pinson‘s requested relief, she fails to present a live case or controversy for our review, and Article III therefore prohibits exercising jurisdiction over her petition. Munoz, 104 F.3d at 1097–98.
Pinson argues that we have jurisdiction based on
Darring, 783 F.2d at 876 (concluding that
Pinson also objects that the district court summarily dismissed her habeas petition, without providing notice of its jurisdictional defects or an opportunity to respond. As Pinson acknowledges, district courts are expected to take “an active role in summarily disposing of facially defective habeas petitions,” Boyd v. Thompson, 147 F.3d 1124, 1127 (9th Cir. 1998), and if it “plainly appears from the petition and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to relief in the district court, the judge must dismiss the petition and direct the clerk to notify the petitioner,” R. Governing Section 2254 Cases in the U.S. Dist. Cts., R. 4; see also id., R. 1(b) (permitting district courts to apply the Habeas Rules to
Pinson‘s petition cannot be fairly read as attacking “the legality or duration of confinement,” and while she sought release from USP Victorville, she also sought an injunction to require USP Victorville to remedy the unconstitutional conditions of confinement. It is also unclear what facts Pinson could allege in an amended petition to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the district court under
For these reasons, we conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction over Pinson‘s habeas petition because it was unable to fashion the requested relief after her transfer from USP Victorville, and we accordingly affirm the judgment dismissing Pinson‘s petition. Atel Fin. Corp. v. Quaker Coal Co., 321 F.3d 924, 926 (9th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (“We may affirm a district cоurt‘s judgment on any ground supported by the record, whether or not the decision of the district court relied on the same grounds or reasoning we adopt.“). We further conclude that the district court‘s summary dismissal of Pinson‘s petition was not improper and deny Pinson any requested relief on that ground.7
With these threshold matters resolved, we turn to the main issue on appeal.
B.
Sands‘s habeas petition also challenges his conditions of confinement. This court‘s holding in Crawford notwithstanding, Sands argues that his claims that the terms and conditions of his incarceration constitute cruel and unusual punishment sound in habeas for two reasons. First, relying on Hernandez v. Campbell, 204 F.3d 861, 864 (9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam), he asserts that the requested relief is available under
1.
As an initial matter, we note some tension in our case law regarding the intersection between
This view is supported by
On the other hand, we have consistently held that “motions to contest the legality of a sentence must be filed under
Four years later, we applied both Ridenour and Brown to conclude that claims challenging good-time credits were not properly brought under
Finally, in Hernandez, we considered a habeas challenge to a sentencing determination based on an intervening change in law after the prisoner‘s initial
We further explained, however, that
Sands does not argue that relief under
First, Sands‘s argument relies on a misreading of Hernandez. Sands reads Hernandez as instructing federal prisoners to bring claims related to the conditions of their confinement under
In addition to Hernandez, Sands relies on our unpublished, non-precedential memorandum disposition in Moore v. Winn, 698 F. App‘x 485 (9th Cir. 2017), and the “ordinary understanding of the term ‘execution.‘”8 Of
course, Moore is not
Sands‘s reliance on the “ordinary understanding” of the execution of a sentence is also unavailing for two reasons. First, applying the ordinary understanding of the term “execution” merely means
Second, Sands does not identify any published opinion in which we have authorized a conditions-of-confinement claim under
We are thus ultimately unpersuaded that the federal habeas statutes or Hernandez create an exception to the rule announced in Crawford that “the writ of habeas corpus is limited to attacks upon the legality or duration of confinement.” Crawford, 599 F.2d at 891. We now consider Sands‘s argument that his claims sound in habeas because, by alleging that there are no constitutionally permissible conditions of confinement and that release is the only adequate remedy, his claims go to the historic core of habeas corpus.
2.
Under Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973), a prisoner‘s claim is at “the core of habeas corpus” if it (1) “goes directly to the constitutionаlity of [the] physical confinement itself” and (2) “seeks either immediate release from that confinement or the shortening of its duration.” Id. at 489. Because Sands contends habeas is the proper vehicle for his claims in which he seeks release from FCI Lompoc, we address the relationship between these two features of the core of habeas corpus.
The history of the writ of habeas corpus demonstrates that it has always been used to challenge the authority of the sovereign to detain the prisoner.9 It “was a mechanism for asking why the liberty of a subject is restrained.” Edwards, 141 S. Ct. at 1567 (alterations, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted). In seventeenth-century England, “monarchs sometimes jailed their subjects summarily and indefinitely, with little explanation and even less process. In response, common law courts developed the ... writ to force the Crown to provide reasons for its actions and, if necessary, to ensure adequate process ... to justify any further detention.” Id. (citation omitted); see also Richard H. Fallon, Jr., et al., HART & WECHSLER‘S THE FEDERAL COURTS AND THE FEDERAL SYSTEM 1194 (7th ed. 2015) (“[T]he original office of habeas corpus ... focused instead on whether extra-judicial detention—most often by the executive—was authorized by law.“).
But because this requirement of “process” was often met if the detention resulted from a criminal conviction issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, use of the writ was frequently limited to challenging the jurisdiction of the sentencing court. See Edwards, 141 S. Ct. at 1567 (explaining the “exception” to the rule that a final judgment of conviction justified detention was when “the court of conviction lacked jurisdiction over the defendant or his offense” but that “the exception was confined to that limited class of cases” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). And it was this limited scope of the writ that was adopted by the first Congress in 1789. See id. (explaining that the scope of the statute authorizing issuance of writs of habeas corpus by federal courts was “defined” by the common law); see also Preiser, 411 U.S. at 485.
After the Civil War, use of the writ expanded significantly “as a remedy available to effect discharge from any confinement contrary to the Constitution or fundamental law, even though imposed pursuant to conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Preiser, 411 U.S. at 485 (emphasis added). Thus, habeas
By the time the Supreme Court decided Preiser, “habeas corpus relief [was] not limited to immediate release from illegal custody, but [was] available as well to attack future confinement and obtain future releases.” Id. at 487. And, of course, the scope and application of habeas corpus relief was fundamentally altered in the 1940s by the passage of
Thus, the history of habeas corpus demonstrates why release from confinement is the only available remedy for claims at the writ‘s core and, consequently, informs our analysis about how to classify petitions that allege release is the only available remedy. Release is the only available remedy—and thus a claim is at the core of habeas—if a successful petition demonstrates that the detention itself is without legal authorization. Authorization may be lacking because—as in seventeenth-century England—the conviction was rendered by a court without the jurisdiction to do so. Or it might be lacking because the prisoner is detained pursuant to a guilty plea that was coerced or offered without the benefit of counsel, potentially “invalidat[ing] the plea and [attendant] sentence.” See Von Moltke v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708, 710 (1948). Or it might be lacking because at trial prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory or impeachment evidence that was material to the petitioner‘s guilt. See Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 536 (2011) (explaining that “Brady claims have ranked within the traditional core of habeas corpus“).
In all these circumstances, however, the petitioner has demonstrated that custody was not authorized to begin with, which is a legal defect that cannot be solved by ordering damages or declaratory relief or an injunction.10 Indeed, the Supreme Court has explicitly held that even when a plaintiff seeks money damages—a remedy unavailable to a habeas claimant—the cause of action nonetheless sounds in habeas if “establishing the basis for the damages claim necessarily demonstrates
By contrast, claims that if successful would not necessarily lead to the invalidity of the custody are not at the core of habeas corpus. Thus, in Skinner, the Supreme Court held that a judgment ordering DNA testing did not sound in habeas because nothing about DNA testing itself implicated “the unlawfulness of the State‘s custody.” Id. at 525 (citation omitted). Indeed, depending on the results of the DNA testing, the judgment ordering testing could have proven the lawfulness of the state‘s custody. See id. (“Success in the suit gains for the prisoner only access to the DNA evidence, which may prove exculpatory, inculpatory, or inconclusive.“). Similarly, the Supreme Court has determined that challenges to state procedures regarding parole eligibility and suitability do not sound in habeas because success would mean only a subsequent review of custody, which could still result in continued confinement. Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 82 (2005).
In short, an action sounds in habeas “no matter the relief sought (damages or equitable relief), no matter the target of the prisoner‘s suit ... if success in that action would necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of confinement or its duration.”11 Id.
Of course, the Supreme Court has also emphasized the importance of release from custody when considering whether a claim sounds in habeas. See, e.g., Preiser, 411 U.S. at 498; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 554-55 (1974) (noting that claims that “sought restoration of good-time credits” properly sounded in habeas and that claims that sought damages could be brought in a civil rights action); Wilkinson, 544 U.S. at 81-82 (concluding prisoner claims properly sounded in civil rights and not habeas where success on the merits did “not mean immediate release from confinement or a shorter stay in prison“); id. at 86 (Scalia, J., concurring) (contending that characterizing a claim contemplating “relief that
We do not mean to suggest that the relief requested is immaterial to a claim‘s characterization: we continue to adhere to the principle that the core of habeas is reserved for claims that seek release from confinement. See Preiser, 411 U.S. at 489. The critical analytical consideration is why such claims are actually at the core of habeas. Thus, the proper analytical tack when determining whether actions like the one brought by Sands are at the core of habeas is to consider why release from confinement is necessary to remedy the underlying alleged violation.
It is at this critical step in the analysis that Petitioners and our sister circuits go astray. The question of whether a claim goes to the core of habeas does not turn, as they seem to suggest, solely on whether the prisoner requested release as opposed to some other form of relief. See Wilson v. Williams, 961 F.3d 829, 838 (6th Cir. 2020) (noting the “Supreme Court has held that release from confinement—the remedy petitioners seek here—is ‘the heart of habeas corpus‘” and concluding claims that “sought improvement in the conditions at” a prison “were conditions of confinement claims not appropriately considered under
Instead, as previously discussed, our review of the history and purpose of habeas leads us to conclude the relevant question is whether, based on the allegations in the petition, release is legally required irrespective of the relief requested. By collapsing the habeas analysis into a simple inquiry of the requested relief, Petitioners, and the authority they cite, fail to account for the historic purpose of the writ and misapprehend the relationship between the nature of a claim and its requested relief.13 Or, stated differently, a
3.
We now apply these principles to Sands‘s petition. Because the government contends jurisdiction is absent over Sands‘s habeas petition as a matter of law, we are required to take Sands‘s factual allegations as true, but not his legal conclusions. See, e.g., Leite v. Crane Co., 749 F.3d 1117, 1121 (9th Cir. 2014); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009) (“While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations.“). In other words, while we must accept as true Sands‘s allegations regarding the conditions at FCI Lompoc, we must determine whether those facts demonstrate, as Sands contends, that “no set of conditions under the present circumstances” could exist that would constitutionally permit Sands‘s detention such that the very fact of those conditions violates the Constitution or fundamental law. They do not.
Sands‘s first basis for habeas relief is that FCI Lompoc‘s staff was deliberately indifferent in their failure to treat him for his underlying conditions of hypertension and obesity. This alleged violation is at best tangentially related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Sands fails to explain how relief short of release is inadequate to cure the alleged constitutional violation. Instead, this is a garden-variety Eighth Amendment claim based on the deliberate failure to deliver adequate medical care, which is a standard civil rights claim. See Malesko, 534 U.S. at 78 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (explaining that Eighth Amendment claims based on inadequate medical care “fall[] in the heartland of substantive Bivens claims“); see also Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 105 (1976) (“Regardless of how evidenced, deliberate indifference to a prisoner‘s serious illness or injury states a cause of action under
Sands‘s second, fourth, and fifth claims allege facts related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but those facts do not demonstrate that his continued detention is unlawful. Sands alleges that staff at FCI Lompoc were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs by failing to implement policies based on guidelines from the CDC, failing to isolate and retest Sands for COVID-19 after he received an indeterminate test result, and failing to remove him from housing that was allegedly “full of COVID-19-positive inmates” after Sands tested negative. Sands‘s allegation that “no set of conditions” could remedy FCI Lompoc‘s failure to administer a second test after his initial inconclusive test result is facially meritless, as he acknowledges he was retested less than ten days after his initial test.
His allegations related to FCI Lompoc‘s failure to implement certain policies fare no better. As an initial matter, Sands does not specify which CDC guidelines were deliberately ignored by FCI Lompoc officials, and those guidelines changed frequently and dramatically in the early days of the pandemic. See, e.g., Deborah Netburn, A timeline of the CDC‘s advice on face masks, L.A. TIMES (July 27, 2021), https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic, [https://perma.cc/DC2N-YMBA]
Finally, Sands alleges that he suffered an Eighth Amendment violation due to FCI Lompoc‘s “deliberately indifferent failure to immediately reduce the inmate population.” As Sands acknowledges, both Congress and the executive branch directed federal prison authorities to transfer prisoners to promote social distancing during COVID-19 outbreaks. Sands further acknowledges that some inmates were released from FCI Lompoc consistent with this directive, but he contends that the prison “maintained its population above its designated capacity” and received new inmates during that period, which did not allow for “meaningful social distancing between inmates.”
A federal prisoner, however, is not without equitable remedies for health issues caused by prison overcrowding. See Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011). In Brown, the plaintiffs alleged that the entire California state prison system had “fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements and . . . failed to meet prisoners’ basic health needs” for more than a decade. Id. at 501. Prisoners with mental health issues were “held for prolonged periods in telephone-booth-sized cages,” or in “administrative segregation . . . where they endure[d] harsh and isolated conditions and receive[d] only limited mental health services.” Id. at 503-04. As a result of this overcrowding, the suicide rate in California prisons was nearly 80% higher than the national average for prisons, and the majority of those suicides were “most probably foreseeable and/or preventable” because they “involved some measure of inadequate assessment, treatment, or intervention.” Id. at 504 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Prisoners suffering from physical illnesses fared no better. Prisoners died during delays to see specialists and to receive evaluations from primary physicians; in one case, a рrisoner died of testicular cancer after medical professionals failed to develop a treatment regimen despite seventeen months of testicular pain. Id. at 504-05. A former medical director for the Illinois state prison system offered evidence that “extreme departures from the standard of care were ‘widespread,’ and that the proportion of ‘possibly preventable or preventable’ deaths was ‘extremely high.‘” Id. at 505. By the time the Supreme Court considered the case, conditions in California‘s prison system had become so dire that prison wardens and health care officials were forced to decide daily which of the medically vulnerable subclasses would be denied care due to staff shortages and patient loads. Id. at 509. If any case raises the possibility that the
And yet, Brown was a civil rights action brought under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA“). See id. at 500. And the Court concluded, based on the allegations, that it was proper for the three-judge district court to determine that the only relief that would remedy the violation of the federal right would be transferring prisoners to “county facilities or facilities in other [s]tates.” Id. at 526-27. Thus, Supreme Court precedent amply demonstrates that Sands has access to a remedy that can cure the alleged constitutional violations short of his release.
Importantly, we recognize the grave risks to public health and the tragic mortality rates that attended the COVID-19 pandemic. By no means do we discount those risks or trivialize the suffering experienced by far too many during the pandemic, especially individuals who, like Sands, were lawfully detained during its height. But if injunctive relief can remedy the constitutional violations alleged in Brown, it is hard to see how the conditions faced by Sands were so beyond redemption as to require his release.
Moreover, we recognize that the Supreme Court has left open the key question of whether there are circumstances when a challenge to the conditions of confinement is properly brought in a petition for writ of habeas corpus. See Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 144-45 (2017) (“[W]e leave to another day the question of the propriety of using a writ of hаbeas corpus to obtain review of the conditions of confinement, as distinct from the fact or length of confinement.“) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 526, n.6 (1979)). We conclude that Sands has failed to allege facts to support his legal contention that his detention was unlawful because no set of conditions exist that would cure the constitutional violations at FCI Lompoc.
Because Sands‘s claims lie outside the historic core of habeas corpus, we conclude the district court properly found it lacked jurisdiction to hear Sands‘s petition.15
C.
Finally, Petitioners contend that even if we lack jurisdiction over their habeas claims, we should still remand to the district court with instructions to consider their habeas petitions as civil rights actions. In Nettles, we stated that a court may recharacterize a habeas petition if it “is amenable to conversion on its face, meaning that it names the correct defendants and seeks the correct relief” and “so long as [the court] warns the pro se litigant of the consequences of the conversion and provides an opportunity for the litigant to withdraw or amend his or her complaint.” Id. at 936 (citation omitted). But this general principle—that habeas
Moreover, Petitioners do not even attempt to explain why the respective habeas petitions are amenable to conversion. Instead, they argue that the district court should have considered “the pros and cons of conversion as required by Nettles.” But Nettles merely states that the district court may conduct this exercise, and only where the petition is amenable to conversion on its face, a showing which neither Pinson nor Sands make here. Id. at 936 (“If the complaint is amenable to conversion on its face . . . the court may recharacterize the petition” after warning and providing for an opportunity to withdraw (emphasis added) (citation omitted)).
And the petitions are facially not amenable to conversion. Sands does not seek money damages as allowed by Bivens or equitable relief under either the PLRA or federal courts’ general authority to issue equitable relief for violation of federal law. Even if Pinson‘s claims were not moot, she similarly does not seek money damages, and while she seeks equitable relief, she seeks it from the director of the BOP, who is not the proper defendant for claims of violations at an individual prison.
Petitioners’ arguments to the contrary are either mistaken or inapposite. They contend, for example, that ”Nettles makes clear that habeas petitions should not be automatically dismissed because a pro se litigant mistakenly asserts her claims through the wrong procedural vehicle.” But that is not the holding in Nettles, and it ignores the critical fact that conversion is only potentially appropriate if facially available. Petitioners then argue that the government “wrongly presumes that conversion would have been impossible or otherwise detrimental” because the PLRA‘s “three-strikes” rule and its exhaustion requirement may not apply. But the mere “possibility” that these limitations might not have impacted Pinson‘s and Sands‘s petitions does not mean the district court was obligated to convert their petitions to civil rights actions. In fact, the possibility that the limitatiоns could have impacted these petitions indicates that conversion was either not facially available or would not benefit Pinson and Sands. And the argument that “[a]ny other potential mistakes or oversights in the pro se pleadings could have been easily cured through amendment” directly contradicts any implication that the petitions were facially eligible for conversion.
We therefore conclude the district court was not required to convert Pinson‘s and Sands‘s habeas petitions into civil rights actions, and we decline the invitation to remand to the district court to perform this conversion in the first instance.
IV.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgments from the district court dismissing Pinson‘s and Sands‘s habeas petitions for lack of jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED.