We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

MANDAMUS FINALLY WORKS FOR SOMEONE

I would retire right now if I had a dime for every time a federal prisoner asks about filing a petition for writ of mandamus. Mandamus is a powerful weapon: the writ (literally, the order) of mandamus is issued by a higher court, directing a lower court it has to do something – that is, something ministerial instead of discretionary.

The best example is also, at least in the federal criminal sphere, the most common. A lower court has discretion as to whether it grants a party relief on, say, a petition for habeas corpus. The judge may grant it; the judge may deny it. But the court cannot sit on its gavel and do nothing. It must do something, although it is permitted a reasonable period of time in which to study, contemplate, and dig its way down its stack of other uncompleted work to get to the petition.

There are other, more creative uses of mandamus, most often practiced in civil litigation. But for now, let’s stick to the straightforward “making a lower court do something that is obviously ministerial.”

Because it’s so powerful, mandamus is a hard writ to obtain. The test for convincing a writ of mandamus includes showing that the movant’s right to the writ is indisputable and that there is simply no other way for the movant to get relief. It’s sort of the 9-1-1 call of extraordinary writs.

Kevin Hall was a federal prisoner pursuing a 28 USC § 2241 petition for habeas corpus. A § 2241 motion – which is the federal version of the classic writ of habeas corpus – must be filed in the district where the prisoner is located, which Kevin did. But then the Bureau of Prisons moved him from Indiana to Florida (something that I, looking out my window at 18″ of snow on the ground, think sounds like a good deal). The Indiana federal district court in which Kev had filed his petition inexplicably concluded that his transfer stripped it of jurisdiction to hear the § 2241 motion. Thus, the court transferred Kev’s case to Florida.

Any aficionado of the federal circuits knows that a defendant would much rather have his or her post-conviction motion heard in the 7th Circuit (of which Indiana is a part) than in the 11th Circuit (down Florida way). This is especially so where the remedy Kevin sought – a holding that the 2015 Supreme Court Johnson decision invalidated his Armed Career Criminal Act conviction – was likely to be shot down by the 11th, which doesn’t like any such § 2241 attacks on convictions or sentences.

So Kevin asked the 7th Circuit for a writ of mandamus bringing the case back to Indiana. He cited prior decisions holding that a prisoner’s transfer from one federal facility to another during a habeas proceeding does not affect the original court’s jurisdiction. Last week, the 7th Circuit agreed with Kevin, and issued the order.

The government argued that Kev should have completely litigated his § 2241 motion in the Florida court, and then bring up the mistaken-transfer issue on appeal. The 7th swept the argument aside, noting that “without the availability of mandamus relief, the question of proper venue escapes meaningful appellate review… Mandamus is the proper vehicle for obtaining review of a transfer decision…”

In re Hall, Case 20-3245, 2021 U.S.App. LEXIS 4086 (7th Cir., February 12, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root