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

WHEN IT COMES TO 2241 PETITIONS, PROCEDURAL DETAILS MATTER

Back in early 2022, William Maxwell filed a petition for habeas corpus under 28 USC § 2241, arguing that the BOP had failed to consider him for priority transfer to home confinement under the CARES Act. He threw in a Festivus of other grievances as well –  the BOP had treated him differently than other people (naming specifically Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort), it had denied him time credits, denied him extra minutes for phone use, refused him expanded commissary spending limits, denied him transfer to a halfway house, refused him preferential housing at privilege, and withheld other privileges he said the First Step Act provided him.

The district court dismissed his petition for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Bill appealed.

Last week, the 5th Circuit denied the appeal for a completely different reason, because a § 2241 petition was the wrong vehicle for what he wanted from the court.

The 5th Circuit said, “A habeas petition is the proper vehicle to seek release from custody, while a civil rights suit under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics is the proper vehicle to attack unconstitutional conditions of confinement and prison procedures. The ‘bright-line rule’ our court has adopted is that if a favorable determination of the prisoner’s claim would not automatically entitle him to accelerated release, then the proper vehicle is a civil rights suit.”

Bill wanted transfer to a halfway house or home confinement. Because neither remedy would entitle him to accelerated release, “the relief he seeks is properly brought in a civil rights suit,” the Circuit said.

The holding underscores the need to pay attention to procedure. Bill had spent over three years to end up right where he started, needing to exhaust remedies for a non-2241 civil action.

At the same time, the 5th’s glib suggestion that Bill needed to bring a Bivens action conveniently ignores the fact that the Supreme Court has so gutted Bivens in a string of decisions ending with the 2022 Egbert v. Boule case that any hope of relief from a Bivens action is illusory.

Maxwell v. Thomas, Case No. 23-40699, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 7899 (5th Cir. April 3, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root