Kennedy v. Richland Parish

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

MONROE DIVISION

DAVID M. KENNEDY, JR. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-0769

SECTION P

VS.

JUDGE TERRY A. DOUGHTY

RICHLAND PARISH DISTRICT MAG. JUDGE KAYLA D. MCCLUSKY

ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, ET AL.

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Petitioner David M. Kennedy, Jr., a pre-trial detainee at Richland Parish Detention Center

(“RPDC”), filed the instant Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, on

approximately June 5, 2024. Petitioner seeks release from incarceration and the dismissal of his

pending charges.1 For reasons below, the Court should dismiss Petitioner’s claims.

Background

Petitioner states that Officer McKinney arrested him on November 19, 2021, while

Petitioner was having a mental health crisis. [doc. # 7-1, p. 15]. He was later released on bond.

Id. at 18. On October 15, 2023, he was admitted to Longleaf Hospital/Longleaf Behavioral

Center for mental health treatment. [doc. #s 7, p. 2; 7-1, p. 19; 7-2, p. 32].

Petitioner first claims that he was falsely arrested, under a warrant, at Longleaf Hospital

and charged with “jumping bail.” [doc. # 7, p. 2]. He appears to claim that the arrest interrupted

his mental health treatment. Id. at 2, 6. He was transported to RPDC. Id. at 6. He was

thereafter charged with several other crimes, including aggravated flight from an officer where

1 This matter has been referred to the undersigned for review, report, and recommendation under

28 U.S.C. § 636, and the standing orders of the Court.

human life is endangered, resisting an officer with force or violence, aggravated assault with a

motor vehicle upon a peace officer, battery of a police officer resulting in medical attention, and

aggravated criminal damage to property. [doc. # 7-2, pp. 43-48].

Petitioner claims that he was confined under unconstitutional conditions of confinement

at RPDC. [doc. # 7, p. 6]. He was forced to strip, and he was assigned to solitary confinement

for three days. Id. There, a nurse allegedly asked him if he wanted to “die for real yet.” Id.

Petitioner claims that Attorneys Salomon and Ellis rendered ineffective assistance of

counsel. [doc. # 7, p. 6]. He alleges that Salomon failed to investigate, have him evaluated,

obtain bail, obtain medical records, remain informed about Petitioner’s case, refrain from

taunting him, and remain enrolled as counsel. Id. He alleges that Ellis “hollers or laughs” at him

and once grabbed and pushed him. Id.

Petitioner claims that he is being denied a speedy trial. [doc. # 7, p. 6]. He was

incarcerated for 97 days in 2021-2022, and he has currently been incarcerated for approximately

253 days. Id.

Petitioner claims that District Attorney Wheeler has engaged in, and continues to engage

in, prosecutorial misconduct. [doc. # 7, p. 7].

As above, Petitioner seeks release from incarceration and the dismissal of his pending

charges.

Law and Analysis

1. Speedy Trial

Petitioner’s charges are pending before the Fifth Judicial District Court, Richland Parish.

He was incarcerated for 97 days in 2021-2022, and he has currently been incarcerated for

approximately 253 days. Id.

A petitioner seeking federal habeas corpus relief must first exhaust all available state

remedies.2 See Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509 (1982); Minor v. Lucas, 697 F.2d 697 (5th Cir.

1983). If the record, or the face of the federal habeas corpus petition, reveals that the petitioner

has not complied with the exhaustion requirement, courts are expressly authorized to dismiss the

petition. See Resendez v. McKaskle, 722 F.2d 227, 231 (5th Cir. 1984); Shute v. State of Tex.,

117 F.3d 233, 237 (5th Cir. 1997).

Here, of import, Petitioner does not ask this Court to order the State or the state trial court

to bring him promptly to trial; rather, Petitioner seeks release from incarceration and dismissal of

his charges. In other words, Petitioner does not seek to enforce the State’s obligation to provide

him with a state court forum, he seeks to forestall the state prosecution. See Braden v. 30th

Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484 (1973).

There is “an important distinction between a petitioner who seeks to abort a state

proceeding or to disrupt the orderly functioning of state judicial processes by litigating a speedy

trial defense to a prosecution prior to trial, and one who seeks only to enforce the state’s

obligation to bring him promptly to trial. This distinction apparently turns upon the type of relief

sought: an attempt to dismiss an indictment or otherwise prevent a prosecution is of the first

type, while an attempt to force the state to go to trial is of the second. While the former objective

is normally not attainable through federal habeas corpus, the latter is, although the requirement

of exhaustion of state remedies still must be met.” Brown v. Estelle, 530 F.2d 1280, 1283 (5th

Cir. 1976) (internal quotation marks and quoted sources omitted).

2 “[I]t has long been settled that a Section 2241 petitioner must exhaust available state court

remedies before a federal court will entertain a challenge to state detention.” Montano v. Texas,

867 F.3d 540, 542 (5th Cir. 2017).

“[P]re-trial habeas relief is generally not available to consider a petitioner's claim that a

state is barred from trying him because it has violated his sixth amendment right to a speedy

trial.” Dickerson v. State of La., 816 F.2d 220, 226 (5th Cir. 1987). “[F]ederal habeas corpus

does not lie, absent ‘special circumstances,’ to adjudicate the merits of an affirmative defense to

a state criminal charge prior to a judgment of conviction by a state court.”3 Braden, 410 U.S. at

489; see also Easterly v. Smith, 30 F.3d 1491 (5th Cir. 1994).

Here, Petitioner has yet to have a trial, and he does not identify any “special

circumstances” which would require the Court to except him from this exhaustion requirement.

See Easterly, 30 F.3d at 1491. The constitutional right to a speedy trial does not qualify as “a per

se ‘special circumstance’ which would obviate the exhaustion requirement.” Id.; Dickerson, 816

F.3d at 227 (declining to accept the argument “that the sixth amendment right to a speedy trial is

a per se ‘special circumstance’ because to do so would eliminate the careful distinction . . .

between a defendant disrupting the orderly functioning of a state’s judicial processes as opposed

to enforcing his right to have the state bring him promptly to trial.”).

3 The Fifth Circuit “has not clarified what ‘special circumstances’ might warrant an exception

from this rule.” Hartfield v. Osborne, 808 F.3d 1066, 1070 (5th Cir. 2015). That said, in

Dickerson, the court noted: “In his dissent in Braden, Justice Rehnquist suggests that pre-trial

habeas which interferes with state criminal processes is justified when there is a ‘lack of

jurisdiction, under the Supremacy Clause, for the state to bring any criminal charges against the

petitioner.’ We need not decide in this case whether this might be the only situation in which pre-

trial habeas is available.” Dickerson, 816 F.2d at 226 (internal citation omitted). In another

case, the Fifth Circuit opined: “In the somewhat analogous area of abstention a pending state

criminal prosecution will not be enjoined absent ‘very unusual situations, . . . necessary to

prevent immediate irreparable injury.’ Irreparable injury will not ordinarily be deemed to be

present where the threat to the plaintiff's federally protected rights can be eliminated by the

defense of a single criminal prosecution. Furthermore, special circumstances are not necessarily

established by the alleged infallibility of the federal claim. Indeed, without reaching the merits

of appellant's constitutional argument we take note of the fact that if her position is as clearly

correct as she suggests, the Florida courts are surely capable of recognizing and vindicating her

position.” Tooten v. Shevin, 493 F.2d 173, 177 (5th Cir. 1974) (internal footnotes omitted).

Because Petitioner has yet to have a trial, his claim is unexhausted.4 Accordingly, the

Court should abstain from interfering in Petitioner’s state-court proceeding and should,

consequently, dismiss this claim.5

2. Conditions of Confinement

Petitioner claims that he was incarcerated under unconstitutional conditions of

confinement at RPDC. [doc. # 7, p. 6]. He was forced to strip, and he was assigned to solitary

confinement for three days. Id. There, a nurse allegedly asked him if he wanted to “die for real

yet.” Id.

“Simply stated, habeas is not available to review questions unrelated to the cause of

detention. Its sole function is to grant relief from unlawful imprisonment or custody and it

cannot be used properly for any other purpose. While it is correctly alluded to as the Great Writ,

it cannot be utilized as . . . a springboard to adjudicate matters foreign to the question of the

legality of custody.” Pierre v. United States, 525 F.2d 933, 935–36 (5th Cir. 1976). “[T]he

Great Writ does not, in this circuit, afford release for prisoners held in state custody due to

adverse conditions of confinement.” Rice v. Gonzalez, 985 F.3d 1069, 1070 (5th Cir. 2021).

“Allegations that challenge the fact or duration of confinement are properly brought in

habeas petitions, while allegations that challenge rules, customs, and procedures affecting

4 Petitioner maintains that he filed a writ of habeas corpus before the trial court. [doc. # 7, p. 3].

The trial judge denied his request. Id. Petitioner thus implies that exhaustion is futile. That said,

Petitioner does not indicate that he petitioned—or asked his counsel to petition—either the trial

or appellate court to bring him promptly to trial, and, more importantly, he does not ask this

Court to bring him to trial.

5 The Dickerson court concluded that the petitioner failed to exhaust his claims. That said,

exhaustion is a form of judicial abstention: “The exhaustion doctrine . . . was judicially crafted

on federalism grounds in order to protect the state courts’ opportunity to confront and resolve

initially any constitutional issues arising within their jurisdictions as well as to limit federal

interference in the state adjudicatory process.” Dickerson, 816 F.2d at 225.

conditions of confinement are properly brought in civil rights actions.” Schipke v. Van Buren,

239 F. App'x 85, 85–86 (5th Cir. 2007). “A § 2241 habeas petition is the proper procedural

vehicle for challenging an action that ‘directly implicates the duration of’ a prisoner’s

confinement. Davis v. Fechtel, 150 F.3d 486, 487, 490 (5th Cir. 1998). It is not, however, the

proper procedural vehicle for claims . . . regarding the conditions of confinement.” Boyle v.

Wilson, 814 F. App'x 881, 882 (5th Cir. 2020).6

In Moore v. King, No. 08-60164, 2009 WL 122555, at *1 (5th Cir. Jan. 20, 2009), for

instance, the petitioner sought habeas relief, challenging the conditions of his confinement. The

court affirmed the dismissal of his claim, citing Pierre for the rule that habeas is simply not

available.

Here, the Court should dismiss Petitioner’s conditions-of-confinement claim because it is

unrelated to the cause of his detention.

3. Medical Care

Petitioner suggestively claims that he has not received adequate medical care while in

pre-trial detention. He also suggests that respondents deprived him of medical care when they

removed him from an inpatient mental healthcare facility.

Habeas corpus relief is, however, unavailable for Petitioner’s medical care claims. A suit

“challenging the adequacy of a prison’s medical care [] does not go to the validity of a

conviction or sentence, and thus falls outside habeas’s core.” Nance v. Ward, 597 U.S. 159, 168

6 See Melot v. Bergami, 970 F.3d 596, 599 (5th Cir. 2020) (“[A] habeas petition ‘is the proper

vehicle to seek release from custody,’ while a civil rights suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a

state prisoner or under Bivens for a federal prisoner is ‘the proper vehicle to attack

unconstitutional conditions of confinement and prison procedures.’”) (quoting Carson v.

Johnson, 112 F.3d 818, 820 (5th Cir. 1997)).

(2022); see Mora v. Warden, Fed. Corr. Complex, Yazoo City Medium, 480 F. App'x 779, 780

(5th Cir. 2012) (affirming dismissal of a 2241 petition as “not cognizable” because it related to

the petitioner’s “medical needs, and a determination in his favor would not result in his

accelerated release.”); Figueroa v. Chapman, 347 F. App'x 48, 50 (5th Cir. 2009) (“[T]he district

court found it could not grant her relief pursuant to Section 2241 because her application was

‘not in reference to the imposed sentence—but for medical needs.’ We agree.”); McBarron v.

Jeter, 243 F. App'x 857, 857 (5th Cir. 2007); Watson v. Briscoe, 554 F.2d 650, 652 (5th Cir.

1977).

Because Petitioner is not entitled to habeas corpus relief, the Court should dismiss these

claims.

4. Prosecutorial Misconduct, Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, False Arrest, and

Unreasonable Seizure

Petitioner claims that Attorneys Salomon and Ellis rendered ineffective assistance of

counsel. [doc. # 7, p. 6]. He alleges that Salomon failed to: investigate, have him evaluated,

obtain bail, obtain medical records, remain informed about Petitioner’s case, refrain from

taunting him, and remain enrolled as counsel. Id. He alleges that Ellis “hollers or laughs” at him

and once grabbed and pushed him. Id.

Petitioner claims that District Attorney Wheeler has engaged in, and continues to engage

in, prosecutorial misconduct. [doc. # 7, p. 7].

Petitioner also claims that he was falsely arrested, under a warrant, at Longleaf Hospital

and charged with “jumping bail.” [doc. # 7, p. 2]. Likewise, he suggests that he was subjected

to an unreasonable seizure when he was arrested and removed from the inpatient healthcare

facility.

The Court should abstain. Federal courts should abstain “if the issues raised in the

petition may be resolved either by trial on the merits in the state court or by other state

procedures available to the petitioner.” Dickerson, 816 F.2d at 225.

While the thrust of the court’s opinion in Dickerson concerned a Sixth Amendment

speedy trial claim, the petitioner there also argued that his pre-indictment delay violated his “due

process rights under the fourteenth amendment . . . .” Id. at 223. The court opined:

The fact that the due process clause plays some role in protecting against the

prejudice of preindictment delay, however, does not mean that a petition for

habeas corpus relief filed before commencement of the defendant’s trial is the

proper vehicle to protect this right. We believe that the same federalism reasons

that prevent a defendant’s sixth amendment claims from “derailing” a pending

state proceeding unless “special circumstances” exist also renders pretrial

habeas corpus relief an inappropriate vehicle to consider the merits of

Dickerson’s due process claim. Dickerson can present both his fourteenth

amendment due process claim as well as his sixth amendment speedy trial claim

in the state court at trial where they can be considered.

Id.

Here, it is manifest that Petitioner seeks to ‘disrupt the orderly functioning of state

judicial processes’ or to otherwise ‘derail’ or ‘abort’ his pending state-court proceeding. Pre-trial

habeas corpus is an inappropriate vehicle in which to consider the merits of the instant claims.7

7 Even assuming Dickerson and Braden only apply to affirmative defenses—for instance, cases

in which petitioners seek to abort state court trials due to alleged speedy-trial or double-jeopardy

violations—the undersigned would recommend that the Court abstain under Younger v. Harris,

401 U.S. 37 (1971), which is not limited to proceedings in which plaintiffs/petitioners seek relief

grounded in affirmative defenses. See Braden, 410 U.S. at 489 (“[F]ederal habeas corpus does

not lie, absent ‘special circumstances,’ to adjudicate the merits of an affirmative defense to a

state criminal charge prior to a judgment of conviction by a state court.”) (emphasis supplied).

Abstention/exhaustion under Braden and Dickerson and abstention under Younger are entwined.

In Braden and Younger, the scenarios in which the Supreme Court directed courts to abstain, as

well as the tests/analyses the Supreme Court directed courts to apply (i.e., ‘special

circumstances’ versus ‘extraordinary circumstances’) overlap and are largely indistinguishable.

Moreover, while federal habeas relief may be available prior to trial or conviction if

“special circumstances” exist, Petitioner’s filings do not reveal any special circumstances.

“Federal habeas corpus should not be used as a ‘pretrial motion forum for state prisoners.’”

Tooten v. Shevin, 493 F.2d 173, 177 (5th Cir. 1974) (quoting Braden, 410 U.S. at 508).

Petitioner can present his claims before the state trial court and, if necessary, he can seek

relief thereafter before the appropriate state appellate court, before the Supreme Court of

Louisiana, and via post-conviction review in the state courts. A habeas corpus remedy remains

available to Petitioner “after the conclusion of the state proceedings against him, if he is in

custody pursuant to conviction and has exhausted his state remedies.” See Dickerson, 816 F.2d

at n.16.

Accordingly, the Court should abstain and, consequently, dismiss these claims without

As noted, the Fifth Circuit has defined the ‘special circumstances’ language in Braden using

language from Younger: “In the somewhat analogous area of abstention a pending state criminal

prosecution will not be enjoined absent ‘very unusual situations, . . . necessary to prevent

immediate irreparable injury.’ Irreparable injury will not ordinarily be deemed to be present

where the threat to the plaintiff's federally protected rights can be eliminated by the defense of a

single criminal prosecution.” Tooten, 493 F.2d at 177. In Gates v. Strain, 885 F.3d 874, 882

(5th Cir. 2018), the court declined a plaintiff’s request to enjoin his prosecution under state and

federal speedy-trial laws. For support, the court cited Brown v. Ahern, 676 F.3d 899, 903 (9th

Cir. 2012), which in turn relied on Younger. However, the court also cited Brown v. Estelle, 530

F.2d 1280, 1283 (5th Cir. 1976), for support, which did not mention Younger but instead relied

solely on Braden.

Also of note, the undersigned would recommend applying Younger even though Petitioner seeks

dismissal of his charges or release from confinement rather than the precise injunction the

plaintiff sought in Younger. In Kolski v. Watkins, 544 F.2d 762, 766 (5th Cir. 1977), the court

opined: “We do not believe that the mere fact that the relief sought by Petitioner here federal

habeas relief prior to a pending state criminal trial is different from the type of relief sought in

Younger makes the requirements announced in Younger any less applicable to this case. There is

no practical difference between granting federal habeas relief from a pending state criminal trial

and enjoining the same trial. The principles of federalism and comity which underlie Younger

are present in both. Thus, we conclude that Petitioner must satisfy the Younger abstention

hurdles before we may give federal habeas relief.”

prejudice.

Conclusion

For the reasons above, IT IS RECOMMENDED that Petitioner David M. Kennedy,

Jr.’s claims for habeas corpus concerning his conditions of confinement and medical care be

DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

IT IS FURTHER RECOMMENDED that Petitioner’s remaining claims be

DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

Under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C) and Rule 72(b), parties aggrieved by

this recommendation have fourteen (14) days from service of this Report and Recommendation

to file specific, written objections with the Clerk of Court. A party may respond to another

party’s objections within fourteen (14) days after being served with a copy of any objections or

response to the district judge at the time of filing.

Failure to file written objections to the proposed factual findings and/or the

proposed legal conclusions reflected in this Report and Recommendation within fourteen

(14) days following the date of its service, or within the time frame authorized by Fed. R.

Civ. P. 6(b), shall bar an aggrieved party from attacking either the factual findings or the

legal conclusions accepted by the District Court, except upon grounds of plain error. See

Douglass vy. United Services Automobile Association, 79 F.3d 1415 (5" Cir. 1996).

In Chambers, Monroe, Louisiana, this 8th day of August, 2024.

Hel li

Kayla Dye MeCtasky

United States Magistrate Judge

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