Monday, December 15, 2025
Page 3
Ninth Circuit:
Incarceration in State Doesn’t Confer Habeas Jurisdiction
Panel Says Inmate of Federal Prison in California Who Contests Deduction of Monies From Wages to Go Toward Payment of Fine Improperly Brought Petition Here; Jurisdiction Lies in Circuit Where Sentencing Court Is Located
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared on Friday that a magistrate judge correctly dismissed an inmate’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging moneys being deducted from prison wages to go toward payment of a fine, but said the order was made for the wrong reason, holding that the District Court for the Central District of California is not vested with jurisdiction simply because the convict is housed here.
Magistrate Judge Autumn D. Spaeth had dismissed, without prejudice, the petition brought by Parley Drew Hardman based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Affirmance came in a memorandum opinion signed by Circuit Judges Consuelo M. Callahan and Lucy H. Koh, joined by District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting by designation. The judges explained that Hardman had been sentenced in Tennessee, with that 2004 sentence including a $17,500 fine.
Hardman is contending that the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) is improperly deducting money from his wages because the sentencing judge had given conflicting indications as to when payment was due and that under the circumstances, it was not due until after his release.
The judges wrote:
“The district court lacked statutory jurisdiction over the habeas petition here because a challenge to the validity of a conviction or sentence must be brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the district of sentencing.… A habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 is the correct vehicle to challenge BOP’s implementation of a sentence but only when that challenge does not attack the validity of the sentence itself.:
They continued:
“Section 2255(e) denies jurisdiction over this habeas petition because the petition does not allege that BOP is administering a lawful sentence in an unlawful way. Rather, it alleges that BOP lacks authority to require payments of the criminal fine because the district court wrongly convicted Petitioner and wrongly imposed a fine payable immediately. That claim is not cognizable under §2241.”
Transfer Unwarranted
Hardman was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee which is within the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no point to re-routing Hardman’s petition to that circuit, the jurists said, explaining:
“Petitioner’s appeal exclusively concerns financial penalties, and his claim that the sentencing court did not validly require immediate payment does not justify transfer because the Sixth Circuit has already considered and rejected that argument.”
The Sixth Circuit on July 31, 2018, affirmed the District Court’s denial of Hardman’s “Motion to Clarify the Courts Order” by which he claimed that immediate payment of the fine was not intended,
The Ninth Circuit case is Hardman v. Birkholz, 23-3664.
Sought Murders
Hardman was convicted in 2003 by a jury in Nashville of solicitation to commit murder for hire, solicitation to commit interstate stalking, and conspiracy to commit interstate stalking. His objective was to have his ex-wife, who lived in Michigan, killed or have her legs broken. and also sought to have country singer Travis Twitt slain for supposedly mistreating Hardman’s friends.
He was sentenced in 2004 to 15 years in prison.
The prosecutor at his trial was Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunny A.M. Koshy. Hardman was convicted in 2005 of seeking to have Koshy murdered.
The inmate is housed at the federal prison in Lompoc, a city in Santa Barbara County.
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