Opinion
OP 23-0467
01-09-2024
HEATHEN BLODHARN, Petitioner, v. BRIAN GOOTKIN (or alternatively, Annette Chambers-Smith), Respondents.
ORDER
Self-represented Petitioner Heathen Blodharn has filed two Petitions with this Court and addressed them to Chief Justice Mike McGrath. His first Petition is for habeas corpus relief because Blodharn does not want to be incarcerated in Ohio and claims he is falsely imprisoned. His second Petition is for injunctive relief wherein he asks that the Department of Corrections (the Department or DOC) be enjoined from sending him out of state, such as a prison in Ohio. In compliance with this Court's Order, counsel for the Department responds that this Court should deny both of Blodharn's Petitions.
The Department provides that, in 2019, Blodharn legally changed his name from Danny Lee Warner, Jr. to Aldabjam Heathen Blodharn in the Powell County District Court.
On October 12,2017, a jury found Blodharn guilty of felony robbery in the Flathead County District Court. The District Court sentenced Blodharn to the Montana State Prison (MSP) for a fifty-year term after designating Blodharn a persistent felony offender due to his twelve felonies and violent offenses. The court also imposed a thirty-five-year parole ineligibility restriction. Section 46-18-201 (3)(a), MCA (2015), provides that "a sentencing judge may impose a sentence that may include[] [] a term of incarceration, as provided in Title 45 for the offense, at a county detention center or at a state prison to be designated by the department of corrections[.]'' Here, the DOC has placed Blodharn in Ohio.
Blodham sees his placement in Ohio instead of Montana as a retaliatory move due to his litigation with DOC. He states that he wants to be imprisoned in Montana as the Flathead County District Court ordered in 2017. In his attached affidavit, Blodham maintains that prison officials in Ohio are preventing him from taking his prescribed medications, destroying his personal property, and preventing him from practicing his religion.
The Department responds that Blodham does not have a constitutional right to choose where to serve his time. Wright v. Mahoney, 2003 MT 141, ¶ 8, 316 Mont. 173, 71 P.3d 1195. The Department adds that the DOC did not violate his due process rights when the DOC transferred him to an out-of-state prison without a hearing because he is not due a hearing for such a transfer. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224-229, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538-2540 (1976). The Department provides that because of Blodham's history assaulting other inmates, the need to separate him in the prison population, and his history as a validated gang member, it concluded that Blodham was difficult to manage in MSP's relatively small prison population. The Department further provides an affidavit from MSP's Associate Warden of Technical Services and Facilities Interstate Compact Coordinator. The Department states that Montana inmates do not have a right that requires their consent prior to being transferred to a different prison and that Blodham only cites to a statute from Ohio, which is not binding on Montana. Lastly, the Department explains that Blodham is not entitled to the extraordinary relief of a writ of injunction in this Court because "Blodham is asking this Court to step into the shoes of the DOC to make a determination where to place or house an inmate, without any evidentiary findings." The Department notes that the granting of a preliminary injunction rests within the sound discretion of the trial court. Atkinson v. Roosevelt County, 66 Mont. 411, 214 P. 74 (1923).
Affidavit of Billie Reich, ¶¶ 8-10. Blodham was initially placed at MSP on December 1, 2017, and then the DOC moved him to the Dawson County Correctional Facility in Glendive, Montana, followed by placement at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby, Montana. There, the Toole County Attorney charged Blodham with aggravated assault on another inmate. The Toole County District Court sentenced Blodham to a concurrent, five-year term for the amended charge of criminal endangerment.
The Department requests that we deny both Petitions because the writs are not the appropriate remedy for Blodharn's claims and further suggests that Blodharn may seek a separate civil action concerning his conditions of confinement in Ohio. See Gates v. Missoula County Comm'rs, 235 Mont. 261, 262, 766 P.2d 884 884-85 (1988) (Habeas corpus is not the appropriate remedy for conditions of confinement because it does not go to the cause of the incarceration.).
We conclude the Department's arguments are dispositive. This is not a matter of first impression, as Blodharn suggests. We have had several writ matters on this issue over the last twenty years. "Montana retains the discretion to transfer a prisoner for whatever reason or no reason at all[.J" Wright, ¶ 11. In Wright, Wright appealed the Yellowstone County District Court decision denying his writ of prohibition against the DOC. Wright claimed that the DOC did not have the authority to transfer him because the Montana State Prison (Deer Lodge) was the state prison, and the specific placement was found in his sentencing judgment. We held that "Wright does not have a constitutional right to be imprisoned in any particular facility." Wright, ¶ 8. We explained that "[w]hile the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits a state from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it is nevertheless . well-settled that:" .
Given a valid conviction, the criminal defendant has been constitutionally deprived of his liberty to the extent that the State may confine him and subject him to the rules of its prison system so long as the conditions of confinement do not otherwise violate the Constitution. The Constitution does not require that the State have more than one prison for convicted felons; nor does it guarantee that the convicted prisoner will be placed in any particular prison if, as is likely, the State has more than one correctional institution. . . . The conviction has sufficiently extinguished the defendant's liberty interest to empower the State to confine him in any of its prisons.Wright, ¶ 8 (quoting Meachum, 427 U.S. at 224-25, 96 S.Ct. at 2538 (emphasis in original)). The DOC may place inmates anywhere after being received at MSP. The DOC may place inmates at any facility in another state and through either the Western Interstate Corrections Compact or the Interstate Corrections Compact. Sections 46-19-301, and 46-19-401, MCA.
While this matter was pending, Blodharn filed two motions-a Motion for Expedited Ruling and a Motion for Court to Take Judicial Notice. We decline to entertain these motions.
Finally, this Court clarifies a previous Order concerning filings by Danny Lee Warner, Jr., now known as Heathen Blodharn. On November 7, 2017, this Court required then-Warner to file a motion for leave before filing any pleading or original petition during the pendency of his underlying criminal proceeding in the District Court. See Warner v. Eleventh Judicial District Court, No. OP 17-0628, Order (Mont. Nov. 7, 2017). Blodharn had filed two different writs for supervisory control of the District Court while his criminal case was pending. See also Warner v. Eleventh Judicial Dist. Ct., No. OP 17-0429, Order (Aug. 9, 2017). Blodharn's underlying case concluded on November 22, 2017, when the District Court entered its final Judgment. Warner appealed. State v. Warner, No. DA 18-0046, 2020 MT 93N, 2020 Mont. LEXIS 1161. Blodharn has since filed other requests for relief, as well as appealed the denial of his petition for postconviction relief. Because our order requiring Blodharn to first seek leave of the court before filing any motion was specific to the pendency of a particular criminal proceeding, which has since been concluded, Blodharn is not currently restrained from filing pleadings with this Court and is not required to first seek permission from the Court before filing a pleading. Therefore, IT IS ORDERED that:
1. Blodharn's Petition for Writs of Habeas Corpus &Injunction are DENIED and DISMISSED;
2. Blodharn's Motions for Expedited Ruling and for Court to Take Judicial Notice are DENIED;
3. the Clerk's Office shall REMOVE Heathen Blodharn, f/k/a Danny Lee Warner, Jr., from its list of prohibited filers; and
4. this matter is CLOSED as of this Order's date.
The Clerk is directed to provide a copy of this Order to counsel of record and to Heathen Blodharn personally.