Danyale McCollough v. Michael Miller

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma dismissed Danyale McCollough’s 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition challenging the calculation and revocation of earned credits by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The court held that McCollough failed to exhaust the agency’s grievance-appeal process and did not establish that administrative remedies were unavailable or futile. The court dismissed the petition without prejudice, denied the request to convert it to a § 2254 petition, and denied a certificate of appealability.

Holdings

1. Exhaustion of available administrative remedies is a prerequisite to § 2241 habeas relief, and McCollough failed to exhaust because he did not submit the required appeal to ODOC's Administrative Review Authority.
2. McCollough did not establish that the administrative remedy was unavailable or that prison officials prevented, thwarted, or hindered his efforts to complete the grievance process; a misunderstanding of the procedure did not excuse exhaustion.
3. The court denied McCollough's request to convert the petition because the request was improperly included in his response to the motion to dismiss and because he had not shown exhaustion of state remedies for either his present claim or a due process claim.
4. No certificate of appealability shall issue because no reasonable jurist would debate the dismissal of the petition on procedural grounds.

Questions Presented

1. Whether McCollough's § 2241 petition had to be dismissed for failure to exhaust ODOC's administrative grievance process.
2. Whether McCollough established that the administrative remedy was unavailable or that exhaustion was futile because ODOC personnel told him the matter had been addressed at the highest level.
3. Whether McCollough could convert his § 2241 petition into a § 2254 petition through a request included in his response to the motion to dismiss.
4. Whether a certificate of appealability should issue after dismissal on procedural grounds.

Disposition

dismissed