Morales v. Rardin

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
VIDAL LICEA MORALES,
Petitioner,
v.
JARED RARDIN,
Respondent.
Case No. 24-CV-4635 (JWB/JFD)
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
This case comes before the Court on Petitioner Vidal Licea Morales’s Petition for a
Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, challenging disciplinary sanctions levied
against him while in Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) custody at Federal Medical Center
Rochester (“FMC Rochester”). (Pet. at 1–3, Dkt. No. 1.)1 The case has been referred to the
undersigned United States Magistrate Judge for a Report and Recommendation pursuant
to Title 28 U.S.C. § 636 and District of Minnesota Local Rule 72.1.
In his Petition, Mr. Morales asks the Court to vacate the disciplinary sanctions,
which include a loss of 100 days of non-vested good time credits and 41 days of good time
credits, and to “expunge the incident report entirely.” (Id. at 8.) He argues that the sanctions
given by the Discipline Hearing Officer (“DHO”) are invalid because the issuing DHO was
not appointed in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution and
1 For consistency, the Court uses the page numbering system assigned by CM/ECF.
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the separation of powers doctrine, that the disciplinary system used by the BOP violates
the non-delegation doctrine, and that he did not receive adequate Miranda warnings before
his initial disciplinary hearing at FMC Rochester. (Id. at 6–7.) Respondent Jared Rardin,
the Warden of FMC Rochester, asks the Court to deny the petition, arguing that ground one
is moot due to intervening developments and that the remaining grounds are not supported
by law. (See Resp. 1, Dkt. No. 12.) The Court agrees with Respondent and recommends
denying the petition as moot because the relief Mr. Morales seeks has already been granted
by the BOP.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Morales is serving a 300-month sentence in BOP custody and is projected to be
released in November of 2034. (Cervantes Decl., Ex. D, Dkt. No. 13-3.) The sanctions Mr.
Morales challenges in his petition stem from an incident in March of 2020, when BOP
personnel at FCI Beaumont, the facility where Mr. Morales was housed at the time, found
Mr. Morales in possession of a cell phone, a violation of BOP Disciplinary Code. (Resp.
4–5, Dkt. No. 12.) When the officer saw Mr. Morales with the phone, the officer confiscated
it and submitted an incident report to a supervisor. (Id.)
After the incident occurred, another BOP employee delivered a copy of the Incident
Report to Mr. Morales, read the incident report to him in English, and read him his rights,
which he said he understood. (Cervantes Decl., Ex. D, Dkt. No. 13-3.) At that time, Mr.
Morales also stated that he was not guilty of the allegations in the Report. (Id.) A
preliminary investigation by Mr. Morales’s Unit Discipline Committee (“UDC”) led the
UDC to conclude that Mr. Morales was “appropriately charged” and recommended that he
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be found “guilty.” (Id.) The first Disciplinary Hearing Officer (“DHO”) assigned to the
incident found Mr. Morales to have violated the BOP Disciplinary Code, a decision Mr.
Morales appealed. (Cervantes Decl. at ¶15, Dkt. No. 13.) A second DHO held a re-hearing
on the Incident Report in May of 2021 and concluded that Mr. Morales was “responsible
for violating Code 108, Possession, Manufacture, Introduction or Loss of a Hazardous
Tool.” (Id. at ¶16.) At that hearing, Mr. Morales remained silent and waived his right to
present witnesses. (Id. at Ex. F.) The second DHO sanctioned Mr. Morales “with the loss
of 100 days of non-vested good conduct time and the loss of 41 days of good conduct time.”
(Id. at ¶17.) Mr. Morales made no further internal appeals of this decision.
After Mr. Morales filed this petition, the BOP vacated the sanctions connected to
the March 2020 cell phone incident and scheduled the incident report for a re-hearing for
March 14, 2025. (Id. at ¶18–19.) Upon rehearing, the second DHO found that Mr. Morales
had violated Code 108 and sanctioned him with the loss of 41 days of good conduct time,
a sanction which, as she stated in her declaration, fit within the guidelines of the Inmate
Discipline Program.2 (Id. at ¶20.) The second DHO returned the previously sanctioned 100
days of non-vested good conduct time to Mr. Morales. (Id.) At the time of the BOP’s
response to Mr. Morales’s petition, filed less than a week after the second hearing, Mr.
Morales had not received a copy of the second DHO’s report and had not yet appealed the
2 The Court notes that this sanction is not only within the guidelines set out in the Discipline
Program but is the minimum sanction that can be levied for an offense of this type. (Inmate
Discipline Program Ch. 1 § 541.3(b)(1), Dkt. No. 13-3 (stating that inmates who commit a
prohibited act in the “Greatest Severity Level … will lose at least 41 days, or 75% of
available [good conduct sentence] credit”).)
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DHO’s findings. (Id. at ¶21.) Though he had the opportunity to reply to the BOP’s response,
(see Order to File Document ¶3, Dkt. No. 11.) Mr. Morales made no further filings in this
case.
DISCUSSION
Mr. Morales’s petition challenges only the sanctions issued by the first DHO to
address the subject incident report. (Pet. at ¶6, Dkt. No. 1 (“Decision or action you are
challenging…: Lost [] 100 days non-vested good time credits; Lost [] 41 days good time
credits; and guiltiness of the incident report … Date of the decision or action: May 5,
2021”).) Mr. Morales specifically asks the Court to “Vacate DHO Gonzales’s sanctions and
expunge the incident report permanently.” (Id. at ¶15.)
I. 	Mr. Morales’s Petition Should be Denied as Moot
The United States Constitution limits the subject-matter jurisdiction of federal
courts to ongoing cases and controversies. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. “[A]n actual
[case or] controversy must exist not only at the time the complaint is filed, but through all
stages of the litigation.” Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568 U.S. 85, 91 (2013) (citations and
internal quotation marks omitted). “When ... the issues presented in a case lose their life
because of the passage of time or a change in circumstances ... and a federal court can no
longer grant effective relief, the case is considered moot.” Ali v. Cangemi, 419 F.3d 722,
723 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Haden v. Pelofsky, 212 F.3d 466, 469 (8th Cir. 2000)). If an
action is moot because it no longer satisfies the case-or-controversy requirement, a federal
court “ha[s] no discretion and must dismiss the action for lack of jurisdiction.” Ali, 419
F.3d at 724 (citing Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496 n.7 (1969)).
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Mr. Morales’s request to vacate the sanctions levied by DHO Gonzalez, the first
DHO to address the subject incident report, is moot because those sanctions were vacated
by the BOP after Mr. Morales filed this petition, the exact relief that he requested.
(Cervantes Decl. at ¶15, Dkt. No. 13; Resp. 5, Dkt. No. 12.) Although he may seek to
pursue a challenge of the subsequent decision made upon rehearing, Mr. Morales has
provided no argument or evidence showing that the allegations made as to the first DHO’s
findings apply in any way to the second DHO’s findings.
A court should not dismiss a § 2241 petition as moot, however, if any of the
following circumstances are present:
(1) secondary or ‘collateral’ injuries survive after resolution of the primary
injury; (2) the issue is deemed a wrong capable of repetition yet evading
review; (3) the defendant voluntarily ceases an allegedly illegal practice but
is free to resume it at any time; or (4) it is a properly certified class action
suit.
Ahmed v. Sessions, No. 16-cv-2124 (DSD/HB), 2017 WL 3267738, at *2 (D. Minn. July
11, 2017) (quoting Riley v. I.N.S., 310 F.3d 1253, 1257 (10th Cir. 2002)), R. & R. adopted,
2017 WL 3268176 (D. Minn. July 31, 2017).
None of these circumstances are present here. First, Mr. Morales has not identified
any remaining secondary or collateral injuries. Second, the disciplinary recission of good
time credits issue is not capable of repetition yet evading review because any future
challenge of disciplinary recission would necessarily need to be supported by factual
allegations not in the record in this case. Third, nothing in the record indicates that BOP
voluntarily ceased an allegedly illegal practice for the purpose of evading judicial review.
Finally, this proceeding is not a certified class action.
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II. 	Mr. Morales’s Constitutional Arguments are Contrary to Law
Even if his petition as a whole was not moot, Mr. Morales’s constitutional
arguments are meritless and clearly foreclosed by existing law. He first claims that the
DHO who issued the initial sanctions was appointed in violation of Article II, Section 2,
Clause 2 of the Constitution, commonly referred to as the Appointments Clause. The BOP
argues that, even if this argument was viable, the relief available to Mr. Morales would be
a new hearing in front of an appropriately appointed DHO. (Resp. 6, Dkt. No. 12 (citing
Lucia v. SEC, 585 U.S. 237 (2018).) That relief has already been granted (see Cervantes
Decl. at ¶18, Dkt. No. 13), so the issue is moot. As other courts in this District have held,
The Appointments Clause claim is entirely specific to Mr. [Morales]'s first
disciplinary proceeding and the DHO who conducted it. To the extent that
the DHO who presided over that first hearing was not appointed as required
under the Appointments Clause—a question the Court does not reach—this
claim became moot when the BOP vacated the DHO's findings and set aside
the disciplinary sanctions challenged in the Petition. And there is no
colorable risk of the BOP repeating any such violation at a new disciplinary
hearing, since Mr. [Morales]'s second disciplinary hearing has already taken
place and a different DHO presided over that proceeding who was lawfully
appointed.
Lopez v. Rardin, No. 24-CV-3285 (KMM/DJF), 2025 WL 1520591, at *3 (D. Minn. Apr.
8, 2025), R. & R. adopted, No. 24-CV-3285 (KMM/DJF), 2025 WL 1520426 (D. Minn.
May 28, 2025).
Mr. Morales also generally claims that DHOs are appointed in violation of the
separation 	of 	powers 	doctrine 	because 	they 	have 	unconstitutional 	dual 	for-cause
protections from removal, as addressed in the Supreme Court’s decision in Free Enter.
Fund v. Pub. Co. Acct. Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 492 (2010). (Pet’r’s Mem. 5–7, Dkt.
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No. 3.) 	In that case, the Court held that inferior officers of the United States wielding
executive power could not be protected from removal without cause if their appointing
authority was also protected from removal without cause because such “dual for-cause
limitations contravene the Constitution’s separation of powers” and allow Congress to
encroach upon the President’s removal power. Id. at 492. None of these issues are present
here.3
The 	Supreme 	Court’s 	decision 	in 	Free 	Enterprise 	Fund 	is 	an 	interesting
development in constitutional law that is entirely inapplicable to this case. As the BOP
points out, DHOs are subject to the general removal statute for federal employees, 5 U.S.C.
§ 7513. (Resp. 8, Dkt. No. 12.) There is no for-cause protection in that statute. See 5 U.S.C.
§ 7513. Further, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the head of the BOP, is “appointed
by and serv[es] directly under the Attorney General,” (see 18 U.S.C. § 4041), who, in turn,
is appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and removable at will by the
President. See Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593, 621 (2024) (“The President's
management of the Executive Branch requires him to have unrestricted power to remove
the most important of his subordinates—such as the Attorney General—in their most
important duties.”) (cleaned up). The person appointed to be the Director of the Bureau of
Prisons is also not required to be confirmed by the Senate, removing the legislative branch
3 At the risk of over-simplifying the Free Enterprise Fund holding, if Congress by law
grants both an agency head and subordinates within that agency protection from removal
without cause, then the President’s ability to exercise control over that agency is much
diminished, which the Supreme Court found to be both a separation of powers issue and
an encroachment on the President’s removal power. But for the reasons noted in the main
body of this Order, Free Enterprise Fund has nothing to do with Mr. Morales’ case.
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entirely from the decision of who holds that position. See 18 U.S.C. § 4041. If the President
has “unrestricted power” to fire the Attorney General and the Director of the Bureau of
Prisons, and those officials have the power granted to them in the general removal statute
to fire Bureau employees, no one in this chain of command, from the Attorney General to
DHOs, is subject to a for-cause protection from removal.
Said more simply, there can be no Congressional overreach where, as here,
Congress has given all decision-making power about BOP personnel to the Attorney
General, an official who can be fired at will by the President. Accordingly, Mr. Morales’s
argument that there is any separation of powers issue in regard to his claims has no merit.
Next, Mr. Morales argues that the Inmate Discipline Program as a whole violates
the Non-Delegation Doctrine. Mr. Morales has raised this argument in the past, where the
court held that the argument “is foreclosed by clear federal law, which expressly grants the
BOP authority to establish disciplinary rules and to withhold good time credits from
prisoners found to have violated those rules.” Morales v. Rardin, No. 24-CV-03121
(JMB/TNL), 2024 WL 5220656, at *2 (D. Minn. Dec. 26, 2024) (citing 28 U.S.C. §
3624(b)(1).) Accordingly, this argument is without merit.
Finally, Mr. Morales argues that the sanctions should be vacated because he did not
receive adequate Miranda warnings. (Pet’r’s Mem. 9, Dkt. No. 3.) 	There is no need to
address the adequacy or necessity of Miranda warnings here because, as discussed above,
the sanctions issued by the first DHO were vacated by the BOP, making the issue moot.
Further, even if Miranda warnings were required and not given, the appropriate remedy
would 	be 	to 	suppress 	potentially 	incriminating 	statements 	made 	in 	custody 	from
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consideration in the proceedings. Vega v. Tekoh, 597 U.S. 134, 151 (2022) (“Miranda rests
on a pragmatic judgment about what is needed to stop the violation at trial of the Fifth
Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. That prophylactic purpose is
served by the suppression at trial of statements obtained in violation of Miranda.”) Here,
there are no statements to suppress. The original incident report showed that, at all relevant
points, Mr. Morales declined to make a statement in response to questions about the subject
violation. (See Cervantes Decl. Ex. E, Dkt. No. 13-5.) He also remained silent at the hearing
before the first DHO, meaning that the DHO found that Mr. Morales violated the BOP’s
rules without any incriminating statement from Mr. Morales. (Id. at ¶16.) With no evidence
that was inappropriately considered, there is no relief the Court can provide beyond the
relief the BOP has already granted.
RECOMMENDATION
Accordingly, 	based 	on 	the 	foregoing, 	and 	on 	all 	of 	the 	files, 	records, 	and
proceedings herein, IT IS HEREBY RECOMMENDED that Vidal Licea Morales’s
Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (Dkt. No. 1) be DISMISSED.
Date: December 5, 2025 	s/ John F. Docherty
JOHN F. DOCHERTY
United States Magistrate Judge
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NOTICE
Filing Objections: This Report and Recommendation is not an order or judgment of the
District Court and is therefore not appealable directly to the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals. Under D. Minn. LR 72.2(b)(1), “a party may file and serve specific written
objections to a magistrate judge’s proposed finding and recommendations within 14 days
after being served a copy” of the Report and Recommendation. A party may respond to
those objections within 14 days after being served a copy of the objections. D. Minn. LR
72.2(b)(2). All objections and responses must comply with the word or line limits set forth
in LR 72.2(c).
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