Opinion
No. C 11-4831 SI (pr)
10-31-2011
WILLIAM LAURELES, Petitioner, v. RANDY GROUNDS; et al., Respondents.
ORDER OF TRANSFER
William Laureles, an inmate at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, California, has filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, to challenge the sentence he received from the Riverside County Superior Court. His claim wears a somewhat unusual cloak - as he argues that prison officials have failed in their duty under California Penal Code § 1170(d) to refer his case to the sentencing court for sentence correction - but his legal claim is that his Three-Strikes sentence violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause because not all Three-Strikes eligible defendants receive Three-Strikes sentences and therefore the sentencing scheme is being applied in a non-uniform, disparate and unequal manner. Laureles' challenge is to the sentence imposed and not to the execution of his sentence. The county in which he was convicted and sentenced is Riverside County, within the venue of the Central District of California. The facility Laureles is incarcerated at is in Monterey County, within the venue of the Northern District of California. Venue is proper in a habeas action in either the district of confinement or the district of conviction, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d); however, a petition challenging a conviction or the sentence imposed is preferably heard in the district of conviction. See N. D. Cal. Habeas L.R. 2254-3(b). Because the conviction occurred in the Central District of California, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) and Habeas L.R. 2254-3(b), and in the interests of justice, this action is TRANSFERRED to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The clerk shall transfer this matter forthwith.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
SUSAN ILLSTON
United States District Judge