REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

F. KEITH BALL, Magistrate Judge.

Robert DeShawn Boyd is a federal prisoner incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Yazoo City, Mississippi (FCC-Yazoo). He brings this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging a detainer lodged by the Kentucky Parole Board. Presently before the Court is Respondent's motion to dismiss. Having considered the motion and response, the undersigned recommends that the motion be granted and that the petition be dismissed as an abuse of the writ.

Boyd is currently serving a federal sentence of ten years imprisonment and five years supervised release for possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, an offense for which he pleaded guilty in 2009. At the time of his indictment and plea, Boyd was on parole from several state sentences in Kentucky. As a result of his federal indictment and plea, the Kentucky Parole Board issued a parole violator warrant and on July 12, 2010, lodged a detainer with FCC-Yazoo requesting that Boyd be returned to Kentucky custody following the completion of his federal sentence so that a parole violation hearing might be held.

Boyd subsequently challenged the detainer by filing in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky a petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.1 In his petition, as amended, and in his supporting memorandum, he argued that the delay in his parole revocation hearing was prejudicing his ability to defend against the parole violation charge and was having a detrimental effect on his ability to participate in prison rehabilitation programs. He requested an immediate parole violation hearing or dismissal of the detainer.

On December 5, 2016, while his petition in Kentucky federal court was still pending, Boyd filed the present petition pursuant to § 2241. In it, he challenges the detainer and raises the same arguments that he asserted in his § 2254 petition. As before, he seeks an immediate parole revocation hearing or, alternatively, dismissal of the writ.

The Kentucky district court dismissed the petition with prejudice and entered judgment in favor of the respondent on March 22, 2017. The holding of that court was that the presence of the detainer and the delay in the revocation hearing implicated no constitutional interest.

In support of the present motion to dismiss, Respondent argues that this court is without jurisdiction because a challenge to a state detainer must be brought pursuant to § 2254, rather than § 2241. Respondent relies primarily upon a Seventh Circuit case, Esposito v. Mintz, 726 F.2d 371 (7th Cir. 1984), as support for this position. The reliance on Esposito is misplaced. It is true that in Esposito, the Seventh Circuit held that § 2254, not § 2241, was the proper vehicle for a federal prisoner's challenge to a state detainer. However, the court specifically noted that the petitioner in that case was not alleging that the detainer had any effect on his federal incarceration, and the court acknowledged that such allegations "would properly invoke jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2241." Esposito, 726 F.2d at 373 n.4. Boyd's allegations concerning the effect of the detainer on his conditions at FCC-Yazoo render Esposito inapposite. Furthermore, the Supreme Court's opinion in Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484 (1973), provides strong support for the argument that a challenge to a state detainer may be made pursuant to § 2241. In that case, the Court carefully considered the issue of whether a federal court in Kentucky had jurisdiction over a § 2241 petition filed by an Alabama prisoner challenging a Kentucky detainer. The Court concluded that jurisdiction by the Kentucky federal court was proper. Nowhere in the opinion did the Court question the propriety of § 2241 as the vehicle for the challenge.

Indeed, not only is § 2241 a proper vehicle for Boyd's claims, it is possibly the only vehicle. A requirement of an action under § 2254 is that the petitioner be "in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." Although Boyd is still in custody (as a parolee) pursuant to his state court convictions, it is not that custody which he challenges in the present petition. Rather he is challenging the detention effected by the detainer, which is on only a warrant, not a judgment.

The undersigned concludes, however, that dismissal is appropriate on the alternative ground that the petition is successive and constitutes an abuse of the writ. Boyd challenged the legality of the detainer in the habeas proceeding in federal court in Kentucky, and that court concluded that the detainer did not violate Boyd's constitutional rights.2 His present petition presents the exact same challenge and arguments, and he has made no showing of cause and prejudice or that a fundamental miscarriage of justice will result if his petition is not entertained by this court. See McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 494-95 (1991) (explaining that cause-and-prejudice analysis adopted for procedural default applies to abuse-of-the-writ inquiry). His petition is therefore successive and subject to dismissal.3

For these reasons, the undersigned recommends that Respondent's motion be granted and that the Petition be dismissed with prejudice. The parties are hereby notified that failure to file written objections to the proposed findings, conclusions, and recommendation contained within this report and recommendation within fourteen (14) days after being served with a copy shall bar that party, except upon grounds of plain error, from attacking on appeal the proposed factual findings and legal conclusions accepted by the district court. 28 U.S.C. § 636; Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); Douglass v. United Services Automobile Ass'n, 79 F.3d 1415, 1428-29 (5th Cir. 1996).