Bailey, J.
Frederick Holmes-Bey (“Holmes-Bey”), a prisoner in the Indiana Department of Correction (“DOC”) and participant in the Indiana Sex Offender Management and Monitoring (“SOMM”) Program, received a disciplinary sanction in February of 2014. He sought to file, in the United States District Court, Southern District of Indiana, a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, for a writ of habeas corpus, naming as respondent Keith Butts, Warden. The petition was inadvertently mailed to the Clerk of the Henry Circuit Courts, and the petition was stamped as filed in the Henry Circuit Court 2 and a cause number was assigned. Although Holmes-Bey discovered his error and notified the circuit court via letter, the circuit court re-captioned the matter to reflect a state court action, named the State of Indiana as the respondent, and entered an order denying the petition. Holmes-Bey appealed and the Indiana Attorney General filed a notice of non-involvement. Holmes-Bey presents the sole issue of whether the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter the order of denial. We reverse and remand with instructions to dismiss.
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Notwithstanding the exhaustion doctrine of subsection (b), subsection (c) of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 provides: “An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, within the meaning of this section, if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.”
In Indiana, the enforcement of prison disciplinary sanctions is not subject to judicial review. See Israel v. Ind. Dep’t of Corr., 868 N.E.2d 1123, 1124 (Ind. 2007). In Blanck, our Indiana Supreme Court observed: “For a quarter-century, our Court has held that DOC inmates have no common law, statutory, or federal constitutional right to review in state court DOC disciplinary decisions.” 829 N.E.2d at 507.
On the other hand, a state trial court has subject-matter jurisdiction when an allegation is made that an inmate’s constitutional rights are being violated by the DOC. In State v. Moore, 909 N.E.2d 1053 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), trans. denied, a panel of this Court considered whether a SOMM participant’s motion solely challenged the deprivation of his credits and privileges or whether he had, by presenting argument and citation to authority, additionally challenged the violation of his right against self-incrimination. The Court concluded that “the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to review the deprivation of Moore’s credit time and privileges after such deprivation occurred pursuant to Moore’s claim of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.” Id. at 1057.
In his statement of grounds supporting his petition, Holmes-Bey stated that he is entitled to immediate release because his sanctions violated his right against self-incrimination. However, he strenuously asserts that he is appealing a disciplinary decision. Moreover, the caption of his complaint discloses that he seeks review of a disciplinary decision, and the caption was prepared for a federal as opposed to state court. There is no indication that he ever sought to have a state court adjudicate whether the DOC had violated his constitutional rights.1
Because the objective of Holmes-Bey’s complaint is review and rescission of a disciplinary sanction, Holmes-Bey did not have the right to raise the question in an Indiana court. The appropriate response of an Indiana trial court presented with a purported appeal of a DOC disciplinary decision is to dismiss the complaint because it would not fall within the general scope of authority conferred upon the court by constitution or statute. Blanck, 829 N.E.2d at 508. Here – assuming that the trial court clerk had no duty to forward the document after discovery that it had been filed in error – the action required of the trial court was dismissal of the improperly filed complaint.
NAJAM, J., and PYLE, J., concur.