Smith v. Gordon

Background

Ricardio Dale Smith was facing trial in two Minnesota state criminal cases. One case charged him with failing to meet predatory-offender registration requirements, and the other charged him with third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Both trials were scheduled for October 30, 2024.

Smith’s action began as a filing construed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois as a civil complaint against Andrew Gordon, a state-court judge involved in Smith’s prosecutions. The case was transferred to the District of Minnesota. Smith later filed a document titled “Writ of Prohibition/Writ of Certiorari to Dismiss Complaint,” which challenged his ongoing prosecutions and focused largely on alleged speedy-trial violations. He asked the federal courts to intervene and sought dismissal of the state cases.

Operative pleading and type of action

The court treated Smith’s “Writ of Prohibition/Writ of Certiorari to Dismiss Complaint” as a proposed amended pleading and granted his request to make it the action’s operative pleading, despite his failure to follow the District of Minnesota’s usual amended-pleading procedures.

The court concluded that the matter should be treated as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, meaning a request for federal relief from allegedly unlawful custody or detention, rather than as an ordinary civil action. Because Smith was awaiting trial and was not held under a state-court judgment, the court construed the petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 rather than 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

The court explained that a federal court generally requires a state pretrial detainee to exhaust available state-court remedies before seeking relief under § 2241. The court found that Smith had not exhausted state remedies for most of his claims. Although certain speedy-trial claims may proceed without prior exhaustion when the detainee seeks a trial, that exception did not apply because Smith sought dismissal of the state criminal cases rather than a prompt trial. The court found no indication that he had exhausted state remedies on that claim.

The court also stated that, if the case were treated as an ordinary civil action, abstention from exercising federal jurisdiction would apply because of the pending state criminal proceedings. It did not rely on that alternative characterization for its recommended outcome.

Disposition

The order grants Smith’s request to treat the petition as the operative pleading. The report and recommendation recommends that the petition be denied; that Smith’s application to proceed without prepaying fees or costs, “Affidavit/Motion,” and letter be denied as moot; and that the action be dismissed.

The document is an order and report and recommendation by Magistrate Judge Shannon G. Elkins. The recommendation was not an order or judgment of the District Court and was not directly appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The notice allowed the parties to file written objections within the time stated in the notice.