Bettis v. All Known and Unknown Agents
- Rearden
- 1:24-cv-02854
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Bettis v. All Known and Unknown Agents, Judge Rearden dismissed Bettis’s petition without prejudice for failure to prosecute.
The dismissal ended Zubearu Bettis’s § 2241 case without prejudice because he did not file the required amended petition or object to the recommended dismissal. The court also denied a certificate of appealability and permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
What happened
In Bettis v. All Known and Unknown Agents and Employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Zubearu Bettis challenged delayed release from a residential reentry center, seeking restoration of lost good-conduct credits and immediate release. Bettis was released while the case was pending.
The court asked Bettis to file an amended petition addressing whether he also sought a reduction of supervised release. Bettis did not file the amended petition by the extended deadline and did not object to the magistrate judge’s recommendation that the case be dismissed.
Judge Rearden adopted the recommendation and dismissed the action without prejudice for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b). The court also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Bettis v. All Known and Unknown Agents · No. 1:24-cv-02854
- Rearden
- Jan. 20, 2025
Background
Zubearu Bettis filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his delayed release from a residential reentry center. He alleged that incident reports led to the loss of good-conduct-time credits and asked the court to restore those credits and order his immediate release from Bureau of Prisons custody.
Bettis notified the court that he had been released from custody on May 15, 2024. The government then stated that the petition might be moot in its existing form because it sought restoration of credits and release from custody. Bettis appeared to argue that the petition should instead be understood as seeking a reduction of his supervised-release period. The court directed him to file an amended petition identifying where he was sentenced, the sentence imposed, and whether he received a mandatory minimum term of supervised release.
Failure to Prosecute
Bettis did not file the amended petition by the initial deadline or the extended deadline. The court had warned that the case could be dismissed for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn recommended dismissing the petition without prejudice for failure to prosecute. The recommendation gave the parties fourteen days to object. Bettis filed no objections and did not request more time.
Because no timely objections were filed, Judge Rearden reviewed the recommendation for clear error rather than conducting a new review of the disputed issues. The court found the recommendation well reasoned and supported by the facts and law, and adopted it in its entirety.
Ruling
Judge Rearden dismissed the action without prejudice for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b). The court directed the Clerk of Court to close the case and mail Bettis a copy of the order.
The court also found that Bettis had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, so it declined to issue a certificate of appealability. It further certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.