Jones v. Warden Carter of GRVC
- Laura Swain
- 1:25-cv-00233
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Jones v. Warden Carter: Judge Swain denied Jones’s habeas petition without prejudice because he had not obtained required permission to file.
Rafael Arden Jones, whose § 2241 petition was denied without prejudice because he had not obtained the permission required by the court’s earlier filing restriction; the order also terminated the pending motions and entered judgment.
What happened
In Jones v. Warden Carter of GRVC, Rafael Arden Jones challenged ongoing criminal proceedings in Bronx Supreme Criminal Court arising from his 2021 arrest. He filed the petition without a lawyer.
The court had previously barred Jones from filing similar petitions without first getting permission from the court. Because Jones had not sought that permission, the court denied this petition without prejudice. It also terminated the pending motions and entered judgment.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain said no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied Jones permission to appeal without paying filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The court did not decide the substance of Jones’s challenge to his criminal proceedings.
The detailed version
- Jones v. Warden Carter of GRVC · No. 1:25-cv-00233
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 3, 2025
Background
Rafael Arden Jones filed a petition without a lawyer seeking a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. A habeas petition asks a federal court to review the legality of a person’s custody or related proceedings. Jones challenged ongoing criminal proceedings arising from his 2021 arrest, identified as pending under indictment number 70616-21 in the Bronx Supreme Criminal Court.
Prior filing restriction
The court stated that, in a November 6, 2023 order in a prior related proceeding, it had barred Jones from filing future § 2241 petitions without paying filing fees that challenged those ongoing criminal proceedings unless he first obtained permission from the court. The restriction was based on what the court described as Jones’s continuous submission of frivolous habeas petitions.
Jones filed this new petition but did not seek permission to file it. The court also reviewed later submissions in the case. It stated that, even if those submissions could be understood as seeking permission, the petition still had to be denied under the filing restriction because it continued Jones’s pattern of filing frivolous petitions challenging the 2021 arrest.
Ruling
The court denied the petition without prejudice under the earlier filing-restriction order. The opinion did not decide the merits of Jones’s challenge to his ongoing criminal proceedings. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate all pending motions and enter judgment.
The court further stated that Jones had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, so it would not issue a certificate of appealability. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.