Kelly v. Hixon

Background

Lamar Kelly, a California state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the denial of his state-court petition. He sought relief under California Senate Bill 620, which amended California sentencing laws to give trial courts discretion to strike certain firearm enhancements.

Under a 2017 plea agreement, Kelly pleaded no contest in Contra Costa County Superior Court to two robbery counts and one count of assault with a firearm. He admitted a firearm enhancement allegation and received a 21-year state-prison sentence. He did not appeal.

After Senate Bill 620 became effective on January 1, 2018, Kelly filed a state habeas petition seeking to strike the enhancement. The superior court denied that petition as untimely. The California Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal because there is no right to appeal a superior court’s denial of a habeas petition. Kelly later filed another superior-court petition seeking the same relief, which was denied as successive. The California Court of Appeal denied a later petition for reasons identified by the superior court and because Kelly had not stated an initial showing supporting relief. The California Supreme Court summarily denied his petition.

Federal claim and motion

Kelly claimed that the state courts violated his federal due-process rights by denying his request for relief under Senate Bill 620. The court initially found, after screening, that the petition stated a claim capable of judicial determination. Hixon then moved to dismiss.

Although Hixon did not identify a procedural rule authorizing the motion, the court treated the argument that Kelly’s claim was not legally cognizable as a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which addresses failure to state a claim. The court explained that a filing by a person without a lawyer must be read generously, but the court need not accept conclusory allegations or unreasonable inferences.

Court’s analysis

Federal prisoner relief under Section 2254 is available only for custody violating the United States Constitution, federal laws, or treaties. A federal court generally cannot grant relief for an alleged mistake in interpreting or applying state law. A state-law error can support federal due process relief only if it was so arbitrary and capricious that it created fundamental unfairness.

The court concluded that Kelly had not made that showing. The state superior court had determined that Senate Bill 620 applied retroactively to Kelly because his judgment was not final when the law took effect. It denied relief because Kelly waited too long to seek it, not because Senate Bill 620 was inapplicable. Even accepting Kelly’s later allegation that he did not learn about a relevant California Supreme Court decision until late 2021 because of lockdowns and restricted law-library access, the court found that he still offered no explanation for waiting more than nine additional months to file.

The court also found that Kelly had not adequately explained the nearly two-and-a-half-year period between Senate Bill 620’s effective date and the California Supreme Court decision. The court rejected Kelly’s argument that he had a due-process-protected liberty interest in delaying his state-court claim and concluded that the state courts’ decisions were not arbitrary, capricious, or fundamentally unfair.

Disposition

Judge Jacquelyn Corley granted Hixon’s motion to dismiss on the ground that the petition did not present a claim capable of judicial determination. The court stated that no certificate of appealability should issue because reasonable jurists would not find its assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong. The order also stated that it resolved docket number 20.