Morales v. Schultz
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:24-cv-04438
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Morales v. Schultz, Judge Corley denied a stay and dismissed Morales’s habeas petition without prejudice because he did not amend it to state a federal claim.
Erick Morales, whose federal habeas petition was dismissed without prejudice and whose motion to stay was denied.
What happened
In Morales v. Schultz, Erick Morales, a California prisoner without a lawyer, sought federal habeas relief based on California resentencing laws. The court had previously dismissed his petition because it did not claim a violation of federal law and gave him time to amend it.
Morales did not file an amended petition by the final deadline. Instead, he asked the court to pause the case while he exhausted federal claims in state court. The court denied the stay because no federal claim was pending and because Morales did not show the required reasons for a stay, including good cause, that his claims were not plainly meritless, and that he had not delayed.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley dismissed the petition without prejudice, allowing a new petition after any federal claims are exhausted. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability, directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the case, and stated that the order resolved docket number 11.
The detailed version
- Morales v. Schultz · No. 3:24-cv-04438
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Apr. 10, 2025
Background
Erick Morales, a prisoner of the State of California proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He argued that his petition for resentencing met the initial requirements of California Penal Code §§ 1170.96 and 1172.6. The court previously dismissed the petition because that argument did not allege a violation of federal law, while allowing Morales to amend the petition.
The court extended the amendment deadline three times, ultimately setting January 18, 2025, as the final deadline. The court had instructed Morales to file a motion to stay at the same time if he needed to exhaust an unexhausted federal claim in state court. Morales did not file an amended petition, did not explain his failure to do so, and did not request another extension. He filed only a motion to stay.
Motion to Stay
The court denied the motion to stay. It explained that there were no pending claims capable of judicial determination because Morales had not amended the petition to assert a federal-law violation.
The court also considered the requirements for staying a federal habeas petition while claims are exhausted in state court. Under Rhines v. Weber, a petitioner must show good cause for failing to exhaust before filing in federal court, that the unexhausted claims are not plainly meritless, and that the petitioner has not used intentionally delaying tactics. The court found that Morales did not identify the claims he wished to exhaust, show that those claims were not plainly meritless, explain his failure to exhaust them earlier, or show that he had not delayed.
Disposition
The motion for a stay was DENIED. The petition was DISMISSED without prejudice to filing a new petition containing exhausted claims alleging a violation of federal law. The court did not issue a certificate of appealability because it did not conclude that reasonable judges would debate whether the petition stated a valid claim that a constitutional right had been denied. The clerk was directed to enter judgment and close the file.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.