Duarte Palacios v. Superintendent
- Louis Stanton
- 1:25-cv-02411
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Duarte Palacios v. Superintendent, Judge Stanton denied a state prisoner’s federal challenge as premature because state appeals were not exhausted.
Leopoldo Duarte Palacios was denied immediate federal review of his state conviction because his state remedies were not exhausted, but the denial was without prejudice to filing a new federal petition after exhaustion.
What happened
In Leopoldo Duarte Palacios v. Superintendent, Clinton Correctional Facility, Leopoldo Duarte Palacios asked the federal court to reduce his state-court sentence and challenged his state conviction. The court treated his letter as a petition under Section 2254, the federal law allowing state prisoners to challenge unconstitutional custody.
The court explained that a person generally must first use all available state-court procedures before seeking federal relief. Duarte Palacios said he was still appealing his conviction in the Appellate Division, so the court found that his state remedies had not been fully used.
Judge Louis L. Stanton denied the petition without prejudice, allowing Duarte Palacios to file a new Section 2254 petition after exhausting state remedies. The court also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal and denied permission to appeal without paying the required costs.
The detailed version
- Duarte Palacios v. Superintendent · No. 1:25-cv-02411
- Louis Stanton
- July 14, 2025
Background
Leopoldo Duarte Palacios, who was proceeding without a lawyer and was incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility, submitted a letter asking the court to reduce a sentence entered by the New York Supreme Court in Dutchess County. The Clerk’s Office treated the letter as a petition under Section 2254, the federal statute that allows a person held under a state-court judgment to seek relief when the custody violates the Constitution, federal laws, or treaties. Palacios paid the five-dollar filing fee.
Exhaustion requirement
Before a federal court may review a Section 2254 petition, the petitioner generally must exhaust all available state-court remedies. This means giving the state courts the first opportunity to address the alleged errors. The opinion explains that a petitioner pursuing a state appeal generally must wait for the Appellate Division’s decision and, if necessary, seek permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals. Claims raised through certain other state motions must also be pursued through the available state appeals process.
Palacios stated that he was still appealing his conviction in the Appellate Division and identified his appeal docket number as 2024-8366. The court therefore found that he had not fully exhausted his state remedies and that the federal petition was filed prematurely.
Ruling
The court denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus under Section 2254 without prejudice to Palacios’s filing a new Section 2254 petition after he exhausts his state-court remedies. The court explained that any future petition must identify each ground for relief, provide the supporting facts and legal theory, and request specific relief.
The court also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because the petition did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. It further certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the required costs. Louis L. Stanton signed the order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.