Ramey v. Warden, MCF Rush City
- Jerry Blackwell
- 0:25-cv-01722
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
In Ramey v. Warden, MCF Rush City, Judge Blackwell denied Scott Wade Ramey's petition for release from state custody as filed four months too late.
State prisoners in Minnesota (and the broader Eighth Circuit) who are considering filing federal habeas corpus petitions challenging their state convictions. This case illustrates that such petitions must be filed within the one-year federal deadline — calculated after accounting for time spent in state-court proceedings — or risk dismissal regardless of the underlying claims.
What happened
In Ramey v. Warden, MCF Rush City (No. 25-1722), Scott Wade Ramey, a Minnesota state prisoner representing himself, filed a federal petition asking a court to review his state conviction. Federal law gives prisoners one year after their state-court appeals are finished to file such a petition, but Ramey filed his four months after that deadline passed.
Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster reviewed the petition first and recommended it be thrown out as untimely. Ramey objected, but rather than explaining why his petition should be considered on time, he resubmitted arguments about his underlying conviction — claiming the victim lied and pointing to inconsistencies in his prosecution. He also submitted medical records, but the court noted that complaints about prison conditions cannot be raised in this type of proceeding.
Judge Jerry W. Blackwell accepted the Magistrate Judge's recommendation in full, overruled Ramey's objection, and denied the petition as untimely. The court also denied Ramey's request to proceed without paying fees, dismissed the case, and declined to issue a certificate of appealability — a document that would be required before Ramey could appeal this ruling to a higher court.
The detailed version
- Ramey v. Warden, MCF Rush City · No. 0:25-cv-01722
- Jerry W. Blackwell
- July 23, 2025
Background
Scott Wade Ramey, a Minnesota state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer (pro se), filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 — a federal statute that allows a person held in state custody to ask a federal court to review whether the state's custody violates federal law or the Constitution. Ramey challenged his underlying state conviction, raising claims that the victim lied and that there were inconsistencies in his prosecution.
Procedural History
On May 1, 2025, United States Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster issued a Report and Recommendation (R&R) advising that the petition be dismissed. The basis for the R&R was not the merits of Ramey's conviction claims, but rather the statute of limitations: under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d), a state prisoner generally has one year to file a federal habeas corpus petition after state-court remedies are exhausted. The R&R found that even after accounting for tolling periods — that is, time during which the one-year clock was paused while Ramey's direct appeal and state post-conviction proceedings were pending — Ramey still filed his federal petition four months after the deadline expired.
Ramey was granted an extension of time and filed objections on June 23, 2025.
Ramey's Objections
Ramey's objections consisted of two documents: an annotated copy of Minnesota Statute § 609.342 (the state criminal statute under which he was apparently convicted) and the State's appellate brief from his direct appeal. These materials repeated substantive arguments about his conviction — that the victim was untruthful and the prosecution was inconsistent — but did not address the timeliness issue or identify any legal or factual error in the Magistrate Judge's analysis of the limitations period. Ramey also separately submitted medical records; the court noted that to the extent he was attempting to challenge the conditions of his confinement, such claims are not cognizable (legally proper) in a habeas proceeding under Eighth Circuit precedent. See Spencer v. Haynes, 774 F.3d 467, 469–70 (8th Cir. 2014).
Standard of Review
The district court reviewed de novo (anew, without deference) the portions of the R&R to which Ramey objected, and reviewed for clear error the portions to which no objection was made. Because Ramey is pro se, his filings were entitled to liberal construction — meaning the court interpreted them as favorably as the text reasonably allowed.
Ruling
Judge Blackwell accepted the R&R in its entirety. The court found that Ramey's objections did not address the untimeliness issue and identified no legal or factual error in the R&R. The unobjected-to portions were found to be neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law.
The court issued the following specific orders:
- Ramey's objection to the R&R is overruled.
- The May 1, 2025 R&R is accepted.
- Ramey's § 2254 petition is denied as untimely.
- Ramey's application to proceed in forma pauperis (without paying court fees) is denied.
- The matter is dismissed.
- No certificate of appealability is issued.
A certificate of appealability is a required threshold authorization for a habeas petitioner to appeal a denial to a circuit court; by declining to issue one, the court has not foreclosed appeal entirely, but Ramey would need to seek the certificate from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals directly.
Key Legal Basis
The sole dispositive issue was the one-year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). The court did not reach the merits of Ramey's underlying conviction claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.