Sandoval-Campos v. Homeland Security

Background

Ronald-Danilo Sandoval-Campos, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a procedure allowing a person in state custody to challenge that custody on federal constitutional or statutory grounds. The amended petition challenged his September 18, 2018 New York state conviction and sentence. The opinion says the conviction involved burglary, attempted rape, and sexual abuse offenses, and that the aggregate prison term appeared to be 30 years.

The court had previously ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to review any challenge to an order directing Sandoval-Campos’s removal from the United States. It treated his challenge to his state conviction or sentence as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and gave him additional time to file an amended petition. The court treated the February 7, 2025 amended petition as the operative pleading and understood Sandoval-Campos to have withdrawn his challenge to the earlier order.

Claims and analysis

Sandoval-Campos asserted three grounds for relief: ineffective assistance of counsel; insufficient evidence and an excessive sentence; and a Fourth Amendment claim based on an alleged coercive trip to a police station, a search, and a DNA swab before his arrest.

The court denied relief on the Fourth Amendment claim. It applied the rule that a state prisoner generally cannot obtain federal habeas relief based on the admission of evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search or seizure when the state provided a full and fair opportunity to litigate that issue. The court found that Sandoval-Campos did not allege that New York lacked corrective procedures or that an extraordinary breakdown prevented him from using them. The court also noted that he did not raise a Fourth Amendment claim in his state post-conviction motion under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10.

The court separately found that Sandoval-Campos had not alleged enough facts to show exhaustion of state remedies. Exhaustion requires giving the state courts the first opportunity to consider the federal claims. The opinion states that he did not seek permission to appeal his direct appeal to the New York Court of Appeals and may have had a request for permission to appeal the denial of his § 440.10 motion pending in the Appellate Division. The court therefore denied the amended petition but allowed him to replead the remaining claims, excluding the Fourth Amendment claim, with facts showing that he had exhausted available state remedies.

The court also concluded that the action appeared to be barred by the one-year filing deadline for most § 2254 petitions. Based on the dates alleged, the conviction became final around November 12, 2021, and the one-year period ended around November 12, 2022. Sandoval-Campos’s § 440.10 motion was filed on November 15, 2023, after that period had expired, so the court said that motion did not pause the deadline. The court allowed him to replead facts showing why the petition was timely or why the deadline should be extended for equitable reasons.

Disposition

The court denied Sandoval-Campos’s amended § 2254 petition and granted him 30 days’ leave to file a second amended petition. That filing must identify the dates of his state post-conviction filings, state decisions, appeals, requests for permission to appeal, and notices of those decisions. It must also include facts addressing diligence and any extraordinary circumstance that prevented a timely federal filing.

The court stated that if Sandoval-Campos does not file a second amended petition within the allowed time, the Clerk will be directed to enter a judgment dismissing the action. The court also directed the Clerk to terminate ECF 12, which had been withdrawn, and to keep the matter open until a civil judgment is entered.