Williams v. Cueva
- Riordan
- 3:25-cv-07583
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
Williams v. Cueva: Judge Riordan transferred Williams’s state-conviction challenge from the Eastern District of California to the Northern District of California.
Kenneth Williams’s petition was transferred from the Eastern District of California to the Northern District of California; the order did not resolve the petition’s merits.
What happened
In Williams v. Cueva, Kenneth Williams, a state prisoner without a lawyer, filed a petition challenging an Alameda County Superior Court conviction. The opinion does not describe the claims’ merits.
The court said both the Eastern District of California and the Northern District of California could hear the petition, but the necessary witnesses and evidence were more readily available in Alameda County. It therefore transferred the matter to the Northern District of California.
Judge Sean C. Riordan issued the transfer order. The order moved the case but did not decide whether Williams’s conviction or petition was legally valid.
The detailed version
- Williams v. Cueva · No. 3:25-cv-07583
- Riordan
- Aug. 28, 2025
Background
Kenneth Williams, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging a conviction issued by the Alameda County Superior Court. The opinion does not describe the grounds for his challenge or address whether those grounds have merit.
Transfer ruling
The court stated that both the Eastern District of California and the federal district court for the district where Williams was convicted had jurisdiction to consider the petition. It concluded that the witnesses and evidence needed to resolve the petition were more readily available in Alameda County. Relying on that consideration and 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d), the court ordered that the matter be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Effect of the order
The ruling was a transfer of venue, meaning the case was moved to another federal district. The court did not decide the substance of Williams’s challenge to his conviction. The classification is procedural because the order addressed where the petition should proceed, not whether Williams was entitled to relief.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.