Ontiveros v. Diaz
- Edward Chen
- 3:19-cv-05662
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Ontiveros v. Diaz, Judge Chen ordered Diaz to respond to due-process and equal-protection claims while dismissing two others.
Albert A. Ontiveros’s federal case continues on his due-process and equal-protection claims. Ralph Diaz must respond to those claims. Ontiveros must pay the $5.00 filing fee by January 24, 2020, or the action will be dismissed.
What happened
Albert A. Ontiveros, an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison, filed a federal petition challenging the loss of time credits that could affect how long he remains confined. He alleged that officials took the credits six years after a disciplinary hearing.
Ontiveros also argued that officials violated a prison procedure and interfered with his efforts to complete administrative appeals. The court dismissed those two claims because they involved state-law errors or did not show that he was held in violation of federal law. The court allowed his due-process and equal-protection claims to continue because they were not clearly meritless.
Judge Edward Chen ordered Respondent Ralph Diaz to answer those two claims and address their merits even if he raised procedural defenses. Judge Chen also denied Ontiveros’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee because the court found he had sufficient funds, and ordered him to pay $5.00 by January 24, 2020.
The detailed version
- Ontiveros v. Diaz · No. 3:19-cv-05662
- Edward Chen
- Dec. 20, 2019
Background
Albert A. Ontiveros, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the loss of prison time credits. He was serving a 13-year, eight-month sentence imposed by the Alameda County Superior Court on August 23, 2010. In 2011, he was found guilty of misusing alcohol and drugs under California prison regulations. The loss of time credits was not assessed until January 31, 2017. After unsuccessful state-court petitions challenging the disciplinary decision, he filed this federal case.
Claims and Screening
The court reviewed the petition under the initial screening rules for § 2254 cases. Ontiveros claimed that prison officials violated a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation manual provision requiring the credit loss to be assessed at the next scheduled Classification Committee meeting. The court dismissed that claim because federal habeas relief is unavailable for an error involving only state law.
Ontiveros also claimed that officials interfered with his efforts to complete administrative appeals by confiscating his property and returning it slowly. The court dismissed that claim because difficulty completing administrative appeals, by itself, did not show that he was confined in violation of the Constitution, federal law, or a treaty.
Ontiveros further claimed that assessing the time-credit loss six years after the disciplinary hearing violated due process and that the delay violated equal protection because other inmates did not experience the same delay. The court stated that these claims did not appear clearly meritless and therefore required a response from Diaz.
Ruling and Next Steps
Judge Edward Chen ordered that the due-process and equal-protection claims receive a response and that all other claims be dismissed. Diaz was ordered to file an answer by February 21, 2020. The order allowed Diaz to raise procedural default or another procedural defense, but required him to address the merits of the due-process and equal-protection claims in the same filing. Ontiveros was ordered to file a reply by March 20, 2020.
The court also denied Ontiveros’s application to proceed without paying the filing fee because it found that he had sufficient funds. He was ordered to pay the $5.00 filing fee by January 24, 2020, or the action would be dismissed.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.