Portee v. Koenig
- James Donato
- 3:19-cv-02948
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Portee v. Koenig, Judge Donato dismissed Portee’s amended habeas petition with prejudice as successive or untimely and declined a certificate of appealability.
David B. Portee’s federal challenge to his state conviction was dismissed with prejudice; Koenig was the named respondent.
What happened
David B. Portee, a California prisoner representing himself, filed an amended petition challenging his 1982 conviction and life sentence. He argued that judges involved in his arrest warrant, search warrant, and preliminary hearing lacked proper oaths of office.
Judge Donato concluded that the claim was not shown to be new and that Portee had not provided evidence supporting his allegation about the judges’ oaths. The court also said the petition raised a state-law issue that could not support federal relief because the state courts had already rejected it.
In Portee v. Koenig, Judge Donato dismissed the case with prejudice, directed the Clerk to close the file, and declined to issue a certificate of appealability.
The detailed version
- Portee v. Koenig · No. 3:19-cv-02948
- James Donato
- Jan. 6, 2020
Background
David B. Portee, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under a federal law allowing state prisoners to challenge unconstitutional custody. The court had dismissed his original petition but allowed him to amend it. Portee then filed an amended petition.
Portee stated that he was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison. His principal argument concerned events in his case in 1981: he claimed that the judges involved in his arrest warrant, search warrant, and preliminary hearing did not have proper oaths of office filed with the Secretary of State.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that a federal petition challenging state custody must identify the grounds for relief and the facts supporting each ground. It also addressed two restrictions on later petitions: a second or successive petition generally cannot raise a claim that was not presented earlier unless specified statutory conditions are met, and a state prisoner generally must file within the applicable one-year deadline. For convictions finalized before April 24, 1996, the court stated that the deadline was April 24, 1997.
Portee argued that his petition was timely and not successive because he had recently discovered that the judges’ oaths were not properly filed. The court rejected that explanation. It said Portee had offered no evidence showing that the oaths were lacking; his statement that he personally had not seen documentation was not evidence. The court also said the relevant facts dated to 1981 or earlier and could not reasonably be treated as new.
The court added that, even if the petition were otherwise proper, it did not state a viable basis for relief. It characterized Portee’s argument as an alleged error under state law and explained that a federal court cannot reexamine a state court’s interpretation and application of state law after the state courts have rejected the claim.
Disposition
The court dismissed the case with prejudice and requested that the Clerk close the file. It also declined to issue a certificate of appealability, which is the authorization generally required to appeal the denial of a federal habeas petition. The order was signed by Judge James Donato on January 6, 2020.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.