Torres v. Kernan
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:19-cv-06885
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Torres v. Kernan, Judge Hamilton granted a fee waiver, dismissed Torres’s habeas petition, and denied a certificate of appealability because his parole challenge raised no federal claim.
Mario Torres’s federal challenge to his California parole-violation finding was dismissed; the court also granted his request to proceed without paying the filing fee and denied a certificate of appealability.
What happened
Mario Torres, who represented himself, challenged a California parole-violation finding. He argued that he was not on parole because he refused to sign the parole documents, which he viewed as a contract, and alleged that his arrest was retaliation.
The court explained that parole was a mandatory part of his state prison sentence under California law and did not require his consent or signature. It dismissed the petition, reasoning that Torres’s argument was based on state law and that federal habeas relief was unavailable for the alleged state-law error.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted Torres’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee, dismissed the petition, denied a certificate of appealability, and ordered the case closed.
The detailed version
- Torres v. Kernan · No. 4:19-cv-06885
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Jan. 22, 2020
Background
Mario Torres, a former California prisoner and parolee, filed a self-represented petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He also asked to proceed without paying the filing fee. His parole-violation finding occurred in Contra Costa County, so the court concluded that venue was proper.
Torres had been released from state prison on November 14, 2018. During his guilty plea and sentencing proceedings, he was informed that his prison sentence would include parole or post-release community supervision. On November 9, 2018, he received written parole conditions but refused to sign them. He was arrested on January 17, 2019, for violating parole and was later found to have violated parole by failing to report to the parole office. He received a 180-day sentence for that violation.
Claim and Analysis
Torres argued that he was not legally on parole because he had refused to sign the parole documents. He claimed the documents were a contract that did not bind him without his signature, and he alleged that his arrest was retaliation for refusing to sign them.
The court noted that the state courts had already rejected this argument. The Contra Costa County Superior Court determined that parole was not a contract requiring a prisoner’s consent, but was a mandatory part of a state prison sentence under California law. The state court also found that Torres had been advised about parole during sentencing. The California Supreme Court denied his later petition without comment.
The federal court stated that, even assuming Torres had presented a claim that could be considered in a federal habeas case, he was not entitled to relief. His argument challenged the state courts’ interpretation and application of California law. Federal habeas relief is not available to reexamine an alleged state-law error.
Disposition
The court granted Torres’s motion to proceed without paying the filing fee. It dismissed the petition for the reasons stated in the opinion, denied a certificate of appealability because reasonable jurists would not find the result debatable, and directed the clerk to close the case.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court dismissed the habeas petition without granting relief on a federal constitutional or federal-law claim; it concluded that the asserted error was a state-law matter outside federal habeas review.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.