Sully v. Brown
- William Alsup
- 3:92-cv-00829
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Sully v. Brown, Judge Alsup denied Sully’s Rule 60(b)(6) motion because it was an unauthorized successive habeas petition and untimely.
Anthony J. Sully’s request to reopen the 2008 federal judgment was denied; the opinion also identifies Ron Broomfield as the respondent and acting warden.
What happened
In Sully v. Brown, Anthony J. Sully, representing himself, asked the court to reopen a 2008 judgment granting summary judgment on claims in his federal habeas petition. He renewed claims that pretrial confinement made him unable to stand trial and that his habeas lawyer, Richard Mazer, failed to raise that issue properly.
The court said the motion challenged a judgment that had decided the claims on their merits. For that reason, it treated the motion as a successive habeas petition requiring permission from the appeals court. The court also found the motion untimely because it was filed twelve years after judgment and six years after Sully raised the same claims in a state-court petition, which was still pending.
Judge William Alsup denied the motion for relief from final judgment under Rule 60(b)(6).
The detailed version
- Sully v. Brown · No. 3:92-cv-00829
- William Alsup
- Sept. 23, 2020
Background
Anthony J. Sully filed a motion without a lawyer seeking relief from a final judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). The judgment was an order granting summary judgment on claims in Sully’s federal habeas petition, entered on May 20, 2008.
Sully renewed two related allegations: that the conditions of his pretrial confinement caused him to be incompetent to stand trial, and that his habeas counsel, Richard Mazer, provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise that claim properly. The opinion states that Sully filed a successive petition in state court in 2014 based in part on these claims, and that the state petition remained pending when the federal court ruled.
Court’s reasoning
The court held that Sully’s motion sought relief from a judgment that had addressed the merits of his claims. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the court therefore treated the motion as a successive habeas petition requiring authorization from the Court of Appeals.
The court also held that the motion was untimely. It was filed twelve years after the federal judgment and six years after the same claims had been raised in a successive state-court petition. The court cited the time limit in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(c)(1).
Disposition
Judge William Alsup denied the motion for relief from final judgment under Rule 60(b)(6).
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.