Daniel Ray Loyd v. Neil McDowell
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:20-cv-07695
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Daniel Ray Loyd v. Neil McDowell, Judge Gilliam administratively closed the case, denied a fee-waiver request as moot, and sent the petition to an earlier case.
Daniel Ray Loyd’s new federal petition was administratively closed and directed into his earlier pending case; the order did not decide his challenges to the conviction or sentence.
What happened
Daniel Ray Loyd, a state prisoner, filed a petition asking a federal court to review his 2016 conviction and sentence. The petition challenged convictions involving murder, firearm use, firearm possession, attempted robbery, and life without parole.
The court noted that Loyd already had an earlier petition challenging the same conviction pending in the Northern District of California. It ordered the new petition treated as a request to add claims to that earlier case instead of keeping it as a separate case.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. administratively closed this case, denied Loyd’s request to proceed without paying filing fees as moot, and directed the clerk to file the petition in the earlier case and terminate pending motions.
The detailed version
- Daniel Ray Loyd v. Neil McDowell · No. 4:20-cv-07695
- Haywood Gilliam
- Nov. 9, 2020
Background
Daniel Ray Loyd, a state prisoner incarcerated at High Desert State Prison, filed a self-represented petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He challenged a 2016 Lake County Superior Court conviction for first-degree murder, use of a firearm, being a felon in possession of a firearm, attempted robbery, and a sentence of life without parole.
The petition was initially filed in the Central District of California. That court transferred the action to the Northern District of California because venue was proper in the district where the conviction occurred. The court then noted that Loyd already had an earlier petition pending in the Northern District that challenged the same conviction. The earlier proceeding was case No. 18-cv-7228-HSG.
Court’s reasoning
The court relied on Ninth Circuit precedent providing that when a self-represented petitioner files a new petition while an earlier petition remains pending, the new petition must be treated as a request to amend the pending petition rather than as an unauthorized second or later petition.
Order and disposition
The court ordered that:
- This action, No. 20-cv-07695-HSG (PR), be administratively closed. - Loyd’s request to proceed without paying filing fees be DENIED as moot. - The clerk construe the new petition as a motion for leave to amend and file the petition in the earlier case. - The clerk terminate all pending motions in this action and administratively close the action.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. did not decide the validity of Loyd’s conviction, sentence, or habeas claims in this order. The order handled the relationship between the new petition and the earlier pending case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.