Gutierrez v. Diaz

Background

Ernesto Gutierrez, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state conviction. The conviction involved kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, and dissuading a witness. The opinion states that Gutierrez had previously filed a federal habeas petition challenging the same state conviction, and that the court denied that earlier petition on its merits in a prior related proceeding, Case No. 14-03767 YGR (PR).

Gutierrez filed the current federal petition on August 1, 2019. Craig Koenig, identified in the caption as acting warden, moved to dismiss it as a second or successive petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). The statute requires a petitioner to obtain authorization from the federal appeals court before filing a second or successive federal habeas petition. The record showed that Gutierrez had not sought or obtained that authorization.

Motion for Default Judgment

Gutierrez filed a document titled “Motion for Summary Judgment/Default Fed. Rule 55, 56 Notice.” The court construed it as a request for default judgment, based on Gutierrez’s assertion that Koenig had failed to respond to the petition by the deadline set in an earlier court order.

The court found that Koenig filed the motion to dismiss on March 11, 2020—two days before the response deadline. Because Koenig had responded on time, the court held that default judgment was inappropriate and denied Gutierrez’s motion for entry of default judgment.

Motion to Dismiss

The court explained that a claim presented in a second or successive federal habeas petition must be dismissed if it was presented in an earlier petition. The court also stated that a new factual basis does not avoid the successive-petition rule when the underlying claim was previously presented. A petitioner must first obtain an authorization order from the federal appeals court, and without that order the district court must dismiss the successive petition.

The court found that Gutierrez’s current petition challenged the same underlying state conviction as his earlier federal petition. Gutierrez did not dispute the earlier filing and had not obtained an authorization order from the Ninth Circuit. The court therefore concluded that it was required to dismiss the current petition in its entirety under § 2244(b).

Disposition

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied Gutierrez’s motion for entry of default, granted Koenig’s motion to dismiss the petition as successive, and dismissed the petition under § 2244(b). The court also determined that no certificate of appealability was warranted, terminated the pending motions, and closed the file.

Classification

This is a procedural order because the court dismissed the second habeas petition for failure to obtain the required authorization for a successive petition, without reaching the merits of Gutierrez’s challenge to his conviction.