Amburn v. Hill
- Jon Tigar
- 4:20-cv-09283
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In (HC) Amburn v. Hill, Judge Peterson transferred Amburn’s state-prisoner challenge to the Northern District of California because the conviction and evidence were there.
Daniel Lee Amburn’s federal challenge to his state conviction was transferred from the Eastern District of California to the Northern District of California; Rick Hill is identified as the respondent.
What happened
(HC) Amburn v. Hill concerns Daniel Lee Amburn’s petition challenging a conviction imposed by the Del Norte Superior Court. Amburn is incarcerated at Folsom State Prison and filed the petition under a federal law allowing challenges to state convictions.
The court explained that both the court where Amburn was incarcerated and the federal court covering the county of conviction had authority to handle the petition. But witnesses and evidence needed to resolve the petition were more readily available in the county where the conviction occurred.
The court transferred the case to the Northern District of California. Judge Peterson’s order did not decide whether Amburn’s petition should succeed.
The detailed version
- Amburn v. Hill · No. 4:20-cv-09283
- Jon Tigar
- Dec. 18, 2020
Background
Daniel Lee Amburn, identified as a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging a conviction imposed by the Del Norte Superior Court. Amburn is incarcerated at Folsom State Prison, which is in the Eastern District of California. The Del Norte Superior Court is in the Northern District of California.
Reasoning
The court stated that both the federal court where Amburn was incarcerated and the federal court covering the place of his conviction had jurisdiction over the petition. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d), however, the court determined that witnesses and evidence needed to resolve the petition were more readily available in the county of conviction.
Ruling
The court ordered that the matter be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The order addressed where the petition should proceed; it did not decide the merits of Amburn’s challenge to his conviction.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.