Mendez-Barocio v. Barr

Background

Juan Mendez-Barocio filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his detention. The opinion states that he was being held at the Mersa Verde Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center and that he filed the petition without a lawyer. He paid the $5 filing fee while also filing a motion to proceed without paying court costs, a motion to stay removal, a motion for a temporary restraining order, a motion to appoint counsel, and a motion concerning exhibits from an earlier action.

Duplicative action

The court found that the new petition was identical to the petition in an earlier related action, No. 20-03558 EJD, except for some supporting papers. The earlier action had been dismissed because the matter was pending before the Ninth Circuit and because Mendez-Barocio had not exhausted judicial remedies before filing suit. The new petition did not allege that the Ninth Circuit proceedings had ended or that judicial remedies had since been exhausted.

The court explained that duplicative or repetitious litigation may be dismissed as malicious under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. It also held that paying the filing fee did not prevent dismissal because, while the circumstances from the earlier action remained unchanged, the court could not provide relief in the new action.

Reconsideration

The court treated the new filing, to the extent it sought reconsideration of the earlier dismissal, as a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). The court stated that the deadline for a motion under Rule 59(e) had expired. Rule 60(b) permits relief from a judgment for specified reasons, such as mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, a void judgment, satisfaction of the judgment, or another extraordinary reason justifying relief.

The court concluded that Mendez-Barocio had not shown any Rule 60(b) basis for relief. The papers repeated the earlier petition and included additional materials, but did not assert a qualifying mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, or other reason showing extraordinary circumstances or that the earlier judgment was erroneous. The court therefore denied reconsideration.

Disposition

Judge Edward J. Davila ordered that the § 2241 petition be dismissed as duplicative of the earlier action. The court denied the motion for reconsideration of the earlier dismissal. It denied as moot the motions to proceed without paying court costs, stay removal, obtain a temporary restraining order, appoint counsel, and add exhibits from the earlier action. The order stated that an appeal to the Ninth Circuit was Mendez-Barocio’s remaining remedy concerning the petition’s claims, terminated Docket Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and directed the Clerk to close the file.