Godfrey v. Unknown
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-03617
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Godfrey v. UNKNOWNE, Judge Freeman dismissed Joshua Godfrey’s habeas petition with leave to amend because its claims were largely illegible and unclear.
Joshua Godfrey’s federal petition was dismissed, but he was allowed to submit an amended petition within 28 days. The respondent is captioned “UNKNOWNE,” and the opinion provides no further identifying information.
What happened
In Godfrey v. UNKNOWNE, Joshua Godfrey, a California state prisoner representing himself, filed a petition challenging his state-court custody under federal law. He used an outdated form, and much of his handwriting could not be read.
The readable portions suggested claims about ineffective assistance of counsel and earlier state-court proceedings, but the petition did not clearly explain all of his claims. The court also warned that the case might be barred as a second or successive federal petition because Godfrey had filed an earlier federal petition involving state resentencing.
The court dismissed the petition but allowed Godfrey to file an amended petition on the court’s form within 28 days. Judge Freeman stated that failing to respond on time would result in dismissal of the action without prejudice and without further notice.
The detailed version
- Godfrey v. Unknown · No. 5:20-cv-03617
- Beth Freeman
- May 5, 2021
Background
Joshua Godfrey, identified as a California state prisoner, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 seeking federal review of his state-court custody. He represented himself. The case had previously been dismissed because he did not timely submit a complete application to proceed without paying the filing fee or pay the $5 filing fee. The court later reopened the matter, denied his fee application, and received the filing fee on November 20, 2020.
Claims and procedural concerns
Godfrey used an outdated petition form, and much of his handwriting was illegible. The readable portions indicated that he had been convicted in San Mateo County Superior Court and sentenced on or about March 2, 2010. They also indicated that he had pursued claims in the state courts and attached state-court decisions.
The state superior court’s decision appeared to describe a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel concerning a petition for a writ of coram nobis, a state-court procedure. The state court also stated that some claims had already been considered and rejected, making the state filing successive. The state appellate and high courts summarily denied the petitions.
The court further advised Godfrey that the current case might be a second or successive federal habeas petition because he had filed an earlier federal case challenging the denial of resentencing under state law. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), a qualifying second or successive petition generally requires authorization from the federal appeals court before it may be filed in the district court. The court did not decide in this order whether that bar applied to the amended petition.
Ruling
The court dismissed the petition with leave to file an amended petition using the court’s form. The amended petition had to use the caption and civil case number in the order, include the words “AMENDED PETITION” on its first page, and be filed within 28 days after the order was filed. The court stated that failure to file a timely response would result in dismissal of the action without prejudice and without further notice to Godfrey.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman did not reach the merits of Godfrey’s underlying claims in this order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.