Coneal v. Smith
- William Orrick
- 3:21-cv-03421
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Coneal v. Smith, Judge Orrick ordered a response because one federal challenge was unexhausted, without deciding its merits.
Jerry Coneal must choose how to address his unexhausted ninth claim and respond by March 21, 2022. Laurie Smith remains the sole respondent, and Rob Bonta is removed as a respondent.
What happened
In Coneal v. Smith, Jerry Coneal seeks federal relief from state convictions for first-degree murder. His petition raises nine claims, including challenges to evidence, prosecutorial conduct, his lawyer’s performance, jury instructions, his sentence, and the sufficiency of the evidence.
The court found that Coneal had presented Claims 1 through 8 to California’s highest court, but had not presented Claim 9, which challenged the sufficiency of the evidence. Because state remedies generally must be used before a federal court can consider such a claim, the court gave Coneal three choices: dismiss the petition, continue only with the exhausted claims, or ask to pause the case while he exhausts Claim 9 in state court.
Judge Orrick ordered Coneal to file a written response by March 21, 2022, choosing one of those options. The court warned that failing to respond could lead to dismissal for failure to prosecute, terminated the respondent’s motion to dismiss, and removed Rob Bonta as a respondent, leaving Laurie Smith as the sole respondent; it did not decide the merits of Coneal’s claims.
The detailed version
- Coneal v. Smith · No. 3:21-cv-03421
- William Orrick
- Feb. 4, 2022
Background
Jerry Coneal filed a federal habeas petition, which is a request for federal court relief from allegedly unlawful state custody. A San Mateo County Superior Court jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in August 2017 and found true special-circumstance allegations. The state court imposed life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, plus a consecutive term of 25 years to life.
Coneal raised nine federal claims: the admission of gang evidence violated due process; prosecutorial misconduct occurred; trial counsel provided ineffective assistance; the trial court failed to give a curative instruction; the court failed to instruct on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter; cumulative error occurred; his sentence violated constitutional rights; the case should have been sent back for resentencing before another judge; and the conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence.
Exhaustion issue
Respondent’s unopposed motion to dismiss pointed out that Claim 9 had not been presented to the California Supreme Court. The court explained that a state prisoner generally must first give the highest available state court a fair opportunity to rule on each federal claim before seeking federal habeas relief. Claims 1 through 8 were exhausted, but Claim 9 was not.
Because the petition contained an unexhausted claim, the court explained that Coneal had three options:
- Dismiss the petition and return to state court to exhaust Claim
- 2. Proceed in federal court only on the exhausted claims.
- Ask the court to stay, or pause, the federal case while he exhausts Claim 9 and then seeks to amend the petition.
The court also explained potential consequences of each choice. A later petition could face the one-year federal limitations period, and a later petition raising claims omitted from the first petition could be treated as a second or successive petition requiring permission from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. To obtain a stay, Coneal would need to act diligently and show good cause for not previously exhausting the claim.
Order
The court ordered Coneal to file a written response by March 21, 2022, stating which option he chose. It warned that failure to respond could result in dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute. The order terminated respondent’s motion to dismiss and directed the Clerk to terminate all pending motions.
The court also directed the Clerk to identify Laurie Smith, described in the order as the Sheriff of Santa Clara County and Coneal’s custodian, as the sole respondent. The Clerk was directed to terminate Rob Bonta, identified as California’s Attorney General, as a respondent. The order did not grant or deny habeas relief and did not decide the merits of any claim.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.