Nunez v. Hill
- Jeffrey White
- 4:22-cv-04881
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Nunez v. Hill, Judge White dismissed the petition, denied two motions, and allowed one claim to be refiled after appellate authorization.
Ivan Mark Nunez, whose federal challenge to his 2004 sentence was dismissed; Rick Hill was the named respondent.
What happened
In Nunez v. Hill, a California prisoner challenged his 2004 sentence under the state Three Strikes Law. He argued that a 1982 assault conviction used to increase his sentence was invalid and did not qualify as a strike.
The court rejected the first two claims because federal habeas law generally does not permit attacks on an old conviction used to increase a later sentence, and because whether a conviction qualifies as a strike is a state-law question. The court also found that the third claim was a repeat challenge to the same criminal judgment and required authorization from the federal appeals court before it could proceed.
Judge White dismissed the petition, dismissed the third claim without prejudice to refiling after authorization, denied requests for appointed counsel and an evidentiary hearing, granted permission to proceed without paying filing fees, and found that no appeal certificate was warranted.
The detailed version
- Nunez v. Hill · No. 4:22-cv-04881
- Jeffrey White
- Sept. 23, 2022
Background
Ivan Mark Nunez, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the validity of his 2004 sentence under California’s Three Strikes Law. The court granted his application to proceed without paying filing fees.
Claims and analysis
Nunez argued that he was actually innocent of a 1982 assault conviction that had been used to increase his sentence. The court held that this challenge was not a cognizable federal habeas claim. Generally, once an earlier state conviction is no longer open to direct or collateral review, a person may not use a later federal habeas petition to challenge an increased sentence based on that conviction. The recognized exception involves the failure to appoint counsel for the earlier conviction. Nunez did not claim that he had been denied counsel in the 1982 case.
Nunez also argued that the 1982 conviction did not qualify as a strike under California’s Three Strikes Law. The court held that this claim involved only the interpretation or application of California law. Federal habeas relief is not available for an alleged error of state law.
In his third claim, Nunez argued that the prosecutor knew he was actually innocent of the earlier conviction and that defense counsel gave him inadequate advice by failing to challenge that conviction before sentencing. The court stated that these arguments would ordinarily be valid challenges to the current sentence, but that Nunez had already challenged the same 2004 criminal judgment in an earlier federal habeas petition, identified as No. 07-2485-JSC. That earlier petition had been dismissed on its merits. Because Nunez had not obtained authorization from the federal appeals court to file a second or successive petition, the district court could not proceed with the third claim.
Disposition
The court dismissed the petition. It dismissed the third claim without prejudice to refiling after Nunez obtains the required authorization. The court denied his motions for appointment of counsel and for an evidentiary hearing. It granted his request to proceed without paying filing fees. The court also determined that no certificate of appealability was warranted because Nunez had not made the required substantial showing that reasonable judges could debate the denial of his claims. The clerk was directed to enter judgment and close the file.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.