Cosey v. The People
- Beth Freeman
- 5:23-cv-01193
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Cosey v. The People, Judge Freeman denied Cosey permission to appeal the earlier procedural dismissal of his conviction challenge.
Curt Laron Cosey, Jr.; the order denied his request for a certificate of appealability concerning the earlier dismissal of his petition.
What happened
Cosey v. The People involved Curt Laron Cosey, Jr., a state prisoner who challenged his state conviction in a petition filed without a lawyer. The court dismissed that petition with permission to amend, but Cosey did not respond by the deadline, so the court later dismissed the case.
Cosey asked for a certificate of appealability, which is required to appeal the dismissal of a federal conviction challenge. He repeated his original claims but did not explain why the court’s procedural dismissal could reasonably be disputed.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied the certificate of appealability. The order did not reconsider the underlying conviction challenge and sent a copy to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The detailed version
- Cosey v. The People · No. 5:23-cv-01193
- Beth Freeman
- Dec. 5, 2023
Background
Curt Laron Cosey, Jr., a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state conviction. On August 22, 2023, the court dismissed the petition but allowed him to amend it to correct identified deficiencies. Cosey did not respond by the September 19, 2023 deadline, and the court dismissed the action on October 5, 2023.
The court later treated Cosey’s subsequent filing as a motion asking it to reconsider the dismissal and denied that motion, finding that the dismissal had been proper.
Motion for a Certificate of Appealability
Cosey then filed a motion for a certificate of appealability. A certificate of appealability is permission required to appeal the denial or dismissal of a federal petition challenging a state conviction. His motion repeated his original claims but did not explain why a certificate should issue.
Ruling
The court applied the standard that a certificate requires a showing that reasonable judges could debate whether the district court’s procedural ruling was correct. The court found that Cosey had not made that showing and denied the certificate of appealability. The order terminated Docket No. 15 and directed the Clerk to send a copy to the Ninth Circuit and to Cosey.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.