Soloman v. Black
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:23-cv-04799
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Soloman v. Black, Judge Corley denied a certificate of appealability because exhaustion was plainly lacking, without reaching the detainee’s underlying habeas claims.
Nebiyu Soloman, whose appeal could not proceed without a certificate of appealability; the order did not decide the merits of his habeas claims.
What happened
In Soloman v. Black, Nebiyu Soloman, a detainee at Atascadero State Hospital representing himself, filed a petition challenging his detention under a federal habeas statute. The court had earlier dismissed that petition because he had not exhausted available state-court remedies.
Soloman appealed, and the appeals court directed the district court to decide whether he should receive a certificate of appealability. Such a certificate is required for an appeal of this type of habeas ruling.
Judge Jacquelyn Corley denied a certificate of appealability. She ruled that reasonable judges would not debate the conclusion that Soloman had failed to exhaust his claims, so the court did not consider whether his petition stated a valid constitutional claim.
The detailed version
- Soloman v. Black · No. 3:23-cv-04799
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Mar. 5, 2024
Background
Nebiyu Soloman is a detainee at Atascadero State Hospital who filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 without a lawyer. The court had dismissed the petition without prejudice to refiling after he exhausted state-court remedies. Soloman appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals directed the district court to decide whether to issue a certificate of appealability under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A).
Certificate-of-Appealability Standard
A certificate of appealability permits an appeal from certain habeas rulings. When a habeas petition is dismissed on a procedural ground without deciding the underlying constitutional claim, the petitioner must show both that reasonable judges could debate whether the petition states a valid constitutional claim and that reasonable judges could debate whether the district court correctly applied the procedural rule.
Court’s Ruling
Judge Jacquelyn Corley denied a certificate of appealability. The court concluded that reasonable judges would not debate or find wrong its determination that Soloman had failed to exhaust his claims. The petition stated that he had not filed an appeal or another application, petition, or motion in the state appellate courts. The court also concluded that Soloman’s stated reasons for not pursuing appellate remedies did not qualify as extremely unusual circumstances and did not make the state appellate process ineffective or unavailable.
Because the procedural issue was clear, the court did not decide whether Soloman’s petition stated a valid constitutional claim. The order therefore left in place the earlier dismissal without prejudice for failure to exhaust state remedies.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.