Petersen v. Wheeler
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:21-cv-01533
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
In Petersen v. Wheeler, Judge Tostrud accepted a recommendation, denied Petersen’s custody petition, denied his fee application as moot, and dismissed the action without prejudice.
Ryan Petersen’s petition was denied and the action was dismissed without prejudice. His application to proceed without prepaying fees or costs was denied as moot, and no certificate of appealability was issued.
What happened
In Petersen v. Wheeler, Ryan Petersen challenged the filing of a petition for a writ concerning his custody. A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the petition without prejudice and denying Petersen’s application to proceed without paying fees or costs as moot.
Petersen sent a letter saying he had not authorized the claims and asking the court to reject the petition. The court decided that the letter did not object to the recommendation because it was dated before the recommendation and sought the same result. Neither side filed objections, so the court reviewed the recommendation for clear error and found none.
Judge Tostrud accepted the recommendation, denied Petersen’s petition, denied his fee application as moot, and dismissed the action without prejudice. The court also issued no certificate of appealability.
The detailed version
- Petersen v. Wheeler · No. 0:21-cv-01533
- Eric Tostrud
- Oct. 6, 2021
Background
Ryan Petersen was the petitioner, and Sherlinda Wheeler, identified as warden, and other respondents were named in the case. Petersen filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz issued a Report and Recommendation on August 24, 2021, recommending that the petition be dismissed without prejudice and that Petersen’s application to proceed in district court without prepaying fees or costs be denied as moot.
The recommendation stated that the parties had 14 days to file specific written objections. Neither Petersen nor the respondents filed objections. The Clerk received a letter from Petersen on August 26, 2021. The letter was dated August 22, before the recommendation was issued. Petersen wrote that he rejected the petition and its claims, did not authorize the claims, and believed the National Post Conviction Project had filed the petition on his behalf without his consent regarding the information presented to the court.
Court’s Analysis
The court noted questions about the date Petersen identified for the petition, the fact that the petition and a later reply appeared to be signed by Petersen without a lawyer, and Petersen’s intent and capacity. The court did not resolve those questions because it concluded that the letter could not reasonably be understood as an objection to the recommendation. Because no objections were filed, the court reviewed the recommendation for clear error under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b) and found no clear error. The court understood Petersen’s request to reject the petition as seeking the same result recommended by the magistrate judge.
Disposition
The court accepted the Report and Recommendation. It denied Petersen’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, denied his application to proceed without prepaying fees or costs as moot, and dismissed the action without prejudice. The court issued no certificate of appealability. This order did not decide the underlying custody claims on their merits; it accepted the recommendation after clear-error review without merits analysis.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.