Turner v. Beltz
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:23-cv-00559
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Turner v. Beltz, Judge Tostrud dismissed Jonathan Turner's habeas petition with prejudice as untimely, denied his fee-waiver request, and refused a certificate of appealability.
Jonathan Turner’s habeas petition was dismissed with prejudice, and his application to proceed without paying the filing fee was denied. Tracy Beltz and Keith Ellison were the named respondents.
What happened
Jonathan Turner, representing himself, filed a petition asking the federal court to review his custody through a habeas proceeding. He later asked to proceed without paying filing fees. A magistrate judge recommended dismissing the petition and denying that request, and Turner objected.
The district court independently reviewed the recommendation because Turner objected. It agreed with the magistrate judge that the petition was untimely. The court also decided that the dismissal would be with prejudice, meaning the petition could not be refiled, because the untimeliness problem could not be overcome.
Judge Eric C. Tostrud overruled Turner’s objections, accepted the recommendation in full, dismissed the habeas petition with prejudice, denied Turner’s request to proceed without paying filing fees, and ordered that no certificate of appealability issue.
The detailed version
- Turner v. Beltz · No. 0:23-cv-00559
- Eric Tostrud
- July 6, 2023
Background
Jonathan Turner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus while representing himself. He later filed an application to proceed without paying the filing fee. The case came before the district court on Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright’s Report and Recommendation, which recommended dismissing Turner’s petition and denying his fee-waiver application. Turner objected to the recommendation. The opinion states that Respondent Tracy Beltz did not file a substantive response to the objection and that Respondent Keith Ellison filed no response.
Court’s analysis
Because Turner objected, the district court reviewed the Report and Recommendation independently under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Local Rule 72.2(b)(3). The court concluded that Magistrate Judge Wright’s analysis and conclusions were correct. The court identified the petition as untimely. Although the Report and Recommendation did not specify whether dismissal would be with or without prejudice, the district court determined that dismissal would be with prejudice because it treated untimeliness as a procedural hurdle that could not be overcome by the prisoner.
Ruling
The court overruled Turner’s objections and accepted the Report and Recommendation in full. Judge Eric C. Tostrud ordered that the habeas petition be dismissed with prejudice, denied Turner’s application to proceed without paying the filing fee, and ordered that no certificate of appealability issue. The court directed that judgment be entered.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.