McFadden v. Cuomo
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-00423
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In McFadden v. Cuomo, Judge McMahon transferred McFadden’s successive petition to the Second Circuit because appellate authorization was required.
The order affected Reginald Ghaffar McFadden’s § 2254 petition challenging his 1996 state conviction and sentence. It transferred that petition to the Second Circuit because the district court treated it as a second or successive petition requiring appellate authorization.
What happened
McFadden, who was incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility and represented himself, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 1996 New York conviction and sentence. The court found that he had previously filed a petition challenging the same conviction and that the earlier petition had been decided on its merits.
Because this was a second or successive petition, McFadden needed permission from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before pursuing it in the district court. The district court therefore sent the petition to that appeals court rather than deciding whether McFadden’s conviction or sentence was lawful.
In McFadden v. Cuomo, Judge Colleen McMahon transferred the petition to the Second Circuit and closed the district-court case. The court also said that no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- McFadden v. Cuomo · No. 1:20-cv-00423
- Colleen McMahon
- Jan. 24, 2020
Background
Reginald Ghaffar McFadden, who was incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility and proceeded without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the legality of his March 20, 1996 conviction and sentence in New York Supreme Court, Rockland County.
The district court’s records showed that McFadden had filed an earlier § 2254 application challenging the same conviction in a prior related proceeding, No. 00-CV-2291 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 11, 2001). The court stated that the earlier application had been decided on the merits. It therefore treated the new application as a “second or successive” petition.
Authorization Requirement
Federal law requires a person to obtain authorization from the appropriate federal court of appeals before filing a second or successive § 2254 petition in a district court. The opinion stated that McFadden must ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for permission to pursue the application. The opinion’s footnote identified statutory requirements concerning a previously unavailable, retroactive constitutional rule or newly undiscoverable facts that could establish that no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty absent constitutional error.
Ruling
The court transferred the petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the interest of justice under 28 U.S.C. § 1631. This was a transfer, not a ruling on whether McFadden’s conviction or sentence was lawful. The order closed the district-court case and stated that McFadden could move to reopen it under the same civil docket number if the Court of Appeals authorized him to proceed.
The court also stated that a certificate of appealability would not issue because McFadden had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. It certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.