Goding v. Capra
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:20-cv-06733
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Goding v. Capra, Judge McMahon denied Emil Goding’s duplicate Section 2254 petition without prejudice because a similar petition was already pending.
Emil Goding’s current petition was denied without prejudice as duplicative; the opinion states that a substantially similar petition remained pending in a related proceeding.
What happened
Goding v. Capra involved Emil Goding’s petition under Section 2254, a federal law allowing a person to challenge certain custody-related violations. Goding appeared without a lawyer.
The court found that Goding had already filed a substantially similar petition, which was pending in another proceeding in the same court. Because the current petition raised the same claims, the court denied it without prejudice as duplicative.
Chief Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The Clerk was directed to mail the order to Goding and record service on the docket.
The detailed version
- Goding v. Capra · No. 1:20-cv-06733
- Colleen McMahon
- Aug. 24, 2020
Background
Emil Goding, appearing without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The opinion states that Goding had previously filed a substantially similar petition in a related proceeding in the same court, docket number 1:20-CV-6390 (AJN) (OTW). That earlier petition was pending, and the current petition raised the same claims.
Ruling
The court stated that no useful purpose would be served by litigating the current petition because it duplicated the pending petition. It therefore denied the current petition without prejudice to the pending petition in the related proceeding and expressly described the current petition as denied without prejudice as duplicative.
The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because the current petition made no substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. In addition, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3), the court certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The Clerk was directed to mail Goding a copy of the order and note service on the docket.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.