Smith v. The People of The State of New York
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-09708
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Osmondo Smith v. Christopher Miller, Judge McMahon consolidated two habeas filings challenging the same conviction and denied appeal fee waiver.
Osmondo Smith, whose two filings challenging the same conviction were placed into one case, and Christopher Miller, the named respondent. The order also directed the Clerk to manage the two dockets and affected Smith’s ability to appeal this administrative order without prepaying the fee.
What happened
Osmondo Smith filed two documents challenging the same January 12, 2016 Bronx County conviction: an initial notice intending to seek federal habeas review and a later signed petition.
The court ordered the Clerk to close the later-filed case, 20-CV-10351, and place that petition into the earlier case, 20-CV-9708, as an amended petition. The court did not decide whether Smith’s conviction or habeas claims were valid.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied Smith permission to appeal without paying the fee.
The detailed version
- Smith v. The People of The State of New York · No. 1:20-cv-09708
- Lewis Liman
- Dec. 10, 2020
Background
Osmondo Smith filed a notice of motion on November 17, 2020, stating that he intended to file a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his January 12, 2016 Bronx County judgment of conviction. The Clerk opened that filing as civil action No. 20-CV-9708. Smith later requested more time to file because the copy machine at Great Meadow Correctional Facility had been broken.
On December 8, 2020, Smith filed a signed § 2254 petition. The Clerk opened that petition as a separate civil action, No. 20-CV-10351, even though it challenged the same conviction.
Court’s action
The court directed the Clerk to administratively close No. 20-CV-10351. Administrative closure was a docket-management action; it did not resolve the petition’s claims. The court further directed the Clerk to file the petition from No. 20-CV-10351 as an amended petition in No. 20-CV-9708. The claims in the December 8 petition would therefore proceed under No. 20-CV-9708, and Smith was directed to include that docket number on future filings.
The order also noted that Smith had previously been directed to pay the $5 filing fee for a § 2254 petition or submit a completed request to proceed without paying the fee in advance. The court certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without prepaying the fee.
What the order did not decide
The order did not decide the merits of Smith’s challenge to his conviction, whether the petition was timely, or whether Smith was entitled to habeas relief. It addressed only the duplicate filing and how the two docketed matters should proceed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.