Walden v. Walcott
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:19-cv-11409
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Walden v. Wolcott, Judge McMahon reclassified the petition, closed the case administratively, declined a certificate to appeal, and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
John Walden’s new federal habeas action was administratively closed and redirected into his earlier federal case. The order did not decide the merits of his challenge to his conviction.
What happened
Walden v. Wolcott involved John Walden’s petition asking a federal court to review his state conviction. He had already raised related issues in an earlier federal case, where a magistrate judge had ordered him to explain why some claims should not be dismissed for failure to use available state procedures first.
Walden filed this petition under a different federal habeas statute, but the court concluded that it was really a request to reconsider the magistrate judge’s earlier order. The court directed the clerk to docket it as that motion in the earlier case and to close this newer case administratively.
Chief United States District Judge Colleen McMahon also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because Walden had not made the required substantial showing of a constitutional violation. Judge McMahon further denied fee-free status for an appeal and did not decide the underlying challenge to Walden’s conviction.
The detailed version
- Walden v. Walcott · No. 1:19-cv-11409
- Colleen McMahon
- Feb. 12, 2021
Background
John Walden filed this action as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The petition challenged his state-court conviction and a ruling in his earlier related federal habeas case, which was pending before Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn. In that earlier case, Magistrate Judge Netburn had ordered Walden to show why some claims should not be dismissed for failure to exhaust them through available state procedures.
Walden filed the new petition in the Western District of New York. Chief Judge Frank P. Geraci, Jr. transferred it to the Southern District of New York, concluding that it challenged Walden’s underlying conviction and the earlier federal proceeding, and that the relevant records were located in the Southern District.
Court’s Analysis
After the transfer, the clerk opened the matter as a new action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The court reviewed the filing and concluded that it should not have been opened as a separate case. The court construed the filing as a motion asking Magistrate Judge Netburn to reconsider the November 5, 2020 order in the earlier federal case.
The opinion does not decide whether Walden’s conviction was lawful or whether his underlying habeas claims should succeed. Instead, it directs that the filing be docketed in the earlier case as a motion for reconsideration.
Disposition
The court directed the clerk to docket Walden’s petition as a motion for reconsideration of Magistrate Judge Netburn’s November 5, 2020 order, to place a copy of this order in the earlier case, and to administratively close this action, No. 20-CV-10940.
The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because the petition did not make a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right. A certificate of appealability is a document generally required to appeal the denial of federal habeas relief. The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.