Fredricks v. V.C.B.C.
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-08586
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
Fredricks v. Warden Renie, G.R.V.C.: Judge Swain denied the amended habeas petition without prejudice after Fredricks failed to file a required second amended petition.
Nigel Fredricks, whose amended Section 2254 petition was denied without prejudice; the opinion names Warden Renie, G.R.V.C. as the respondent.
What happened
In Nigel Fredricks v. Warden Renie, G.R.V.C., Fredricks filed a petition challenging his detention. He was representing himself and was allowed to proceed without paying filing fees.
The court determined that his challenge concerned pretrial detention, not custody under a state-court judgment. It therefore told him to file a new petition under a different federal habeas law and to explain all his claims and whether he had completed required state procedures. The court twice extended his deadline, but Fredricks did not file the required petition.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the amended petition without prejudice. She also said that no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied Fredricks permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal because any appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Fredricks v. V.C.B.C. · No. 1:21-cv-08586
- Laura Swain
- Mar. 22, 2022
Background
Nigel Fredricks filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the legality of his detention. He was proceeding without a lawyer and was allowed to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court received an amended petition on November 22, 2021.
Recharacterization of the Petition
The court concluded that the amended petition challenged Fredricks’s pretrial detention rather than custody under a state-court judgment. The court therefore determined that the proper vehicle for the challenge was a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a different federal habeas statute. On December 6, 2021, the court gave Fredricks 30 days to file a second amended petition under Section 2241 identifying all grounds for relief and alleging facts showing that he had fully exhausted each claim.
The court granted Fredricks a 30-day extension on December 20, 2021, and another 30-day extension on January 27, 2022. Fredricks did not file the required second amended petition.
Ruling
The court denied the amended Section 2254 petition without prejudice because Fredricks did not file the second amended Section 2241 petition. The opinion does not decide the underlying legality of his pretrial detention. The court also determined that Fredricks had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, so it would not issue a certificate of appealability. It further certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of an appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.