Mendoza v. Jamison
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-05942
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Mendoza v. Jamison, Judge Swain transferred Mendoza’s reclassified challenge to the Second Circuit because it required permission for a second Section 2255 motion.
Seferino Pimentel Mendoza, whose challenge to his federal conviction and sentence was transferred to the Second Circuit for any required authorization to pursue a second or successive Section 2255 motion.
What happened
In Mendoza v. Jamison, Seferino Pimentel Mendoza, who was representing himself, challenged his federal conviction and sentence through a petition filed under Section 2241, a law used to challenge certain forms of federal custody. The court explained that challenges to a federal conviction or sentence generally must be brought under Section 2255 instead.
Mendoza had already filed a Section 2255 motion challenging the same conviction and sentence, and that motion had been denied on the merits. The court therefore treated the new filing as a second Section 2255 motion. Such a filing requires permission from the appropriate federal appeals court before a district court may consider it.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain transferred the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rather than deciding the challenge in the district court, and closed the action there. The court also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Mendoza v. Jamison · No. 1:22-cv-05942
- Laura Swain
- July 14, 2022
Background
Seferino Pimentel Mendoza, who was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution Allenwood, filed a self-represented petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence entered in the Southern District of New York. The court explained that a federal prisoner’s challenge to a conviction or sentence generally must proceed under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 rather than § 2241.
Mendoza had previously filed a § 2255 motion challenging the same conviction and sentence. The opinion states that the earlier motion was denied on the merits and that the appeal from that denial was dismissed.
Recharacterization as a Successive Motion
The court treated the current § 2241 filing as a second or successive § 2255 motion. A second or successive motion is a later challenge to the same conviction or sentence after an earlier § 2255 motion was decided on the merits. The court stated that a federal appeals court must authorize such a motion before it may be filed in a district court. Mendoza had not indicated that he received that authorization.
Disposition
The court transferred the recharacterized motion to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 1631, stating that second or successive § 2255 motions should be transferred to the appropriate appeals court in the interest of justice. The order closed the action in the district court. The court also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because the motion did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, and it denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. The district court did not decide the underlying challenge to Mendoza’s conviction or sentence.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.