Jones v. Pliler
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-03817
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Jones v. Pliler, Judge Swain denied Tarone M. Jones’s request to reconsider transferring his habeas case to the Eighth Circuit.
Tarone M. Jones’s post-conviction case was affected: the court denied his request to undo the transfer to the Eighth Circuit and closed the matter in the Southern District of New York.
What happened
In Jones v. Pliler, Tarone M. Jones challenged his conviction and sentence through a petition asking a federal court to review his detention. The court had previously ruled that he used the wrong type of petition and transferred the matter to the Eighth Circuit to decide whether he could file another post-conviction motion.
Jones then filed a paper objecting to that transfer. The court treated it as a request to undo or change its earlier order. Jones repeated arguments from his original petition, but the opinion does not identify any new evidence, mistake, misconduct, or extraordinary circumstance supporting relief.
The court denied the request and closed the matter in the Southern District of New York. Judge Laura Taylor Swain also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal based on a constitutional claim and denied fee-free appeal status because an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Jones v. Pliler · No. 1:22-cv-03817
- Laura Swain
- July 21, 2022
Background
Tarone M. Jones, representing himself, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging the legality of his conviction and sentence. In an earlier order, the court ruled that the requested relief had to be sought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 rather than § 2241. The court rejected Jones’s argument that the “savings clause” allowed him to proceed under § 2241, treated the petition as a second or successive § 2255 motion, and transferred the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to determine whether Jones could file such a motion.
The clerk transferred the case on July 7, 2022, and the Eighth Circuit acknowledged receipt on July 8. Jones later filed a “Motion for De Novo Review and Objections” challenging the transfer. The court treated that filing as a motion for relief from an order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). It declined to treat the filing as a motion to alter or amend a judgment because the court had transferred the action rather than entered a final judgment.
Jurisdiction
A court that transfers a case generally loses authority over it once the transfer takes effect. The transferring court may retain authority if the party opposing transfer seeks review before the receiving court’s clerk receives the case papers. Because Jones did not state when he gave his filing to prison officials for mailing, the court assumed, in light of his self-represented status, that he submitted it before the Eighth Circuit received the case. The court therefore concluded that it retained authority to consider the motion.
Rule 60(b) motion
Rule 60(b) allows relief from an order or judgment for specified reasons, including mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud or misconduct, a void judgment, satisfaction or reversal of a judgment, or other circumstances justifying relief. For a motion challenging a post-conviction proceeding, relief is available only when the motion attacks the integrity of that proceeding rather than the underlying criminal conviction.
The court concluded that Jones had not shown that any of the first five grounds applied. His motion repeated arguments from the original petition that the court had already rejected. The court also denied relief under Rule 60(b)(6), which requires a reason outside the other listed grounds and extraordinary circumstances warranting relief.
Disposition
The court denied Jones’s motion for reconsideration. It closed the matter in the Southern District of New York and stated that it would accept only documents directed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It warned that further frivolous or meritless filings could lead to an order requiring Jones to explain why he should not be barred from filing additional documents in the action. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability and denied fee-free status for an appeal because it certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.