Cruz v. Smith
- Laura Swain
- 1:05-cv-10703
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Cruz v. Smith, Judge Swain denied Cruz’s late request to reopen his dismissed habeas case because it challenged his conviction.
Ramon Cruz, who represented himself, was directly affected because the court denied his request to reopen the 2010 dismissal of his federal habeas petition. The order also concerned respondent Joseph T. Smith.
What happened
In Cruz v. Smith, Ramon Cruz, representing himself, asked the Southern District of New York to reopen a 2010 order that dismissed his challenge to his state-court convictions. The court had adopted a recommendation to dismiss his habeas petition, and the appeals court later denied his requests for permission to appeal.
Cruz argued that he was actually innocent, that witnesses should have been allowed to testify, that his trial lawyer was ineffective, that prosecutors delayed providing favorable evidence, and that he deserved a hearing. The court explained that most of these arguments attacked the original criminal case rather than a defect in the federal habeas proceeding.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied the request. She ruled that Cruz waited more than twelve years without explaining the delay, and that his arguments were outside the proper scope of the motion. The court also ruled that his request for an evidentiary hearing lacked merit because the existing state-court record was enough to resolve the issues.
The detailed version
- Cruz v. Smith · No. 1:05-cv-10703
- Laura Swain
- Oct. 4, 2022
Background
Ramon Cruz, proceeding without a lawyer, asked the court for relief under Rule 60(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That rule allows a court to relieve a party from a final judgment for an extraordinary reason that justifies relief.
Cruz was convicted in New York State Supreme Court in 1999 of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. In 2005, he filed a federal petition challenging those convictions on five grounds, including alleged jury-selection errors, ineffective assistance by his trial and appellate lawyers, a due-process claim concerning his state post-conviction proceedings, and actual innocence.
In September 2009, Judge Freeman recommended dismissing the petition in full. In February 2010, the court adopted that recommendation and dismissed the habeas petition. The Second Circuit denied Cruz’s request for permission to appeal and dismissed the appeal in September 2010. The Second Circuit later denied a second request as duplicative and untimely in April 2019.
The Rule 60(b) request
Cruz asked the court to provide relief from the 2010 dismissal. Rule 60(b)(6) relief is available only when the moving party presents highly convincing evidence of extraordinary circumstances. A request under that provision must also be made within a reasonable time.
The court held that Cruz’s motion was untimely. He filed it more than twelve years after the 2010 order and more than twelve years after the dismissal of his appeal. The court noted that much shorter delays have been found unreasonable and that Cruz offered no explanation that would excuse his delay.
The court also explained that, in a habeas case, a Rule 60(b) motion may challenge the integrity of the earlier federal habeas proceeding but may not be used to attack the underlying state criminal conviction. Most of Cruz’s arguments concerned the state criminal proceedings, including his actual-innocence claim, proposed witness testimony, the performance of his trial lawyer, and the prosecution’s handling of favorable evidence. The court therefore concluded that those arguments were beyond the scope of Rule 60(b).
Evidentiary-hearing argument
The court identified only one argument as directed at the federal habeas proceeding: Cruz’s claim that the court should have held an evidentiary hearing concerning his actual-innocence claim. The court stated that this type of argument can be raised through Rule 60(b), but concluded that it still lacked merit.
The court explained that an evidentiary hearing is not required when the issues can be resolved from the state-court record. It determined that the earlier recommendation correctly concluded that the issues in Cruz’s habeas petition could be resolved from that record and that no additional evidentiary inquiry was necessary.
Disposition
The court denied Cruz’s Rule 60(b) motion as untimely and beyond the scope of Rule 60(b). It also concluded that the evidentiary-hearing argument would fail on the merits even if it had been timely. The order resolved docket entry number 29.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.