Quizphe v. McGuiness

Background

Fredy Quizphe filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his conviction and sentence in New York Supreme Court, Orange County. The opinion states that Quizphe pleaded guilty on April 29, 2013, to first-degree manslaughter and aggravated vehicular assault. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction, and Quizphe did not seek leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals.

Quizphe later pursued several state-court challenges, including motions to vacate the judgment, a request for a writ of error coram nobis, and a motion to set aside the sentence. He filed the federal petition on February 16, 2021. Judge Stanton had ordered him to show why the petition should not be dismissed as time-barred. Quizphe submitted an affidavit, and the respondent opposed the petition.

Report and Recommendation

On August 22, 2022, Judge Davison issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that the petition be dismissed in its entirety as time-barred. The notice accompanying the recommendation explained the deadline for objections and warned that failing to object could waive the right to appeal. Quizphe filed no objections.

Ruling

Because there were no objections, the court reviewed the recommendation for clear error, meaning an obvious mistake. After reviewing the petition and the recommendation, the court found no substantive error and adopted the recommendation in its entirety.

Judge Karas ordered that the petition be dismissed. The court also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because Quizphe had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. In addition, the court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith, directed that a copy of the order be mailed to Quizphe, and ordered the case closed. The dismissal was based on timeliness, so the order did not decide the underlying constitutional claims.