Brims v. Collado
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:18-cv-06973
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Brims v. Collado, Judge Karas denied Brims’s request to stay reconsideration while pursuing a state motion because the proposed claim was plainly meritless.
Edward Brims was directly affected: his request to pause consideration of his reconsideration motion was denied, and he was required to submit his supporting memorandum within 20 days of receiving the order. The order did not state a separate disposition of the reconsideration motion.
What happened
In Brims v. Collado, Edward Brims, representing himself, challenged a state-court conviction through a federal petition. The court had previously denied that petition after adopting a magistrate judge’s recommendation.
Brims asked the court to pause consideration of his reconsideration request while he pursued a new state-court motion concerning whether his waiver of a lawyer covered a second indictment. The court said a pause was procedurally improper because the federal petition did not contain the claims he wanted to pursue in state court, and it also found the proposed claim plainly meritless based on its earlier ruling.
Judge Karas denied Brims’s request for a stay. The court ordered Brims to submit his legal memorandum supporting reconsideration within 20 days after receiving the order and stated that no extensions would be granted.
The detailed version
- Brims v. Collado · No. 7:18-cv-06973
- Kenneth Karas
- Dec. 14, 2022
Background
Edward Brims, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his January 27, 2012 conviction in New York State Supreme Court, Rockland County. A magistrate judge recommended denying the petition in full. After reviewing Brims’s objections, the court adopted that result and denied the petition in an October 11, 2022 Opinion and Order.
Brims later filed a letter that the court treated as a motion for reconsideration. He also asked the court to stay, or pause, consideration of that motion while he pursued a new motion under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10. He said the state motion would address whether his waiver of counsel extended to a second indictment, relying on a recent New York Court of Appeals decision.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that a federal court may stay a habeas petition containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims when the petitioner shows good cause for not exhausting the claims earlier, that the claims are not plainly meritless, and that the petitioner has not intentionally delayed the litigation.
The court first concluded that Brims’s request was procedurally improper because his federal petition was not a mixed petition. Brims sought to pursue an entirely new state-court motion, rather than exhaust claims already included in his federal petition.
The court also ruled on the substance of the stay request. It found the proposed claim plainly meritless because the court had already determined in its earlier Opinion and Order that Brims’s claim concerning the alleged failure to waive counsel for the second indictment lacked merit.
Disposition
The court denied Brims’s request for a stay. Because the stay was denied, Brims was required to submit his memorandum supporting reconsideration no later than 20 days after receiving the order, and the court stated that no extensions would be granted. This order did not itself state a decision on the motion for reconsideration.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.