Kirkland v. Roach
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-00311
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Kirkland v. Roach, Chief Judge Swain dismissed Kirkland’s civil-rights case challenging his conviction and sentence.
Tarence Kirkland’s civil-rights action was dismissed. The dismissal concerned his attempt to challenge his state conviction and sentence through § 1983 against the named prosecutors and court clerk.
What happened
In Kirkland v. Roach, Tarence Kirkland, representing himself, sued a district attorney, an assistant district attorney, and a court clerk. He challenged his conviction and sentence, including the use of a prior rape conviction to increase his sentence.
Kirkland asked the court to remove his conviction or cancel his sentence. The court explained that this type of challenge must generally be brought through a petition for habeas relief against the person holding the prisoner, rather than through a civil-rights lawsuit against prosecutors and a court clerk. The court relied on records indicating that Kirkland had completed his sentence and post-release supervision.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the complaint under the screening statute for people allowed to proceed without paying filing fees. She declined to convert the case into a habeas petition, denied leave to amend, and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Kirkland v. Roach · No. 1:23-cv-00311
- Laura Swain
- Apr. 11, 2023
Background
Tarence Kirkland, proceeding without a lawyer and having been allowed to proceed without paying the filing fee, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He challenged his New York state-court conviction and sentence. The defendants were identified in the caption as Westchester County District Attorney Mariam E. Roach, Assistant District Attorney Christine DiSalvo, and Clerk Maria T. Fasulo.
Kirkland had been convicted of two counts of third-degree possession of a controlled substance. He challenged the trial court’s use of a prior second-degree rape conviction to classify him as a second-felony offender and increase his sentence under New York law. He asked that his conviction be removed, his sentence be vacated, or both.
The Appellate Division affirmed his conviction, and the Supreme Court of the United States denied his request for review. The opinion states that publicly available records indicated Kirkland had completed his sentence and that his post-release supervision ended on March 3, 2021.
Court’s reasoning
The court held that a civil-rights action under § 1983 was not the proper vehicle for challenging the validity of Kirkland’s conviction or sentence. A person seeking that relief generally must file a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal procedure for challenging a state-court conviction or sentence, and must name the person holding the petitioner in custody as the respondent. The court also explained that federal habeas relief generally requires the petitioner to be in custody under the conviction or sentence being challenged when the petition is filed.
Because the available records indicated that Kirkland was no longer in custody or serving the sentence he challenged, the court declined to treat his § 1983 complaint as a § 2254 petition. The court stated that Kirkland could file a new § 2254 action if he believed he was still in custody and named the proper custodian.
The court also declined to allow Kirkland to amend the complaint because he could not obtain the requested relief through this civil-rights action. The complaint was screened under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), which requires dismissal of an IFP complaint that, among other things, fails to state a claim for relief.
Disposition
The court dismissed the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). It denied leave to amend, certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith, denied IFP status for purposes of an appeal, and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.