McVay v. Walker
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-06572
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In McVay v. Walker, Judge Swain denied reopening because McVay alleged no exhaustion of state remedies, leaving the action closed.
Jeffrey McVay’s federal action remains closed, and he may not reopen it based on the amended petition because the opinion says he alleged no facts showing exhaustion of state-court remedies.
What happened
McVay v. Walker concerns Jeffrey McVay’s federal petition challenging the waiver of his indictment during his New York criminal proceedings. The court had previously treated his filing as a petition seeking relief based on detention and allowed him to amend it to show that he had used available state-court remedies.
The court had dismissed the action after McVay did not timely file an amended petition. When the Clerk’s Office later received his amended petition, the court treated it as also asking to reopen the case. McVay stated that he had not raised his challenge in state court, and the opinion says federal relief generally requires exhaustion of available state remedies.
The court denied the request to reopen, and the action remains closed. Judge Swain also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- McVay v. Walker · No. 1:22-cv-06572
- Laura Swain
- May 12, 2023
Background
Jeffrey McVay proceeded without a lawyer. His original submission was styled as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and challenged the waiver of his indictment during criminal proceedings in New York Supreme Court, New York County. The court previously treated the submission as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and gave McVay permission to file an amended petition showing that he had exhausted available state-court remedies.
McVay did not file the amended petition by the deadline, so the court dismissed the action on January 4, 2023. The Clerk’s Office later received an amended petition on February 3, 2023. In that filing, McVay alleged that his constitutional right to a grand jury had been unlawfully waived and that he was being held under a superior court information in violation of New York Criminal Procedure Law § 195.20. He indicated that he had not raised this challenge in the state courts.
Court’s reasoning
The court treated the amended petition as including a motion to reopen the action. It explained that, before seeking federal relief under Section 2241, a petitioner generally must first exhaust available state-court remedies. Because McVay did not allege facts suggesting that he had exhausted those remedies, the court denied the motion to reopen. The opinion did not decide whether McVay’s constitutional or state-law claims were legally valid.
Disposition
The court denied the motion to reopen, and the action remains closed. It also stated that no certificate of appealability would issue because the petition did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. The court further certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.