Carter v. Annucci
- Edgardo Ramos
- 1:22-cv-09019
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Carter v. Annucci, Judge Netburn treated three claims as abandoned, retained two, and granted Carter until June 30 to respond.
David E. Carter’s federal challenge to his state conviction was affected: grounds 1, 2, and 5 were treated as abandoned, while grounds 3 and 4 remained for consideration.
What happened
David E. Carter filed a self-represented petition challenging his state conviction under a federal law allowing challenges to state imprisonment. The court had identified five possible grounds and determined that grounds 3 and 4 had been presented to the state courts, while grounds 1, 2, and 5 had not.
The court gave Carter options for handling the claims that had not been presented to the state courts, including waiting while he pursued those claims or abandoning them and proceeding only with the claims already presented. Carter said he abandoned grounds 1, 2, and 5 and asked the court to consider grounds 3 and 4.
Judge Sarah Netburn treated grounds 1, 2, and 5 as abandoned and said the court would consider only grounds 3 and 4. She also granted Carter until June 30, 2023, to file a supplemental response after reviewing recently provided DVDs.
The detailed version
- Carter v. Annucci · No. 1:22-cv-09019
- Edgardo Ramos
- June 13, 2023
Background
David E. Carter filed a self-represented petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal statute that permits a person in state custody to challenge that custody. The court had previously interpreted the petition and later submissions as raising five grounds:
- Ineffective assistance by Carter’s state trial and appellate lawyers.
- Insufficient evidence for his first-degree robbery conviction because he claimed the complainant handed him an iPhone rather than Carter taking it from the complainant’s shirt pocket.
- Insufficient evidence for the conviction because Carter claimed he did not point a metal or bottle opener at the complainant after obtaining the iPhone and being asked to return it.
- The trial judge allegedly failed to adequately disclose a jury note’s contents to the parties.
- A request for release based on medical conditions, increased risk of COVID-19 infection, and alleged assaults by correctional officers or possibly gang-affiliated prisoners.
Exhaustion issue
Federal courts generally cannot grant this type of relief until available state-court remedies have been used. The court determined that Carter had used those remedies for grounds 3 and 4 but had not used them for grounds 1, 2, and 5. This made the petition a mixed petition, meaning it contained both claims presented to the state courts and claims not presented there.
The court identified four possible approaches: pause the case while Carter pursued the unexhausted claims; deny the petition while allowing him to pursue exhaustion; consider only the exhausted claims if he abandoned the others; or deny the entire petition on the merits. Because Carter was self-represented, the court asked him to state whether he wanted a pause or wanted to abandon grounds 1, 2, and 5 and proceed with grounds 3 and 4.
Ruling
Carter first informed the court that he abandoned grounds 1, 2, and 5 and wanted the court to consider grounds 3 and 4. In a later letter, he asked for permission to respond after reviewing DVDs that he said were relevant to those grounds. The order therefore treated grounds 1, 2, and 5 as abandoned and stated that the court would consider only grounds 3 and 4. It also granted Carter until June 30, 2023, to file a supplemental response. The order did not decide the merits of grounds 3 or 4.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.