Smickle v. Superintendent, Shawangunk Correctional Facility
- Stewart Aaron
- 1:23-cv-01634
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Smickle v. Superintendent, Judge Aaron ordered pro se petitioner Smickle to explain by August 15 why he had not exhausted his ineffective-assistance claim.
Randel Smickle, who represented himself in seeking federal review of his state conviction; the Superintendent of Shawangunk Correctional Facility, who did not oppose pausing the case.
What happened
In Smickle v. Superintendent, Randel Smickle asked the federal court to pause his case while New York courts considered his motion challenging his conviction under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10. The request was not opposed by the Superintendent of Shawangunk Correctional Facility.
Smickle’s federal petition included claims that had been reviewed on direct appeal and an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim that remained pending in state court. He had filed a state-court motion raising that claim, but the state court had not yet decided it. The federal court said the petition therefore included both completed and incomplete claims.
The court did not decide whether to pause the case. Instead, Judge Stewart D. Aaron ordered Smickle to file a letter by August 15, 2023, explaining why he had filed the federal petition before completing state-court review of his ineffective-assistance claim.
The detailed version
- Smickle v. Superintendent, Shawangunk Correctional Facility · No. 1:23-cv-01634
- Stewart Aaron
- June 29, 2023
Background
Randel Smickle, representing himself, filed a federal petition challenging a January 5, 2017 New York state-court judgment. The judgment imposed a determinate 15-year prison term followed by five years of post-release supervision after a jury convicted him of two counts each of first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
The Appellate Division, First Department affirmed the judgment on January 18, 2022, and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal on March 31, 2022. Smickle later filed his federal petition and an amended petition, which included an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. The First Department had said that the claim could not be reviewed on direct appeal because Smickle had not filed a motion under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10. Smickle then filed such a motion in New York Supreme Court, but the state courts had not decided it when this federal case was before the court.
Smickle asked the federal court to stay, or pause, the federal case while the state courts considered his § 440.10 motion. The Superintendent did not oppose a stay.
Legal standard
The Supreme Court has held that a federal court may stay a petition seeking federal review of a state conviction while the petitioner completes state-court review, but only in limited circumstances. The petition must include both claims already reviewed by the state courts and claims still awaiting state-court review; the petitioner must show good cause for not exhausting the uncompleted claims earlier; the uncompleted claims cannot be plainly meritless; and the petitioner cannot be using delay tactics.
Analysis
The court found that Smickle’s amended petition included both exhausted and unexhausted claims. The claims raised on direct appeal and presented for further review were exhausted. The ineffective-assistance claim was not yet exhausted because Smickle’s § 440.10 motion remained pending in state court. The court therefore found that the petition met the first requirement for a stay.
The court could not determine from the existing record whether Smickle had good cause for filing the federal petition before exhausting his ineffective-assistance claim. His request for a stay was contained in a letter attached to the amended petition, and that letter did not explain why he had filed the federal petition before completing state-court review. The court also stated that it did not find the unexhausted claim plainly meritless at that stage and that the Superintendent had not alleged, and the court did not find, that Smickle was intentionally delaying the proceedings.
Disposition
The court did not grant or deny the requested stay in this order. It ordered Smickle to file, no later than August 15, 2023, a letter explaining why he had not exhausted his still-unexhausted ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim in state court before filing the federal petition.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.