Bonneau v. LaManna
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:18-cv-02228-CS-AEK
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 15
In Bonneau v. LaManna, Judge Seibel dismissed Jude Bonneau’s petition without prejudice because he had not exhausted his state-court remedies.
Jude Bonneau’s federal challenge to his state conviction was dismissed without prejudice because he had not exhausted the required state-court remedy; the court did not reach the coercion or ineffective-assistance claims.
What happened
In Bonneau v. LaManna, Jude Bonneau asked a federal court to review his state conviction after pleading guilty to attempted burglary in the second degree. He argued that his guilty plea was coerced and that his lawyer pressured him into accepting it.
The court did not decide whether those claims were valid. It found that Bonneau had not first presented them through the state-court procedure identified by the state appellate court, so his claims remained unexhausted. The court recommended dismissing the petition without prejudice, allowing the claims to be pursued through the proper state process.
Judge Cathy Seibel adopted the recommendation and dismissed the petition without prejudice. She also denied a certificate of appealability, denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, and directed the Clerk to close the case.
The detailed version
- Bonneau v. LaManna · No. 7:18-cv-02228-CS-AEK
- Cathy Seibel
- Aug. 27, 2023
Background
Jude Bonneau, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 asking the federal court to review his state-court conviction. He had pleaded guilty to attempted burglary in the second degree and received a sentence of 12 years to life imprisonment as a persistent violent felony offender.
Bonneau raised two claims: that the trial court wrongly denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea because the plea was coerced, and that his lawyer provided ineffective assistance by pressuring him to plead guilty. The state appellate court affirmed his conviction but explained that the claims depended partly on matters outside the existing trial record and should be raised in a proceeding under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10.
Reasoning
A state prisoner generally must exhaust available state-court remedies before a federal court may consider a federal petition challenging the conviction. Exhaustion requires presenting the same federal constitutional claims to the appropriate state court through the proper state-law procedure.
The court found that Bonneau had not filed a § 440.10 motion raising either claim in the federal petition. His later request to stay the federal case proposed a different claim—that his plea was involuntary because he was under the influence of prescription medication—so that proposed motion would not have exhausted the claims actually before the federal court. The court stated that Bonneau could still present his two claims in state court and therefore had not procedurally defaulted them.
Because every claim was unexhausted, the magistrate judge recommended dismissal without prejudice rather than a decision on the merits. The recommendation also advised that no certificate of probable cause should issue and that an appeal would not be taken in good faith. The opinion states that objections were permitted within the applicable period.
Disposition
After objections were received, Judge Cathy Seibel reviewed the report and recommendation for clear error, found none, and adopted it. The petition was dismissed without prejudice. The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue, certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, and directed the Clerk to close the case.
Read the full 15-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.