Jones v. United States

Background

Rafael Arden Jones, proceeding without a lawyer, was a pretrial detainee at the Otis Bain Correctional Center. He filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure generally used by federal prisoners to challenge a federal conviction or sentence. His motion instead challenged criminal proceedings pending in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Bronx County, under Indictment No. 70616-21 and Case No. CR-013906-21BX.

Court’s analysis

The court concluded that a Section 2255 motion was not the proper vehicle for seeking relief from state-court criminal proceedings. The court discussed the usual requirement that a court give notice and an opportunity to withdraw a mislabeled habeas application before converting it to another type of petition. But Jones had already filed multiple federal applications concerning the same state pretrial proceedings. On the same day as this motion, he filed two additional applications under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, identified by docket numbers 23-CV-8295 and 23-CV-8296. The court therefore found no basis to recharacterize this motion as a Section 2241 petition.

Disposition

The court dismissed Jones’s motion under Section 2255 without prejudice because Section 2255 was not the proper procedure for challenging state criminal proceedings. The court declined to recharacterize the motion as a habeas petition. It also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because Jones had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. Judgment was entered.