Albarado v. Collier
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-02068
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Albarado v. Collier, Judge Swain dismissed Albarado’s transfer objection for lack of jurisdiction and denied appeal-related permission to proceed without fees.
Juan Manuel Albarado’s objection to transferring his case to the Northern District of Texas was dismissed; the order also affects his ability to appeal without a certificate of appealability or without paying filing fees.
What happened
In Albarado v. Collier, Juan Manuel Albarado, representing himself, objected to the transfer of his case from the Southern District of New York to the Northern District of Texas. The transfer had taken effect months before he filed his objection.
The court said a court that transfers a case generally loses authority to act in it. It found that Albarado waited too long to challenge the transfer and did not show that the Northern District of Texas lacked authority to receive the case. The court also noted that his challenge involved a conviction from Taylor County, Texas, which is in that district.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed Albarado’s objection for lack of jurisdiction. The court also said no certificate of appealability would issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Albarado v. Collier · No. 1:23-cv-02068
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 29, 2024
Background
Juan Manuel Albarado, who was proceeding without a lawyer, objected to an earlier order transferring his case to the Northern District of Texas, Abilene Division. The receiving court acknowledged receipt of the case on or about April 14, 2023. The Southern District of New York received Albarado’s objection on November 1, 2023.
The opinion states that Albarado was detained in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s French Robertson Unit and that he challenged, among other things, his conviction in the 104th District Court of Taylor County, Texas.
Jurisdiction over the transfer objection
The court explained that transferring a case generally removes the transferring court’s authority to act in the case. It identified two relevant exceptions. The transferring court may retain authority if the party opposing transfer seeks a stay before the receiving court receives the case papers, or if the transferring court lacked power to make the transfer because the receiving district was not a district where the action could have been brought.
The court found that neither exception applied. Albarado did not act until more than six months after the receiving court acknowledged the case, so the transfer had already taken effect. The court also found that he made no sufficient argument that the transfer was void. Because his challenge included his conviction in Taylor County, and Taylor County is in the Northern District of Texas, the court found no basis to ask that district to return the case.
Ruling
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed Albarado’s objection to the transfer for lack of jurisdiction. The court stated that a certificate of appealability would not issue because the petition made no substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees for purposes of an appeal. The opinion did not decide the merits of Albarado’s underlying challenge to his conviction.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.