Ruddock v. Molina
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-07163
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Ruddock v. Molina, Judge Swain granted extra appeal time but denied a certificate of appealability and appeal-related fee-free status.
O’Kang Andre Ruddock, whose request for more time to appeal was granted, but whose certificate of appealability and fee-free status for the appeal were denied; Louis Molina was the named respondent.
What happened
O’Kang Andre Ruddock asked the court to review his extradition to Georgia through a petition challenging his detention. The court had previously dismissed that petition without prejudice because Ruddock had not finished pursuing his remedies in state court.
Ruddock’s notice of appeal arrived after the usual deadline. The court treated his earlier extension motion as filed on October 24, 2023, because the Court of Appeals had received it before the extension deadline and mistakenly forwarded it there. The court also found good cause because Ruddock said he did not receive the dismissal order until September 15, 2023.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain granted Ruddock’s motion for more time to appeal and terminated his duplicate motion as moot. The court also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue and denied fee-free status for an appeal.
The detailed version
- Ruddock v. Molina · No. 1:23-cv-07163
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 1, 2024
Background
O’Kang Andre Ruddock filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his extradition to Georgia under an order from the Governor of New York. In an earlier order dated August 22, 2023, the court held that the petition was not ready for review because Ruddock had not fully exhausted his state-court remedies. The court dismissed the petition without prejudice, meaning the dismissal did not bar refiling. Judgment was entered on August 28, 2023.
Ruddock later submitted a notice of appeal and two nearly identical motions asking for more time to appeal. Under the appellate rules, a civil notice of appeal generally must be filed within 30 days after judgment. The deadline here was September 27, 2023, and a motion to extend the deadline had to be filed by October 27, 2023.
Extension of Time
Ruddock’s notice of appeal was dated October 7, 2023, but the district court received it on November 2, 2023. His earlier extension motion was also received by the district court after the deadline. The court applied the prison-mailbox rule, under which a filing by an incarcerated person is generally treated as filed when delivered to the institution’s internal mailing system.
The court concluded that the earlier extension motion could be treated as filed on October 24, 2023. The Court of Appeals had date-stamped it as received on that date, and the appellate filing rules allow a document mistakenly filed in the Court of Appeals to be treated as filed in the district court. Because October 24 was before the October 27 extension deadline, the court could consider the request.
The court found good cause for the delay because Ruddock stated that he did not receive the dismissal order until September 15, 2023, about three weeks after judgment was entered.
Disposition
The court granted Ruddock’s motion for an extension of time to appeal, identified as ECF 6. It directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the duplicate motion, ECF 7, as moot.
The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because the petition did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. In addition, the court certified that an appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free status for purposes of the appeal. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.