Niles v. Bragg
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-09186
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Niles v. Bragg, Judge Swain moved Niles’s petition into an earlier case and closed this duplicate habeas action without deciding his constitutional challenge.
Paul Niles, whose duplicate federal challenge to his state conviction was moved into the earlier action and whose separate case was closed.
What happened
In Niles v. Bragg, Paul Niles, who was representing himself and incarcerated at Central New York Psychiatric Center, asked the court to review the constitutionality of his 2017 New York conviction. The opinion says he had already filed a petition challenging the same conviction in an earlier case, docket number 23-CV-9186.
The court directed the clerk to file this petition in the earlier case, place a copy of the order in both cases, and close this case. The court did not decide whether Niles’s conviction was constitutional. It also ended all other pending matters in this case.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered the closure. She said a certificate allowing an appeal would not issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees because the appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Niles v. Bragg · No. 1:23-cv-09186
- Laura Swain
- Feb. 22, 2024
Background
Paul Niles, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal statute allowing a state prisoner to challenge a conviction in federal court. He challenged the constitutionality of his October 10, 2017 conviction in the New York Supreme Court, New York County.
The court stated that Niles had already submitted an application challenging the same conviction in a separate action, No. 23-CV-9186 (LTS). On January 8, 2024, the court directed him to file a petition in that action. Because the petition in this case challenged the same conviction, the court treated it as the petition for the earlier action.
Court’s Action
The court directed the clerk to file the petition from this case as the petition in No. 23-CV-9186, file a copy of the order in both actions, and close this case. The court also terminated all other pending matters in this case. The order did not decide the merits of Niles’s constitutional challenge.
Appeal-Related Rulings
The court stated that Niles had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied, so a certificate of appealability would not issue. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court transferred the petition into an earlier related action and closed this case without reaching the challenge to Niles’s conviction.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.