Gantt v. Miller
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:19-cv-02910-VB-JCM
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Gantt v. Miller, Judge Briccetti denied Gantt’s petition challenging his custody after adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendation because Gantt filed no objections.
Larry Gantt, Jr.; the petition was denied, the case was closed, and the court declined to issue a certificate of appealability or allow an appeal without paying court fees.
What happened
In Gantt v. Miller, Larry Gantt, Jr. asked the court to review his custody through a federal petition. Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy recommended denying the petition in full.
Gantt requested more time to object to that recommendation, but he instead asked to pause the case so he could pursue supposedly unexhausted claims in state court. The court denied that request, extended the objection deadline several times, and received no objections from Gantt.
Judge Briccetti reviewed the recommendation for clear error, found none, adopted it as the court’s opinion, and denied the petition. The court ordered the case closed, declined to issue a certificate of appealability, and denied permission to appeal without paying court fees.
The detailed version
- Gantt v. Miller · No. 7:19-cv-02910-VB-JCM
- Vincent Briccetti
- Mar. 22, 2024
Background
Larry Gantt, Jr., proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 asking the federal court to review his custody. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims or the factual basis for the petition. Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy issued a Report and Recommendation on July 28, 2023, recommending that the petition be denied in its entirety.
Procedural history
Gantt sought additional time to object to the Report and Recommendation. Instead of filing objections by the extended deadline, he filed a motion asking the court to pause the petition so he could exhaust purportedly unexhausted claims in state court and later seek permission to amend his petition. The court treated that filing as also requesting more time to object, granted the extension, and referred the stay request to Judge McCarthy. Judge McCarthy denied the stay-and-pause request on November 22, 2023.
The district court then set additional deadlines for objections and mailed its orders to addresses listed for Gantt, including a correctional facility identified through the state incarcerated-person lookup. After receiving no objections, the court extended the deadline one final time to February 20, 2024, while warning that it would not grant further extensions absent compelling circumstances. The court still received no objections.
Ruling
Because Gantt did not object to the Report and Recommendation, the court reviewed it for clear error rather than conducting a fresh review of disputed portions. Finding no clear error, Judge Briccetti adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety as the opinion of the court and denied the petition. The Clerk was instructed to enter judgment and close the case.
The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because Gantt had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. It certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying court fees. The opinion does not state whether Gantt may seek any other form of review.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.