Doxy v. Harrington

Filing 7

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 9/30/2013.(mjc, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ex rel. RODERICK DOXY,
Petitioner,
v.
RICK HARRINGTON, Warden, etc.,
Respondent.

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No.

13 C 6842

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This week’s delivery of newly-filed cases to this Court’s
calendar via random assignment included the 28 U.S.C. §22541
Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (“Petition”) filed on behalf
of state prisoner Roderick Doxy (“Doxy”).2

This Court has

promptly engaged in the preliminary review of the Petition and
its accompanying documents called for by Rule 4 of the Rules
Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts
(“Section 2254 Rules”) and determined that the action must go
forward.

What follows is a brief recapitulation of the several

1

All further references to Title 28’s provisions will
simply take the form “Section--.”
2

Because Doxy is represented here by the Cook County
Public Defender’s office, there is no need to consider providing
him with representation (as is so frequently the case when state
prisoners have filed a self-prepared Section 2254 petition). But
his counsel’s submission of an In Forma Pauperis Application
(“Application”), often tendered by pro se habeas petitioners as
well, appears to operate under the mistaken belief that the
filing fee for such petitions is comparable to that required for
conventional civil lawsuits. Not so--the only filing fee is the
modest sum of $5. Accordingly the Application is denied, and
Doxy is expected to pay the $5 filing fee within two weeks.

threshold inquiries that necessarily precede such a
determination.
To begin with, Doxy has satisfied the requirement of Section
2254(d)(1)(A) of exhaustion of the remedies available in the
state court system.

Petition ¶4 and Ex. 1 confirm his

unsuccessful direct appeal from his conviction to the Illinois
Appellate Court, while Petition ¶5 and Ex. 2 reflect his
unsuccessful effort to obtain leave to appeal to the Illinois
Supreme Court.

Lastly on that score, Petition ¶¶6 and 7 explain

that the constitutional issue that he seeks to raise here was
expressly presented to both the Appellate Court and the Illinois
Supreme Court.
Next, the Petition here is clearly timely in terms of the
one-year limitation period prescribed by Section 2244(d)(1)(A).
Petition ¶5 and Ex. 2 show that the denial of Doxy’s petition for
leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court came on
September 26, 2012.

Even without the additional 90-day period

that the caselaw allows for seeking a writ of certiorari from the
United States Supreme Court (that is viewed as called for by the
language “the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of
the time for seeking such review” in Section 2244(d)(1)(A)), the
filing of the Petition would have beaten the one-year time clock
by a few days.
Finally, the gatekeeping limitation prescribed by Section

2

2254(d) appears on its face to have been satisfied by the
Petition’s citation to United States Supreme Court decisions
applicable to the ground on which Doxy relies in charging that
his federal constitutional right to a fair trial was violated by
his state court prosecution.

Whether that ultimately proves to

be the case is of course unknown at this threshold stage, but
Roxy’s showing is surely adequate to call for further
proceedings.
Accordingly Section 2254 Rule 4 requires that respondent
Warden Rick Harrington file an answer to the Petition, and this
Court so orders.

That answer, together with any other

documentation called for by Section 2254 Rule 5, must be filed on
or before November 8, 2013.3

________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:

September 30, 2013

3

In what has to be an astonishing coincidence, this
Court’s attention has been called to an article that appeared
this week in the Huffington Post, reporting on an incident that
occurred earlier this month in the courtroom of Judge Diane
Gordon-Cannon, whose conduct as the trial judge in Doxy’s case
forms the gravamen of his charge of constitutional violation-deprivation of the right to a fair trial--that fuels the current
Petition. If it proves that an evidentiary hearing is required
to resolve the Petition, counsel should be prepared to discuss
whether that other incident would or would not fit within the
admissibility exceptions to Fed. R. Evid. 404(b).
3