Brzowski v. Illinois Department of Corrections et al

Filing 17

MEMORANDUM Order. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 12/28/2016:Mailed notice(clw, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

WALTER J. BRZOWSKI, M292120,
Petitioner,
v.
MICHAEL MELVIN, Warden,
Respondent.

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Case No. 16 C 9961

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This pro se action by Walter Brzowski (“Brzowski”), in which he has sought to invoke
28 U.S.C. § 2254 (“Section 2254”) by filing a self-prepared Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus
(“Petition”), has inexplicably suffered the consequence of a breakdown in this District Court’s
computerized record-keeping system. When Brzowski had apparently failed to respond to the
motion to dismiss the Petition filed by counsel for respondent Warden Michael Melvin by the
December 16 due date that this Court had set for such a response, it ordered a printout of the case
docket and received the attached two-page printout dated December 19 (Ex. 1) that reflected the
absence of any response by Brzowski. Accordingly this Court issued a December 23
memorandum order that granted defense counsel’s motion to dismiss based on Brzowski’s
asserted failure to exhaust this still-pending state court attacks before turning to the federal courts
with a Section 2254 Petition.
To this Court’s surprise, its regular review of ECF filings over the ensuing weekend
disclosed that on December 12 Brzowski had in fact filed several self-prepared documents
respectively captioned “Petitioner’s Cogent Response Against Defendant’s ‘Motion’” (Dkt.

No.11), “Plaintiff’s Calculation Time-Serving New Breakdown Sheet” (Dkt. No. 12),
“Addendum To Support Petition for ‘I Bond’ Release” (Dkt. No. 13) and “Affidavit to Further
Support Petitioner’s Need for an Expedited Habeas Corpus Discharge” (Dkt. No. 14). As the
also-attached December 27 docket printout (Ex. 2) reflects, this Court’s December 23
memorandum order therefore became Dkt. No. 15.
Under the circumstances this Court vacates its December 23 memorandum order
dismissing Brzowski’s Petition and this action pending further input from defense counsel. This
Court orders defense counsel to file a response to Brzowski’s most recent filings (Dkt. Nos. 11
through 14) on or before January 20, 2017, after which this Court can determine the appropriate
course of action to follow.

Date: December 28, 2016

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge

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