Snell v. Unknown Part(y)(ies)

Filing 8

OPINION; signed by Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Green (jkw)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
______
ROY L. SNELL, JR.,
Petitioner,

Case No. 1:22-cv-1147

v.

Honorable Phillip J. Green

UNKNOWN PARTY,
Respondent.

____________________________/
OPINION
Petitioner Roy L. Snell, Jr. was recently convicted by a Newaygo County
Circuit Court jury of first-degree murder and use of a firearm during the commission
of a felony. He awaits sentencing. He is detained in the Newaygo County Jail in
White Cloud, Michigan. Petitioner challenges the fact and result of his prosecution.
His stream of consciousness-style, handwritten pleading raises a plethora of
constitutional violations related to the criminal proceedings.
Petitioner raised some or all of these claims before in Roy L. Snell, Jr. v.
Unknown Party (Snell I), No. 1:22-cv-68 (W.D. Mich.). Judge Janet T. Neff dismissed
that case on February 8, 2022, because Petitioner had failed to exhaust his state court
remedies. Petitioner filed a notice of appeal; but he failed to cure a deficiency and the
appeal was dismissed for want of prosecution, initially, Snell I, (ECF No. 18), and
upon reconsideration, id., (ECF No. 22).

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Petitioner raised some or all of these claims again in Roy L. Snell, Jr. v.
Unknown Party (Snell II), No. 1:22-cv-765 (W.D. Mich.). Judge Robert J. Jonker
dismissed that case on September 9, 2022, for the same reasons that Judge Neff had
dismissed Snell I.
Petitioner’s “petition” in this case, like his petitions in Snell I and Snell II,
attacks his continued detention and, at least by implication, seeks release from
custody. When a person is in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court, he
may seek release by way of a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
Petitioner, however, is not yet detained pursuant to a judgment. Petitioner is in a
slightly different procedural position than he was in when he filed Snell I and Snell
II, because a jury has subsequently found him guilty of the charged crimes; but he is
not yet held pursuant to the judgment of a state court. The Newaygo County Circuit
Court will not enter judgment until Petitioner has been sentenced. Thus, a challenge
to the constitutionality of his detention must be raised under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. See
Atkins v. Michigan, 644 F.2d 543, 546 n.1 (6th Cir. 1981).1
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) and Rule 73 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, Petitioner consented to proceed in all matters in this action under the
jurisdiction of a United States magistrate judge. (ECF No. 6.) Section 636(c) provides
that “[u]pon the consent of the parties, a full-time United States magistrate judge . .

Atkins—and the cases cited therein—sometimes use the terms pre-trial and posttrial, but the language of the statute and the reasoning employed by the courts
suggest the line would be more appropriately characterized as falling between prejudgment and post-judgment.
1

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. may conduct any or all proceedings in a jury or nonjury civil matter and order the
entry of judgment in the case . . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).
Promptly after the filing of a petition for habeas corpus, the Court must
undertake a preliminary review of the petition to determine whether “it plainly
appears from the face of the petition and any exhibits annexed to it that the petitioner
is not entitled to relief in the district court.” Rule 4, Rules Governing § 2254 Cases;
see 28 U.S.C. § 2243.2 The Court is required to conduct this initial review prior to the
service of the petition. Rule 4, Rules Governing § 2254 Cases.
Service of the petition on the respondent is of particular significance in defining
a putative respondent’s relationship to the proceedings. “An individual or entity
named as a defendant is not obliged to engage in litigation unless notified of the
action, and brought under a court’s authority, by formal process.” Murphy Bros. v.
Michetti Pipe Stringing, Inc., 526 U.S. 344, 347 (1999). “Service of process, under
longstanding tradition in our system of justice, is fundamental to any procedural
imposition on a named defendant.” Id. at 350. “[O]ne becomes a party officially, and
is required to take action in that capacity, only upon service of a summons or other
authority-asserting measure stating the time within which the party served must
appear and defend.” Id. (citations omitted). That is, “[u]nless a named defendant
agrees to waive service, the summons continues to function as the sine qua

The Rules Governing § 2254 Cases may be applied to petitions filed under § 2241.
See Rule 1(b), Rules Governing § 2254 Cases.
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non directing an individual or entity to participate in a civil action or forgo procedural
or substantive rights.” Id. at 351.
Rule 4, by requiring courts to review and even resolve the petition before
service, creates a circumstance where there may only be one party to the proceeding—
the petitioner.

Because Respondent has not yet been served, the undersigned

concludes that Respondent is not presently a party whose consent is required to
permit the undersigned to conduct a preliminary review of the petition. See Neals v.
Norwood, 59 F.3d 530, 532 (5th Cir. 1995) (“The record does not contain a consent
from the defendants[; h]owever, because they had not been served, they were not
parties to the action at th[e] time the magistrate entered judgment.”). 3 Petitioner’s
consent is sufficient to permit the undersigned to conduct the Rule 4 review.
After undertaking the review required by Rule 4, it plainly appears from the
face of the petition that Petitioner is not entitled to relief because he has failed to
exhaust his state court remedies. Accordingly, the Court will summarily dismiss the
petition without prejudice.

But see Coleman v. Lab. & Indus. Rev. Comm’n of Wis., 860 F.3d 461, 471 (7th Cir.
2017) (concluding that, when determining which parties are required to consent to
proceed before a United States magistrate judge under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), “context
matters” and the context the United States Supreme Court considered in Murphy
Bros. was nothing like the context of a screening dismissal pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A(b), and 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c)); Williams v. King, 875 F.3d 500,
503–04 (9th Cir. 2017) (relying on Black’s Law Dictionary for the definition of
“parties” and not addressing Murphy Bros.); Burton v. Schamp, 25 F.4th 198, 207
n.26 (3d Cir. 2022) (premising its discussion of “the term ‘parties’ solely in relation to
its meaning in Section 636(c)(1), and . . . not tak[ing] an opinion on the meaning of
‘parties’ in other contexts”).
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Discussion
I.

Exhaustion under § 2241
A claim for habeas relief under § 2241 is not subject to all of the specific

statutory requirements set forth in § 2254. Thus, the § 2254 bar on habeas relief
“unless it appears that . . . the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the
courts of the State,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1), does not apply to a § 2241 habeas
petitioner. Nonetheless, a prejudgment detainee may not simply seek relief in federal
court under § 2241 where state relief is still available. A federal court ordinarily
“should abstain from the exercise of that jurisdiction if the issues raised in the
petition may be resolved either by trial on the merits in the state courts or by other
state procedures available to the petitioner.” Atkins, 644 F.2d at 546 & n.1; see also
Phillips v. Court of Common Pleas, Hamilton Cnty, Ohio, 668 F.3d 804, 810 n.4 (6th
Cir. 2012) (“Unlike exhaustion under § 2254, exhaustion under § 2241 is not a
statutory requirement. Compare 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A), with id. § 2241. Rather,
in the § 2241 context, ‘decisional law has superimposed such a requirement in order
to accommodate principles of federalism.’”).
The Sixth Circuit has approved consideration of a prejudgment § 2241 petition
only in three exceptional circumstances: (1) when the petitioner seeks a speedy trial,
Atkins 644 F.2d at 546–47; (2) when a petitioner seeks to avoid a second trial on
double jeopardy grounds, Delk v. Atkinson, 665 F.2d 90, 93 (6th Cir. 1981); and (3)
when a petitioner faces prejudice from prior ineffective assistance of counsel and due
process violations on retrial, Turner v. Tennessee, 858 F.2d 1201, 1204 (6th Cir. 1988),
vacated on other grounds, 492 U.S. 902 (1990). Petitioner’s claims regarding his
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detention do not clearly fall within any of these exceptional circumstances; but
Petitioner does mention the almost 40-year delay between the crime and his
prosecution and the 3-year delay between his initial detention and trial. The Court
will consider those complaints as implicating Petitioner’s speedy trial rights.
A.

Speedy trial claim

Not every speedy trial claim, however, is properly raised by way of a
prejudgment habeas petition:
[T]he speedy trial clause protects two related but distinct interests: the
enforcement of the state’s duty to provide a prompt trial and the
protection of defendants from the prejudice that arises from a state’s
failure to carry out that duty. As noted by the Fifth Circuit in Brown v.
Estelle, . . . “(t)his distinction apparently turns upon the type of relief
sought: an attempt to dismiss an indictment or otherwise prevent a
prosecution” protects the defendant from prejudice and is normally not
attainable by way of pretrial habeas corpus; but an attempt to force the
state to go to trial may be made prior to trial, although state remedies
must still be exhausted. 530 F.2d [1280, 1283 (5th Cir. 1976)].
Atkins, 644 F.2d at 547. Thus, if Petitioner were asking this Court to order the
Michigan Court to provide a prompt trial—and if he had already exhausted his state
court remedies—this Court could entertain the petition. Here, though, Petitioner is
not seeking that relief. Indeed, he has already been tried, so the only possible type of
speedy trial claim that this Court might entertain—a claim asking the Court to
compel a speedy trial—is no longer at issue. The relief Petitioner seeks, release, is
“not attainable by way of pretrial habeas corpus.” Id. When a habeas petitioner
brings a prejudgment habeas petition seeking dismissal of the charges against him
because of a violation of the speedy trial guarantee, his habeas action must await the

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conclusion of the state proceedings. See In Re Justices of Superior Court Dept. of
Massachusetts Trial Court, 218 F.3d 11, 17, n.5 (1st Cir. 2000).
B.

Other grounds for relief

Even if Petitioner’s other grounds for relief from his prejudgment detention
were permitted, he would still have to exhaust his state court remedies. See Braden
v. 30th Jud. Cir. Court, 410 U.S. 484, 490–91 (1973) (recognizing the long-standing
judicial doctrine of exhaustion of state-court remedies in all habeas action); Klein v.
Leis, 548 F.3d 425, 429 n.2 (6th Cir. 2008); Delk v. Atkinson, 665 F.2d 90, 93 (6th Cir.
1981) (holding that a pretrial detainee may file a § 2241 petition after state remedies
are exhausted).

The requirement that a habeas petitioner exhaust state-court

remedies before seeking relief in federal court “protect[s] the state court’s opportunity
to confront initially and resolve constitutional issues arising within their jurisdictions
and to limit federal judicial interference in state adjudicatory processes.” Atkins, 644
F.2d at 546.
Petitioner bears the burden of showing exhaustion. See Rust v. Zent, 17 F.3d
155, 160 (6th Cir. 1994). Petitioner does not indicate that he has sought relief in the
state courts—at least not beyond the Newaygo County Circuit Court—for the
constitutional violations he alleges. Under state statutes and the Michigan Court
Rules, it appears that state-court remedies are still available to Petitioner, including
available appeals of the trial result. Relief under § 2241 is not available until after
Petitioner has pursued his state court remedies.

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The Court informed Petitioner of the exhaustion requirement when it
dismissed Snell I and Snell II. Petitioner is still a long way from exhausting his state
remedies through all levels of the state court system. Petitioner’s return to this Court
to file a new but virtually identical petition, without taking any steps to exhaust his
remedies, is frivolous.
II.

Certificate of appealability
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2), the Court must determine whether a certificate

of appealability should be granted.

A certificate should issue if Petitioner has

demonstrated a “substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c)(2).
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has disapproved issuance of blanket denials
of a certificate of appealability. Murphy v. Ohio, 263 F.3d 466, 467 (6th Cir. 2001)
(per curiam). Rather, the district court must “engage in a reasoned assessment of
each claim” to determine whether a certificate is warranted. Id.
The Court concludes that Petitioner’s application is properly denied either
because it is premature or because he has failed to exhaust available state court
remedies. Under Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000), when a habeas petition
is denied on procedural grounds, a certificate of appealability may issue only “when
the prisoner shows, at least, [1] that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether
the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and [2] that
jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its
procedural ruling.” Both showings must be made to warrant the grant of a certificate.
Id.
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The Court finds that reasonable jurists could not find it debatable whether
Petitioner’s application should be dismissed as premature and unexhausted.
Therefore, a certificate of appealability will be denied. For the same reasons, and
particularly because Petitioner has effectively refiled the same petition that was
previously denied without any meaningful change in circumstances, the Court
concludes that any issue Petitioner might raise on appeal would be frivolous.
Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 445 (1962).
Conclusion
The Court will enter a judgment dismissing the petition without prejudice as
premature and for lack of exhaustion and denying a certificate of appealability.

Dated:

January 18, 2023

/s/ Phillip J. Green
PHILLIP J. GREEN
United States Magistrate Judge

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