PRATOLA v. SOUTHERN STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY et al

Filing 2

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Clerk shall terminate this matter by make a new and separate entry reading, "CIVIL CASE ADMINISTRATIVELY TERMINATED". ORDERED Clerk shall commence a new and separate matter for Petitioner designating "DONAL D PRATOLA" as "Petitioner," "Warden of SSCF" as "Respondent." ORDERED Clerk shall docket this Memorandum Opinion and Order in the new matter and Petitioner's application (docketed in the latter with the docket text reading, "PETITIONER'S ORIGINAL SUBMISSION ASSERTING AN INCORRECT JURISDICTIONAL BASIS"). ORDERED Clerk shall terminate that new matter by making a new and separate entry on the docket reading, "CIVIL CASE ADMINISTRATIVELY TE RMINATED". ORDERED Clerk serve this Memorandum Opinion and Order upon Petitioner, together with a blank IFP form for prisoners, and enclose a copy of the docket sheet generated in the new matter. Signed by Judge Renee Marie Bumb on 1/8/2014. (bdk, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
________________________________
:
DONNIE PRATOLA,
:
: Civil Action No. 13-7628 (RMB)
Petitioner,
:
:
v.
: MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
:
SOUTHERN STATE
:
CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, et al., :
:
Respondents.
:
_______________________________________
:
This matter comes before the Court upon Petitioner’s
submission of a habeas petition (“Petition”) styled as a § 2241
application, which arrived unaccompanied by Petitioner’s filing
fee or by his application to proceed in this matter in forma
pauperis.

See Docket Entry No. 1.

Petitioner is a state prisoner confined at the Southern
State Correctional Facility, Delmont, New Jersey.

See Docket.

His Petition asserts that he is serving a life sentence for a
certain offense.

See id.

The website of the New Jersey

Department of Corrections indicates that an inmate named “Donald
Pratola,” whom this Court presumes to be the Petitioner here, is
serving numerous sentences, with life imprisonment being the
longest among them, for two distinct and different groups of
offenses, one committed on June 10, 1982, and another committed
on May 18, 1981.

See

https://www6.state.nj.us/DOC_Inmate/details?x=1005387
&n=0.

Petitioner asserts that he had six parole hearings on
December 8, 1999; May 7, 2003; August 12, 2004; June 21, 2006;
July 21, 2010; May 29, 2012), and the New Jersey Parole Board
declined to release him on parole each time.
No. 1, at 1-2.

See Docket Entry

Displeased with that development, Petitioner

elected to focus on the fact that the mandatory minimum
applicable, under state law, to life sentences, is less than the
term he has served thus far.

See id. at 2-4.

Therefore,

Petitioner commenced this matter asserting challenges to his
prolonged confinement.

See id. at 2-3 (demanding immediate

release upon claiming that Petitioner is now serving his “third
consecutive life term,” that is, if the phrase “life term” is
read to mean the mandatory minimum applicable to life
sentences).1
To the extent Petitioner intended to challenge his
confinement under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, this Court is without Section
2241 jurisdiction to entertain such challenges, regardless of
their procedural/substantive merits or deficiencies.

Section

2241 “confers habeas jurisdiction to hear the petition of a
federal prisoner who is challenging not the validity but the
execution of his sentence.”

Woodall v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons,

1

The rationale of Petitioner’s belief that a “life”
sentence must necessarily mean the term not exceeding the
mandatory minimum is not entirely clear to this Court, since no
state law provision or constitutional provision known to this
Court warrants the construction preferred by Petitioner.
2

432 F.3d 235, 241 (3d Cir. 2005) (citing Coady v. Vaughn, 251
F.3d 480, 485 (3d Cir. 2001).

In contrast, Section 2254 confers

jurisdiction on a federal court to entertain writs of habeas
corpus “in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment
of a State court.”

28 U.S.C. § 2254(b).

Section 2254 habeas

applications are subject to “the heightened standards prescribed
by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(‘AEDPA’),” such as timeliness of the application, the litigant
being in custody under the order he is challenging, etc.
Washington v. Sobina, 509 F.3d 613, 618 (3d Cir. 2007).

In

addition, § 2254 applications are subject to the exhaustion
requirement which, albeit not posing a jurisdictional demand, is
faithfully enforced and excused only in narrow circumstances.
See, e.g., Lee v. Stickman, 357 F.3d 338, 341 (3d Cir. 2004)
(citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b), (c)).
A state prisoner’s challenge to denial of parole are, just
as prisoner’s challenge to his imposed sentence, § 2254 claims
that must be timely under the limitations period set forth by the
AEDPA, duly exhausted in the state fora, attacking only the
parole-denying order pursuing to which the prisoner is in custody
at the time he files his petition (rather than the previous
denial-of-parole orders that have been superceded by the one
currently in operation), etc.

See, e.g., Roman v. Diguglielmo,

3

675 F.3d 204 (3d Cir. 2012); McAleese v. Brennan, 483 F.3d 206
(3d Cir. 2007); Coady v. Vaughn, 251 F.3d 480 (3d Cir. 2001).
Correspondingly, here, it appears that the sole challenge
Petitioner might raise is a timely, duly exhausted § 2254 attack
on his May 29, 2012, parole hearing that imposed his denial-ofparole term currently operable.

See Docket Entry No. 1, at 2.

Having no information as to whether Petitioner raised that
challenge timely under the AEDPA and, in addition, having no
certainty that Petitioner duly exhausted his challenges in the
state fora, this Court finds it unwarranted to sua sponte requalify the Petition at bar into a § 2254 application.

However,

out of an abundance of caution, the Court will direct the Clerk
to commence a new and separate § 2254 matter for Petitioner,
where Petitioner would be allowed an opportunity to detail the
timeliness, exhaustion and substance of his challenge in the
event he so desires and if he submits his filing fee of $5 (or
his in forma pauperis application).
IT IS, therefore, on this 8th day of January 2014,
ORDERED that the Clerk shall terminate this matter for lack
of Section 2241 jurisdiction by making a new and separate entry
on the docket of this matter reading, “CIVIL CASE
ADMINISTRATIVELY TERMINATED”; and it is further
ORDERED that the Clerk shall commence a new and separate
matter for Petitioner, designating “DONALD PRATOLA” as
4

“Petitioner,” “Warden of SSCF” as “Respondent,” “Cause” as
“28:2254 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (State),” and “Nature
of Suit” as “530 Habeas Corpus (General),” and shall assign that
new matter to the undersigned; and it is further
ORDERED that the Clerk shall docket this Memorandum Opinion
and Order in that new matter and Petitioner’s application
(docketed in the latter with the docket text reading,
“PETITIONER’S ORIGINAL SUBMISSION ASSERTING AN INCORRECT
JURISDICTIONAL BASIS”; and it is further
ORDERED that the Clerk shall terminate that new matter by
making a new and separate entry on the docket of that matter
reading, “CIVIL CASE ADMINISTRATIVELY TERMINATED”; and it is
further
ORDERED that Petitioner may have that new matter reopened in
the event he submits, within thirty days from the date of entry
of this Order, his filing fee of $5 (or his complete in forma
pauperis application)2 and accompanies the same with his amended

2

Specifically, in a habeas matter, the prisoner seeking to
proceed IFP must submit to the Clerk: (a) a completed affidavit
of poverty; and (b) a certification signed by an authorized
officer of the institution certifying both the amount presently
on deposit in the petitioner's prison account as well as the
greatest amount on deposit in the petitioner’s prison account
during the six month period prior to the date of the
certification. See Local Civil Rule 81.2(b). Consequently, to
submit an application to proceed in forma pauperis in a habeas
case, the prisoner must: (a) complete all questions in his/her
affidavit, sign and date that affidavit; and (b) obtain the
signature of the appropriate prison official who certifying the
5

pleading: (a) detailing his challenges to the May 29, 2012,
order; and (b) showing cause as to why these challenges should
not be dismissed with prejudice, as untimely, and/or dismissed
without prejudice, as unexhausted in state fora; and it is
finally
ORDERED that the Clerk serve a this Memorandum Opinion and
Order upon Petitioner by regular U.S. mail, together with a blank
in forma pauperis form for prisoners seeking to bring a habeas
action, and enclose in said mailing a copy of the docket sheet
generated in the new matter opened for Petitioner.
s/Renée Marie Bumb
RENÉE MARIE BUMB
United States District Judge

prisoner's present and the greatest six-month amounts.
6

See id.