PRATOLA v. SOUTHERN STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY et al
Filing
9
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER APPLIES TO BOTH ACTIONS, ORDERED that the Clerk shall reopen each matter; ORDERED that Petitioner's application docketed in 13-7628, as Docket Entry No. 7, is granted, and the Clerk shall close 13-7628, etc.; ORDERE D that Petitioner's motion docketed in 14-119 as Docket Entry No. 22 is granted insofar that Petitioner's time to submit his amended petition is extended for the period of 60 days, etc.; ORDERED that the Clerk shall administratively termina te 14-119, etc.; ORDERED that the Petitioner may have 14-119 reopened if he timely submits his amended petition, etc.; ORDERED that the Clerk shall serve this Memorandum Opinion and Order upon Petitioner by regular U.S. mail and enclose in said mailing a blank Section 2254 petition form, etc. Signed by Judge Renee Marie Bumb on 11/21/2014. (dmr)(n.m.)
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
CAMDEN VICINAGE
________________________________
:
DONNIE PRATOLA,
:
: Civil Action No. 13-7628 (RMB)
Petitioner,
:
:
v.
:
:
SOUTHERN STATE
:
CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, et al., :
:
Respondents.
:
_______________________________________
:
:
DONNIE PRATOLA,
:
: Civil Action No. 14-0119 (RMB)
Petitioner,
:
:
v.
: MEMORAMDUM OPINION AND ORDER
:
APPLIES TO BOTH ACTIONS
WARDEN OF SSCF,
:
:
Respondent.
:
_______________________________________
:
BUMB, District Judge:
These two matter are before the Court upon Petitioner’s
filing of two motions that were docketed in each of the abovecaptioned matters.
See Pratola v. SSCF (“Pratola-I”), Civil
Action No. 13-7628 (RMB), Docket Entries Nos. 7 and 8, and
Pratola v. Warden of SSCF (“Pratola-II”), Civil Action No. 140119 (RMB), Docket Entries Nos. 21 and 22.
Petitioner is a state prisoner confined at the Southern
State Correctional Facility, Delmont, New Jersey.
a life sentence.1
He is serving
See id.
On December 18, 2013, the Clerk received Petitioner’s
submission styled as a § 2241 petition (“Original Petition”);
that submission gave rise to Pratola-I and asserted that
Petitioner had six parole hearings between 1999 and 2012, and the
New Jersey Parole Board declined to release him on parole after
each hearing.
See Pratola-I, Docket Entry No. 1, at 1-2.
The
Original Petition (a) asserted that Petitioner’s rights had to be
violated by the aforesaid denials since the minimum parole
ineligibility period applicable, under the state law, to life
sentences, was shorter than the term Petitioner already served;
and (b) sought Petitioner’s immediate release.
See id. at 2-4.
This Court explained to Petitioner that the Court was
without § 2241 jurisdiction to entertain his challenges in a
Section 2241 proceeding.
See id., Docket Entry No. 2.
1
The New Jersey Department of Corrections website shows
that Petitioner is serving numerous sentences (with the life term
being the longest) for two groups of offenses, one committed on
in 1982, and another committed in 1981. See https://www6.state.
nj.us/DOC_Inmate/details?x=1005387&n=0. Petitioner’s latest
filing disputes this fact, claiming that his 1982 conviction
should be equated to his 1981 conviction since the 1982
conviction was based on the event discovered during the
investigation of the events that led to his 1981 conviction. See
Pratola-I, Docket Entry No. 8, at 2. However, for the purposes
of this Court’s analysis conducted at this juncture, this
discrepancy is of no relevance, as is Petitioner’s conviction in
1959.
2
To enable Petitioner’s litigation of his habeas claims, this
Court directed the Clerk to commence Pratola-II, a § 2254 habeas
action.
In conjunction with the same, this Court explained to
Petitioner a few threshold requirements associated with a § 2254
action.
See Pratola-I, Docket Entry No. 2.
For instance, this
Court pointed out that a § 2254 petition must be timely within
the meaning of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996 (“AEDPA”), that the litigant must be in custody under the
very order he is challenging at the time he files his § 2254
petition attacking that order, and that his claims must be duly
exhausted in the state forum.
See id. at 3-4.
Since the sole
challenge Petitioner could, seemingly, raise in light of these
requirements was “a timely, duly exhausted § 2254 attack on his
[latest, i.e.,] May 29, 2012, parole hearing that imposed his
denial-of-parole term currently operable,” id. at 4, this Court
allowed Petitioner an opportunity to elaborate on his challenges
to that order in an amended § 2254 petition filed in Pratola-II.
In response, Petitioner did not file an amended pleading;
rather, he filed numerous letters and applications indicating his
substantial confusion.
4-10.
See Pratola-II, Docket Entry No. 17, at
Therefore, this Court re-explained to him that Petitioner
could challenge only his currently operable order denying parole,
that his challenges had to be limited to federal claims, that
each of those federal claims had to be duly exhausted in all
3
levels of the state courts empowered to hear those claims, i.e.,
the Appellate Division and the New Jersey Supreme Court, and that
those claims had to be timely under the AEDPA.
With that, this
Court allowed Petitioner one more chance to resubmit his amended
§ 2254 petition in Pratola-II.
17.
See Pratola-II, Docket Entry No.
In response, Petitioner submitted his motions at bar; these
motions seemingly contradict each other, and the latter motion
evinces Petitioner’s continuous confusion as to jurisdictional,
procedural and substantive requirements associated with federal §
2254 review.2
Presuming, without making a factual finding to that effect,
that Petitioner’s direct appellate state challenges were
completed on December 18, 2013, Petitioner’s AEDPA period was
triggered ninety days later, i.e., when his time to seek
2
The first motion states “I am respectfully requesting
that you dismiss the complete matter without prejudice, so I can
revise the petition and reconstruct all issues. I received your
order and do understand.” Pratola-II, Docket Entry No. 21.
Thus, this motion suggests that Petitioner wishes to commence a
new and separate Section 2254 matter. The second motion,
however, indicates that Petitioner wishes to continue with his
already-commenced litigation since it states stated that his
“amended petition will be forthcoming,” Pratola-II, Docket Entry
No. 22, at 2 (spelling corrected), recited state law and realleged Petitioner’s original claim by stating “I am collaterally
attacking the duration of time spent on[]one single . . .
sentence [that imposed life imprisonment on the basis of murder
conviction,” id. (“14/15 years for parole release, not forever”),
and indicated that the Supreme Court of New Jersey denied
Petitioner certification on December 18, 2013. See id. at 4.
This Court, therefore, concludes that Petitioner’s motions were
meant to seek dismissal of Pratola-I and to state Petitioner’s
interest in continuing his Pratola-II litigation.
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certiorari from the United States Supreme Court expired.
Thus,
Petitioner’s so-presumed one-year AEDPA period of limitations
should continue running until March 17, 2015, inclusive.
Correspondingly, since his submissions suggest that he is
within his period of limitations and held under the 2012 denial
of parole order he is challenging now, the inquiry at hand is
narrowed down to the nature of his claims and his proper
exhaustion of those claims.
While Petitioner is, seemingly, under the impression that he
is necessarily entitled to release on parole after serving a
certain number of years, Petitioner errs: his sentence is a life
term to which no guarantee of release on parole attaches after a
certain period of time, be it under the state law or federal law.
Moreover, for the purposes of federal § 2254 review, the inquiry
is never framed in terms of when a guaranteed release on parole
attaches.
Federal courts do not sit in quasi-appellate review of
state courts and, a fortiori, they do not act as quasi-appellate
bodies supervising the Full Board of the Parole Board.
See Smith
v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 221 (1982) (“Federal courts hold no
supervisory authority over state proceedings and may intervene
only to correct wrongs of constitutional dimension”).
Rather,
the federal inquiry triggered by a § 2254 review is whether the
findings of the parole board (that elected to deny release of a
5
certain inmate on parole) were such that these findings violated
the inmate’s due process rights.
“[T]he Due Process Clause contains a substantive component
that bars certain arbitrary, wrongful governmental actions
regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement
them.”
Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992).
But the
Supreme Court explained “that only the most egregious official
conduct can be said to be arbitrary in the constitutional sense.”
County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 847-48 (1998)
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Hence, a
denial of parole qualifies as a violation of constitutional
dimensions only if it is unsupported by “some evidence.”
Under this standard, the Court of Appeals rejected
substantive due process challenges to state parole board
decisions in Coady v. Vaughn, 251 F.3d at 487, and Hunterson v.
DiSabato, 308 F.3d 236, 246-47 (3d Cir. 2002).
In Coady, the
prisoner insisted that the parole board’s decision violated his
due process rights because the board used an impermissible
criteria to deny him parole, applied erroneous descriptions of
the conduct underlying his offense, and considered false
information.
The Court of Appeals rejected his claims pointing
out that “federal courts [were] not authorized by the due process
clause to second-guess parole boards and the requirements of
6
substantive due process are met if there is some basis for the
challenged decision.”
Coady, 251 F.3d at 487.
Moreover, in Hunterson, the Court of Appeals reversed an
order granting the writ to a New Jersey inmate who claimed that a
parole board’s decision imposing a five-year FET was arbitrary,
capricious, and an unreasonable abuse of discretion.
The Court
of Appeals explained that
[a] constitutional challenge to a state [parole]
proceeding is not easily mounted. We have made clear
that the federal courts, on habeas review, are not to
second-guess parole boards, and the requirements of
substantive due process are met if there is some basis
for the challenged decision . . . . The relevant level
of arbitrariness required in order to find a
substantive due process violation involves not merely
action that is unreasonable, but, rather, something
more egregious, which we have termed at times
conscience shocking or deliberately indifferent.
Hunterson, 308 F.3d at 246-47 (citations and internal quotation
marks omitted, emphasis supplied).
Thus, if the decision of the parole board was based on “some
evidence,” that decision is constitutionally valid for the
purposes of § 2254 review, even if the inmate sincerely believes
that the parole board improperly balanced the favorable and
unfavorable factors, or that the parole board factored in the
events or evidence which the inmate characterizes differently or
disagrees with.
See id.
Thus, Petitioner’s statements that: (a)
he “had no prior record before coming to prison [of] these bogus
charges”; or (b) he should have qualified for parole because of
7
his favorable “progress report, psyche reports and programs
completed”; or (c) he should have been released on parole because
he was in confinement longer than the minimum prison period
applicable to life sentences under the state law, cannot have any
relevance to this Court’s legal analysis conducted under § 2254.
This Court’s legal analysis is reduced to one, and only one
inquiry, i.e., did the state courts unreasonably apply Supreme
Court precedent set forth in Lewis and Foucha when they concluded
that the parole board did not violate Petitioner’s rights by
denying him release on parole in 2012?
If the record presented
to the state courts shows that the parole board based its denial
on “some evidence” (i.e., the parole board’s decision was not
rendered in complete absence of facts or was not based on a mere
scintilla of evidence), then the state courts’ affirmance of the
parole board determination does not offend the governing Supreme
Court precedents, and the inmate is not entitled to § 2254
relief.
See Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398-1401
(2011) (the court sitting in habeas review is limited to
consideration of the record that was before the state court which
adjudicated the claim on the merits and, thus, cannot expand the
record); accord Big Apple BMW, Inc. v. BMW of North America,
Inc., 974 F.2d 1358, 1363 (3d Cir. 1992) (if the non-moving party
has exceeded the mere scintilla of evidence threshold and has
offered a genuine issue of material fact, then the court cannot
8
credit the movant’s version of events against the opponent, even
if the quantity of the movant’s evidence far outweighs that of
its opponent).
Hence, the sole federal issue Petitioner may raise in
attacking his 2012 denial of parole is that the parole board’s
decision was either wholly unsupported by facts or that it was
supported by facts that could not qualify as a bona fide
evidence.
If Petitioner raised that claim before the Appellate
Division and in his application for certification by the New
Jersey Supreme Court, then that claim is duly exhausted and ripe
for this Court’s habeas review under § 2254, and Petitioner may
raise that claim (and the facts he presented to the state courts
in support of that claim) for this Court’s § 2254 review.
In
contrast, Petitioner’s allegations stated thus far (e.g., his
state law challenges, assertions as to the advancements he made
in prison, discussions of the minimum period of incarceration
applicable to life sentences, etc.), even if those allegations
were timely and duly exhausted in the state courts, cannot
entitle Petitioner to federal habeas relief.
These allegations
simply fall outside this Court’s subject matter jurisdiction much
like Petitioner’s challenges to his prior parole hearings that
produced now-superseded orders of conviction fall outside this
Court’s jurisdiction.
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In light of the foregoing, this Court will allow Petitioner
to re-plead his viable claims, if any, by filing an amended
pleading in Pratola-II.
The Court, however, notes that – until
and unless Petitioner’s recently commenced appeal to the United
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is resolved – this
Court is and will remain without jurisdiction to act on
Petitioner’s amended pleading, even if that pleading states a
viable claim.
See Venen v. Sweet, 758 F.2d 117, 120 (3d Cir.
1985) (“[the litigant’s act of] filing of a notice of appeal is
an event of jurisdictional significance, immediately conferring
jurisdiction on a Court of Appeals and divesting a district court
of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the
appeal”); see also Ingram v. Warden,
2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7033,
at *3 (D.N.J. Jan. 24, 2011) (“Simply put, [a litigant] cannot
‘hedge his bets’ by hoping that either continuing proceedings
before this Court or his appeal before the Court of Appeals . . .
would yield a favorable result”).
IT IS, therefore, on this 21st day of November 2014,
ORDERED that the Clerk shall reopen each above-captioned
matter by making a new and separate entry on the docket of each
matter reading, “CIVIL CASE REOPENED”; and it is further
ORDERED that Petitioner’s application docketed in Pratola v.
SSCF, Civil Action No. 13-7628, as Docket Entry No. 7, is
granted, and the Clerk shall close Pratola v. SSCF, Civil Action
10
No. 13-7628, by making a new and separate entry on the docket of
that matter reading, “PETITIONER’S CLAIMS ARE DEEMED WITHDRAWN.
CIVIL CASE CONCLUSIVELY CLOSED.
BY PETITIONER IN THIS MATTER.
NO FURTHER FILINGS SHALL BE MADE
NO OTHER DOCUMENTS SHALL BE FILED
BY THE CLERK IN THIS MATTER”; and it is further
ORDERED that Petitioner’s motion docketed in Pratola v.
Warden of SSCF, Civil Action No. 14-0119, as Docket Entry No. 22
is granted insofar that Petitioner’s time to submit his amended
petition is extended for the period of sixty days.
These sixty
days shall be counted either from the date of entry of this
Memorandum Opinion and Order or from the date when the United
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rules on
Petitioner’s appeal, whichever date is later; and it is further
ORDERED that the Clerk shall administratively terminate
Pratola v. Warden of SSCF, Civil Action No. 14-0119, by making a
new and separate entry on the docket of that matter reading,
“CIVIL CASE TERMINATED SUBJECT TO REOPENING IN THE EVENT
PETITIONER TIMELY SUBMITS HIS AMENDED PETITION”; and it is
further
ORDERED that Petitioner may have Pratola v. Warden of SSCF,
Civil Action No. 14-0119, reopened if his timely submits (in that
matter) his amended petition stating a claim cognizable for the
purposes of Section 2254 review, as explained herein; and it is
further
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ORDERED that the Clerk shall serve this Memorandum Opinion
and Order upon Petitioner by regular U.S. mail and enclose in
said mailing a blank Section 2254 petition form; and it is
finally
ORDERED that the Clerk shall serve a complimentary copy of
this Memorandum Opinion and Order upon the Clerk of the
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
United
Such service
shall be executed by means of electronic delivery and accompanied
by a notation reading, “SERVICE EXECUTED FOR NOTICE PURPOSES ONLY
IN CONNECTION WITH USCA CASE NUMBER 14-3587.”
s/Renée Marie Bumb
RENÉE MARIE BUMB
United States District Judge
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