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Dodd v. Beaumont

Court of Appeals of Oregon
Apr 10, 2024
331 Or. App. 819 (Or. Ct. App. 2024)

Opinion

A180533

04-10-2024

JUSTIN RAY DODD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jeremy BEAUMONT, Superintendent, Warner Creek Correctional Facility, Defendant-Respondent.

Jedediah Peterson and O'Connor Weber LLC filed the brief for appellant. Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Robert M. Wilsey, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.


This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

Submitted March 6, 2024.

Lake County Circuit Court 22CV40024; David M. Vandenberg, Judge.

Jedediah Peterson and O'Connor Weber LLC filed the brief for appellant.

Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Robert M. Wilsey, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.

Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Joyce, Judge, and Jacquot, Judge.

JOYCE, J.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In that petition, plaintiff claimed that his conviction and sentence were unlawful and that he could not seek post-conviction relief because such a claim would be untimely. The trial court rejected his claims, concluding that the claims were "not properly the subject matter for" habeas corpus. We affirm.

Plaintiff argues that, under Mueller v. Benning, 314 Or. 615, 621, 841 P.2d 640 (1992), the trial court should have treated his petition for a writ of habeas corpus as "mislabeled claims for post-conviction relief and applied the analytical framework for post-conviction claims. We disagree that Mueller required the trial court to do so. To be sure, Mueller stands for the proposition that a court "d[oes] not err when it hear[s] a properly cognizable post-conviction claim that [has been] mislabeled by the court as a petition for habeas corpus." Perry v. Zenon, 127 Or.App. 682, 685, 874 P.2d 89 (1994) (so describing the holding in Mueller). That said, "[n]othing in Mueller compels a trial court to convert a petition for habeas corpus into a petition for post-conviction relief, particularly on its own initiative." Bates v. Czerniak, 187 Or.App. 8, 12, 66 P.3d 519, rev den, 335 Or. 422 (2003). That holds particularly true when, as here, the petition for habeas corpus relief expressly acknowledged that the claim could not be brought as a post-conviction claim. Given that the trial court was under no obligation to sua sponte convert plaintiffs habeas petition into one for post-conviction relief, we cannot conclude that it erred in not doing so.

Affirmed.


Summaries of

Dodd v. Beaumont

Court of Appeals of Oregon
Apr 10, 2024
331 Or. App. 819 (Or. Ct. App. 2024)
Case details for

Dodd v. Beaumont

Case Details

Full title:JUSTIN RAY DODD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jeremy BEAUMONT, Superintendent…

Court:Court of Appeals of Oregon

Date published: Apr 10, 2024

Citations

331 Or. App. 819 (Or. Ct. App. 2024)