Opinion
Civil 1:21-CV-964
06-21-2021
ALFIE KENDALL COATS, Petitioner v. KEVIN KAUFFMAN, et al., Respondents
Jones Judge
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Martin C. Carlson United States Magistrate Judge
I. Statement of Facts and of the Case
Alfie Coats is a convicted murderer. In 1990, Coats was sentenced to life imprisonment following his guilty plea conviction for first degree murder in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. (Doc. 1-2). Coats is also a prolific pro se litigant, whose past legal forays have been marked by eccentric and idiosyncratic legal theories. Coats v. Showalter, No. 1028 C.D. 2011, 2011 WL 10844923, at *1 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Dec. 1, 2011); In re Coats, 2004 PA Super 125, ¶ 1, 849 A.2d 254, 255 (2004).
Both of these attributes are on display in the instant case.
Coats has filed a document styled in the nature of a petition for writ of habeas corpus. (Doc. 1). Coats' petition demands a great deal from the reader. In this pleading, Coats describes himself as “[a] private copyrighted property, ” and a “creditor, private litigant, proprietor of Trade-Name/Trade-mark, real party in interest.” (Id.) Coats then invokes the admiralty jurisdiction of this court and asserts that there has been some sort of a “misnomer” by the Commonwealth, which under copyright and trademark laws somehow vitiates his murder guilty plea conviction and compels his release from custody. (Id.) It is upon these fanciful theories that Coats attempts to invoke the habeas corpus jurisdiction of this court and seeks his immediate release from prison.
We should decline this invitation. On its face, this petition fails for multiple reasons. Accordingly, as discussed below, it is recommended that this petition either be summarily dismissed or, in the alternative, transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
II. Discussion
A. This Petition Should Be Dismissed or Transferred.
In this case, we find that the petitioner has not made out a valid case for pursuing habeas relief in this district at this time. Therefore, since the petitioner has not made a showing justifying habeas relief at this time, this petition is subject to summary dismissal pursuant to Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Rule 4 applies to § 2241 petitions under Rule 1(b) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts). See, e.g., Patton v. Fenton, 491 F.Supp. 156, 158-59 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 14, 1979) (explaining that Rule 4 is “applicable to Section 2241 petitions through Rule 1(b)”).
Rule 4 provides in pertinent part: “[i]f it plainly appears from the petition and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to relief in the district court, the judge must dismiss the petition and direct the clerk to notify the petitioner.” Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. Summary dismissal of this habeas petition is appropriate for several reasons.
First, the petition is substantively without merit. In order to obtain federal habeas corpus relief, a state prisoner seeking to invoke the power of this Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus must satisfy the standards prescribed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which provides in part as follows:
(a) The Supreme Court, a Justice thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.
(b) (1) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that-
(A) the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State;
(2) An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State.28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) and (b).
As this statutory text implies, state prisoners must meet exacting substantive and procedural benchmarks in order to obtain habeas corpus relief. At the outset, a petition must satisfy exacting substantive standards to warrant relief. Federal courts may “entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). By limiting habeas relief to state conduct which violates “the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States, ” § 2254 places a high threshold on the courts. Typically, habeas relief will only be granted to state prisoners in those instances where the conduct of state proceedings led to a “fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice” or was completely inconsistent with rudimentary demands of fair procedure. See e.g., Reed v. Farley, 512 U.S. 339, 354 (1994). Thus, claimed violations of state law, standing alone, will not entitle a petitioner to § 2254 relief, absent a showing that those violations are so great as to be of a constitutional dimension. See Priester v. Vaughan, 382 F.3d 394, 401-02 (3d Cir. 2004).
Here it is factually undisputed that Coats pleaded guilty to murder in 1990 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Given this guilty plea conviction, there are no factual grounds justifying habeas corpus relief in this case. Moreover, to the extent that they can be understood, Coats' legal arguments are frivolous. Federal trademark and copyright laws simply provide no grounds for setting aside state murder convictions. Indeed, courts have frequently rebuffed efforts by pro se litigants to graft some sort of copyright or trademark claims into a ground of federal habeas corpus relief. See e.g., DOUGLAS PRESTON SMTIH, Petitioner, v. DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR CUMBERLAND COUNTY, et al., Respondents, No. 1:21-CV-838, 2021 WL 2376665, at *1 (M.D. Pa. June 10, 2021); Urgent v. Dennis Urgent(c)TM, No. 4:19-CV-01348, 2020 WL 5489194, at *1 (M.D. Pa. June 18, 2020), report and recommendation adopted sub nom. Urgent v. Urgent(c)TM®, No. 4:19-CV-01348, 2020 WL 5439971 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 10, 2020); Marrakush Soc. v. New Jersey State Police, No. CIV A 09-2518(JBS), 2009 WL 2366132, at *1 (D.N.J. July 30, 2009).Therefore, these factually bankrupt and legally fanciful claims should be dismissed.
Second, this petition is presumptively time-barred. State prisoners seeking relief under Section 2254 must also satisfy specific, and precise, procedural standards. Among these procedural prerequisites is a requirement that petitioners timely file motions seeking habeas corpus relief. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2244, established a one-year statute of limitations on the filing of habeas petitions by state prisoners. In pertinent part, § 2244(d)(1) provides as follows:
A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. The limitation period shall run from the latest of-(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review;
(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an plication created by State action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the applicant was prevented from filing by such State action;
(C) the date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or,
(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.
See Miller v. New Jersey State Dep't of Corr., 145 F.3d 616, 617 (3d Cir. 1998).
The calculation of this limitations period is governed by a series of well-defined rules. At the outset, these rules are prescribed by statute, specifically 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d), prescribes several forms of statutory tolling. First, with respect to tolling based upon a petitioner's direct appeal of his conviction: “The limitation period shall run from the latest of- (A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). The courts have construed this tolling provision in a forgiving fashion, and in a manner that enables petitioners to toll their filing deadlines for the time periods in which they could have sought further direct appellate review of their cases, even if they did not, in fact, elect to seek such review. Thus, with respect to direct appeals, the statute of limitations is tolled during the period in which a petitioner could have sought discretionary appellate court review, by way of allocator or through a petition for writ of certiorari, even if no such petition is filed. Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 119 (2009). After this period of time passes, however, by statute the judgment of conviction becomes final. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A).
Section 2244(d)(2), in turn, prescribes a second period of statutory tolling requirements while state prisoners seek collateral review of these convictions in state court, and provides that:
The time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this subsection.
See Swartz v. Meyers, 204 F.3d 417, 419 (3d Cir. 2000).
In assessing § 2244(d)(2)'s tolling provision, for purposes of tolling the federal habeas statute of limitations, a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review” only includes applications which are filed in a timely fashion under state law. Therefore, if the petitioner is delinquent in seeking state collateral review of his conviction, that tardy state pleading will not be considered a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review” and will not toll the limitations period. Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 412-14 (2005); Long v. Wilson, 393 F.3d 390, 394-95 (3d. Cir. 2004). Moreover, in contrast to the direct appeal tolling provisions, this post-conviction petition tolling provision does not allow for an additional period of tolling for the petitioner who does not seek further discretionary appellate court review of his conviction and sentence. Miller v. Dragovich, 311 F.3d 574, 578 (3d Cir. 2002).
Beyond this tolling period mandated by statute, it has also been held that AEDPA's one-year limitations period is not a jurisdictional bar to the filing of habeas petitions, Miller, 145 F.3d at 617-18, and, therefore, is subject to equitable tolling. Id. at 618-19. Yet, while equitable tolling is permitted in state habeas petitions under AEDPA, it is not favored. As the Third Circuit has observed: “[E]quitable tolling is proper only when the ‘principles of equity would make [the] rigid application [of a limitation period] unfair.' Generally, this will occur when the petitioner has ‘in some extraordinary way ... been prevented from asserting his or her rights' The petitioner must show that he or she ‘exercised reasonable diligence in investigating and bringing [the] claims' Mere excusable neglect is not sufficient.” Id. at 618-19 (citations omitted). Indeed, it has been held that only:
[T]hree circumstances permit[ ] equitable tolling: if
(1) the defendant has actively misled the plaintiff,
(2) if the plaintiff has in some extraordinary way been prevented from asserting his rights, or
(3) if the plaintiff has timely asserted his rights mistakenly in the wrong forum.Fahy v. Horn, 240 F.3d 239, 244 (3d Cir. 2001) (quoting Jones v. Morton, 195 F.3d 153, 159 (3d Cir. 1999) (citations omitted)).
Applying this exacting standard, courts have held that: “In non-capital cases, attorney error, miscalculation, inadequate research, or other mistakes have not been found to rise to the ‘extraordinary' circumstances required for equitable tolling. See Freeman v. Page, 208 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2000) (finding no basis for equitable tolling where the statute of limitations was changed to shorten the time for filing a PCRA only four months prior to the filing of the petition); Taliani v. Chrans, 189 F.3d 597 (7th Cir. 1999) (finding lawyer's inadequate research, which led to miscalculating the deadline, did not warrant equitable tolling).” Id. While courts apply exacting standards to equitable tolling claims, it is evident that complete abandonment of a petitioner by his counsel can constitute one of the extraordinary circumstances justifying such equitable tolling. In Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631 (2010), the Supreme Court of the United States held that equitable tolling applies to § 2244(d). Id., at 645. Further, the Court in Holland held that an attorney's actions or inactions, if egregious enough, can constitute an “extraordinary circumstance” that justifies equitable tolling of a habeas petition. Id., at 651-52; see also Ross v. Varano, 712 F.3d 784 (3d Cir. 2013) (upholding a district court's determination of equitable tolling based on attorney misconduct).
Here, it is undisputed that Coats pleaded guilty in state court and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1990. (Doc. 1-2). There is absolutely no indication by Coats of any post-conviction litigation that would have tolled the one-year statute of limitations for the past three decades. Further, Coats identifies no grounds which would allow for equitable tolling of this limitations period for more than a quarter of a century. Therefore, the one-year statute of limitations presumptively applies here and bars consideration of this petition.
Third, even if the petition had any colorable merit-which it does not-the petition is filed in the wrong court. Thus, if this court believes that Coats' pleading should be entertained in some manner, we find that this petition should be transferred to the federal district court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania-the venue where the petitioner was convicted, and the venue where the state sentence that is the subject of this habeas corpus petition was imposed. For state prisoners like Coats who seek to contest some aspect of their state sentences, 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d) specifies where habeas corpus petitions should be filed, and provides as follows:
Where an application for a writ of habeas corpus is made by a person in custody under the judgment and sentence of a State court of a State which contains two or more Federal judicial districts, the application may be filed in the district court for the district wherein such person is in custody or in the district court for the district within which the State
court was held which convicted and sentenced him and each of such district courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain the application. The district court for the district wherein such an application is filed in the exercise of its discretion and in furtherance of justice may transfer the application to the other district court for hearing and determination.28 U.S.C. § 2241(d).
Thus, state prisoner habeas corpus petitions may be brought in the federal judicial district in which the state court of the conviction is located or, when the prisoner is confined in a prison located in another federal district in the same state as the state of conviction, the petition may also be brought in the district of confinement. See 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d). However, § 2241(d) also provides that the district court for the district in which the petition is filed may “in furtherance of justice” transfer the petition to the federal district court in which the state court of the conviction is located. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d). See also Miller v. Hambrick, 905 F.2d 259, 262 (9th Cir. 1990).
In this case, the petitioner is a state prisoner who wishes to file a habeas corpus petition with the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania challenging a state conviction arising out of a case prosecuted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a conviction and underlying state case which are matters that fall under the territorial jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 28 U.S.C. § 118(a). Given that this offense, state prosecution, and sentencing all took place in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, it would be in the interest of justice to transfer this petition to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d). See also Miller, 905 F.2d at 262.
Indeed, the United States District Courts for Pennsylvania's three federal judicial districts have customarily transferred petitions of this type to the district of conviction for substantive habeas proceedings. Helfrich v. Coleman, No. 10-958, 2010 WL 1337728 (E.D. Pa. April 6, 2010); McKeever v. McGrady, No. 08-2905, 2008 WL 5101729 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 26, 2008); Fletcher v. Rozum, No. 08-716, 2008 WL 2609826 (W.D. Pa. June 26, 2008); Reinhold v. Rozum, No. 4:CV-07-1997, 2007 WL 4248273 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 30, 2007). This course of action, in turn, is consistent with the guidance of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which has “note[d] that it is quite clear that ordinarily a transfer of a [habeas] proceeding relating to the validity of the petitioner's conviction from the district of confinement to the district of sentencing would be in furtherance of the convenience of the parties and witnesses. See Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 249; Meadows, 426 F.2d at 1183 n. 9.” In re Nwanze, 242 F.3d 521, 526 n.2 (3d Cir. 2001). Thus, this practice is permitted by statute, is commonplace, is endorsed by the Court of Appeals, achieves a desirable uniformity of approach among the three districts in the matter of exercising jurisdiction in these cases, and serves the interests of the litigants in those cases where hearings are required.
Further, we observe that an order transferring this case to Eastern District of Pennsylvania for additional proceedings also protects the petitioner's rights as a pro se litigant. Such a transfer order avoids any unintended prejudice to the petitioner which might flow from a dismissal of this action. See Burnett v. New York Cent. R. Co., 380 U.S. 424, 430 (1965). Moreover, addressing the question of venue in this fashion would not constitute a ruling on the merits of the petitioner's claims, thus assuring that the petitioner can have his case heard on its merits in the most appropriate forum. See generally, 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper Federal Practice and Procedure, § 4436, at 338. Therefore, if the court discerned some colorable merit in this petition, it should transfer this petition to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
III. Recommendation
For the reasons set forth above, IT IS RECOMMENDED that the Court either DENY this petition for a writ of habeas corpus (Doc. 1), or, in the alternative, transfer the petition to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and that no certificate of appealability should issue in this case.
Petitioner is placed on notice that pursuant to Local Rule 72.3:
Any party may object to a magistrate judge's proposed findings, recommendations or report addressing a motion or matter described in 28 U.S.C. § 636 (b)(1)(B) or making a recommendation for the disposition of a prisoner case or a habeas corpus petition within fourteen (14) days after being served with a copy thereof. Such party shall file with the clerk of court, and serve on the magistrate judge and all parties, written objections which shall specifically identify the portions of the proposed findings, recommendations or report to which objection is made and the basis for such objections. The briefing requirements set forth in Local Rule 72.2 shall apply. A judge shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made and may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge. The judge, however, need conduct a new hearing only in his or her discretion or where required by law, and may consider the record developed before the magistrate judge, making his or her own determination on the basis of that record. The judge may also receive further evidence, recall witnesses or recommit the matter to the magistrate judge with instructions.