Ghant v. Morton

Full title: BRYAN GHANT, Plaintiff, v. MORTON, et al. Respondents

Court: United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania

Date published: Sep 30, 2004

Civil Action No. 04-2028 (E.D. Pa. Sep. 30, 2004)

Opinion

Civil Action No. 04-2028.

September 30, 2004

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

LINDA CARACAPPA, Magistrate Judge

Now pending before this court is a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, by a petitioner currently incarcerated in the State Correctional Institution located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. For the reasons which follow, it is recommended that the petition be denied and dismissed.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Petitioner was charged with leaving the scene of an accident which occurred on April 2, 2002. He eventually turned himself in to the Bucks County Sheriff's Department, and was thereafter released on his own recognizance. On August 5, 2002, after waiving his right to a jury trial, petitioner entered into a stipulation with the government as to his operation of a motor vehicle at the time and place of the incident, and as to his willful decision to leave the scene of the accident where a child lay injured in the road. Because the government failed to prove that petitioner had inflicted serious bodily injury on the child, the Honorable Judge Biester found petitioner guilty of a misdemeanor in the first degree for the hit and run. In addition, the judge found petitioner guilty of all other misdemeanor and summary charges. Petitioner received an aggregate sentence of neither less than five nor more than forty-six months incarceration. At no time has petitioner filed any post trial motions or appeals. Petitioner has also failed to file a petition for relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa. C.S. § 9541, et seq.

Petitioner filed the instant petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus on May 27, 2004, alleging the following claim:

(1) The Bucks County Prison Records Department illegally changed petitioner's county sentence into a state sentence.

Respondent retorts that petitioner is incorrect in his belief that his sentence was not a state sentence, and thus, no constitutional violation has occurred. Respondent further argues that petitioner's claim is procedurally defaulted for failure to exhaust his remedies in state court.

II. PROCEDURAL DEFAULT

Before a federal court may grant habeas relief to a state prisoner, the prisoner must exhaust his remedies in state court.O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 842, 119 S. Ct. 1728, 1731 (1999). A petitioner is not deemed to have exhausted the remedies available to him if he has a right under state law to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(c) (1994); Castille v. Peoples, 489 U.S. 346, 350, 109 S. Ct. 1056, 1059, reh'g denied, 490 U.S. 1076, 109 S. Ct. 2091 (1989). In other words, a petitioner must invoke "one complete round of the state's established appellate review process," in order to exhaust his remedies. O'Sullivan, 526 U.S. at 845. A habeas petitioner retains the burden of showing that all of the claims alleged have been "fairly presented" to the state courts, which demand, in turn, that the claims brought in federal court be the "substantial equivalent" of those presented to the state courts. Santana v. Fenton, 685 F.2d 71, 73-74 (3^rd Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1115, 103 S. Ct. 750 (1983). In the case of an unexhausted petition, the federal courts should dismiss without prejudice, otherwise they risk depriving the state courts of the "opportunity to correct their own errors, if any." Toulson v. Beyer, 987 F.2d 984, 989 (3^rd Cir. 1993).

However, "[i]f [a] petitioner failed to exhaust state remedies and the court to which petitioner would be required to present his claims in order to meet the exhaustion requirement would now find the claims procedurally barred . . . there is procedural default for the purpose of federal habeas . . ." Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735 n. 1, 111 S. Ct. 2546, reh'g denied, 501 U.S. 1277, 112 S. Ct. 27 (1991); McCandless v. Vaughn, 172 F.3d 255, 260 (3^rd Cir. 1999). The procedural default barrier precludes federal courts from reviewing a state petitioner's federal claims if the state court decision is based on a violation of state procedural law that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 729. "In the context of direct review of a state court judgment, [this] doctrine is jurisdictional . . . [b]ecause this Court has no power to review a state law determination that is sufficient to support the judgment." Id. "In the absence of [the procedural default doctrine] in federal habeas, habeas petitioners would be able to avoid the exhaustion doctrine by defaulting their federal claims in state court." Id. at 732.

As noted above, petitioner has failed to file any appeals in the state court system. Thus, he has failed to exhaust his state court remedies, rendering him ineligible for federal habeas relief. However, as petitioner's sentence is in fact properly classified as a "state sentence," petitioner remains eligible to apply to the State Parole Board for parole, as that body retains exclusive jurisdiction over his sentence under 61 P.S. § 331.17. As such, we must dismiss the petition in its entirety.

Therefore, I make the following:

RECOMMENDATION

AND NOW, this ________ day of September, 2004, IT IS RESPECTFULLY RECOMMENDED that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus be DENIED AND DISMISSED. It is also RECOMMENDED that a certificate of appealability not be granted.