Opinion
Civil Action 23-1666
11-15-2023
ERIC X. RAMBERT, Petitioner, v. MICHAEL ZAKEN, Warden SCI Greene, and MICHELLE HENRY, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Respondents.
David S. Cercone, District Judge
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Patricia L. Dodge United States Magistrate Judge
I. RECOMMENDATION
For the foregoing reasons, it is respectfully recommended that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF No. 4) filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 by Eric X. Rambert (“Petitioner”) be treated as a petition filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and be summarily dismissed for lack of jurisdiction as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition. It is also recommended that a certificate of appealability be denied.
II. REPORT
Petitioner is a prisoner in the custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (“DOC”). He has filed a pro se Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, essentially claiming that he is being unlawfully detained because of the way in which the DOC is executing his sentences. Specifically, he argues that the DOC unlawfully aggregated his six (6) to twenty-five (25) year prison sentence imposed at CP-02-CR-0002765-1987 in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County on November 10, 1987, with his ten (10) to twenty-five (25) year prison sentence imposed at CP-51-CR-0625331-1983 in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County on November 21, 1983.
According to the exhibits attached to the Petition, when imposed, his Allegheny County sentence was ordered to run consecutively to his Philadelphia County sentence resulting in a minimum of 16 years and a maximum of 50 years incarceration. This resulted in a maximum sentence date of June 2, 2033, but, according to Petitioner's interpretation of legal authority, his sentence should have expired on June 2, 2008. Petitioner requests that the Court order Respondents to release him from his “false imprisonment/unlawful detention by executing the lawful sentencing orders, statutes and provisions that he was sentenced under.”
As an initial matter, Petitioner requests relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Section 2241 confers jurisdiction on district courts to issue writs of habeas corpus in response to a petition from a state or federal prisoner who “is in custody in violation of the constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3). In contrast, section 2254 confers jurisdiction on district courts to issue “writs of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court . . . 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). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has determined, based on canons of statutory construction, that because section 2254 is more specific and section 2241 more general, a state prisoner must generally seek relief through a petition brought pursuant to section 2254 and not by section 2241. Coady v. Vaughn, 251 F.3d 480, 484 (3d Cir. 2001); see also Crouch v. Norris, 251 F.3d 720, 723 (8th Cir. 2001) (“Not only is § 2254 an appropriate vehicle for Crouch's proposed claims, it is, as a practical matter, the only vehicle. This is because Crouch is a ‘person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,' 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), and can only obtain habeas relief through § 2254, no matter how his pleadings are styled.”).
Liberally construing the allegations in the Petition, Petitioner's only discernible claim is that the DOC is unlawfully executing his sentences. However, because Petitioner is in state custody pursuant to a judgment of a state court, albeit according to him, illegally so, and his claim seeks to challenge the validity of that custody, Petitioner must seek federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, not 28 U.S.C. § 2241.The Court should therefore construe the Petition as one seeking relief under § 2254.
A petitioner cannot circumvent Congress's intent on limiting repeat filings in federal courts reattacking state convictions by simply recharacterizing his petition as being filed pursuant to section 2241. This course of action is foreclosed by Coady, 251 F.3d at 484-85 (“Allowing Coady to file the instant petition in federal court pursuant to Section 2241 without reliance on Section 2254 would circumvent this particular restriction in the event that Coady seeks to repetition for habeas relief and would thereby thwart Congressional intent. Thus, applying the ‘specific governs the general' canon of statutory construction to this action, we hold that Coady must rely on Section 2254 in challenging the execution of his sentence.”)
Next, this Court must review the Petition pursuant to Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. Under Rule 4, a district court must “promptly examine” a habeas petition and dismiss it “[i]f it plainly appears from the petition and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to relief in the district court.” Here, the Court should find that summary dismissal is warranted because the Petition is an unauthorized successive petition.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), a federal district court must dismiss claims asserted in a second or successive petition if those claims were “presented in a prior application.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1). In limited circumstances, the district court may consider claims presented in a second or successive petition if those claims were not presented in a prior petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2). However, before a state prisoner files a second or successive petition in federal district court, raising either previously presented or newly presented claims, the prisoner must first file a motion “in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider” the second or successive petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). If the court of appeals authorizes the filing of a second or successive petition, the district court must then consider whether the individual claims asserted in the petition should be dismissed under § 2244(b). 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(4).
This Court's records show that Petitioner has filed numerous § 2254 habeas petitions in this Court challenging his 1987 judgment of sentence in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His first two petitions, filed at Civil Action Nos. 91-134 and 94-657, were both dismissed without prejudice for Petitioner's failure to exhaust his state court remedies. His next petition, filed at Civil Action No. 97-1926, was dismissed and a certificate of appealability was denied. His petitions that followed thereafter, filed at Civil Action Nos. 06-1573, 12-913, 12-1707, 14-1262, 15-1088, 17-268, 18-293, 20-948, and 23-221 were all dismissed for lack of jurisdiction as unauthorized second or successive petitions.
Petitioner has also been denied leave to file a second or successive habeas petition by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on numerous occasions. See In re: Eric Rambert, C.A. Nos. 07-1027, 13-3094, 13-4566, 14-1891, 161547, 16-2813, 17-1002, 17-1354, 17-3268, 18-1076, 18-1468, 19-2561, 19-2605, 21-1393, and 21-1621. It is not clear, however, whether all of these cases pertained to his 1987 judgment of sentence out of Allegheny County, as it appears that he also sought leave to file a second or successive habeas petition challenging his 1983 judgment of sentence from Philadelphia County.
Not counting his first two petitions that were dismissed without prejudice, this Petition is at least Petitioner's eleventh § 2254 petition challenging the validity of his custody pursuant to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas judgment at CP-02-CR-0002765-1987. Petitioner does not allege, and nothing in the record suggests, that the state court entered a new judgment in Petitioner's underlying criminal case. The Petition is therefore a successive petition. Compare Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147, 153 (2007) (concluding that second-in-time habeas petition was “second or successive” under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) because state prisoner “twice brought claims contesting the same custody imposed by the same judgment of a state court”), with Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 341-42 (2010) (explaining that “where, unlike in Burton, there is a ‘new judgment intervening between the two habeas petitions,' an application challenging the resulting new judgment is not ‘second or successive' at all” (quoting Burton, 549 U.S. at 156)).
As this Court has previously advised Petitioner, he must obtain authorization from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit before filing a successive petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A) (“Before a second or successive application permitted by [§ 2244(b)] is filed in the district court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application.”) And because nothing in the record demonstrates that he obtained the requisite authorization before filing the Petition, the Court should dismiss his unauthorized successive petition for lack of jurisdiction.
To the extent that Petitioner would need one, a certificate of appealability should be denied because jurists of reason would not find it debatable that the instance petition is not properly a section 2241 petition, but in reality, is a second or successive 2254 petition for which Petitioner needs authorization to file. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c); Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).
III. CONCLUSION
For these reasons, it is respectfully recommended that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (ECF No. 4) filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 by Eric X. Rambert be treated as a petition filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and be summarily dismissed for lack of jurisdiction as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition. It is also recommended that a certificate of appealability be denied.
In accordance with the Magistrate Judges Act, 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and (C), and rule 72.D.2 of the Local Rules of Court, the parties are allowed fourteen (14) days from the date of service of a copy of this Report and Recommendation to file objections. Any party opposing the objections shall have fourteen (14) days from the date of service of objections to respond thereto. Failure to file timely objections will constitute a waiver of any appellate rights.