Green v. Quiros ( 2023 )

21-1160
Green v. Quiros
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO
A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS
GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S
LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH
THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
New York, on the 5th day of July, two thousand twenty-three.
PRESENT:
ROBERT D. SACK,
SUSAN L. CARNEY,
ALISON J. NATHAN,
Circuit Judges.
_________________________________________________
Courtney Green,
Petitioner–Appellant,
v. No. 21-1160
Angel Quiros, Commissioner of Correction,
Respondent–Appellee.
_________________________________________________
FOR PETITIONER-APPELLANT: RANDALL D. UNGER, ESQ., Kew Gardens,
NY.
FOR RESPONDENT-APPELLEE: STEVEN R. STROM, Assistant Attorney
General (Clare Kindall, Solicitor General, on
the briefs), for William Tong, Attorney
General, State of Connecticut, Hartford, CT.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut
(Haight, J.).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND
DECREED that the appeal is DISMISSED.
This is an appeal from the denial of a federal habeas petition brought in August 2020 by
Courtney Green, who at the time of filing was incarcerated at Osborn Correctional Institution in
Connecticut. Green sought release from custody or transfer to home confinement, arguing that
he was immunocompromised and therefore vulnerable to infection and complications from
COVID-19, and that his continued detention violates the Eighth Amendment. The district court
concluded that Green failed to adequately exhaust state court remedies and therefore denied his
petition without prejudice. The district court declined to issue a certificate of appealability
(COA), but a panel of this Court did grant a COA, limited to the question of whether Green’s claim
is cognizable in habeas or should be brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This case was heard in
tandem with two others presenting the same question in substantially the same procedural posture.
Today we dismiss all three of these cases in separate summary orders for the reason explained
below.
On August 20, 2020, Green filed, pro se, what he styled as a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. After Green filed an amended petition, the district court
converted Green’s petition to one under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and dismissed for failure to exhaust state
court remedies because Green had not sought relief of any kind in state court before initiating this
action. Green v. Quiros, No. 3:20-CV-1217 (CSH), 2021 WL 1670293, at *6 (D. Conn. Apr. 27,
2021). No party disputed the cognizability of Green’s claim in habeas, and the district court
concluded that since Green was seeking “immediate release from incarceration, his application is
appropriately framed as a § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus.” Id. at *2. Nevertheless,
the COA this Court granted is explicitly limited to the issue of whether Green’s claim is cognizable
in habeas and does not include the issue of his failure to exhaust remedies in Connecticut state
court. Green asks the Court to expand the COA to allow him to challenge the district court’s
conclusion that he failed to exhaust state remedies, which is an independent barrier to relief. To
expand the COA, we would have to conclude that “jurists of reason would find it debatable whether
the district court was correct in” holding that Green failed to adequately exhaust state court
remedies before filing this case. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000); 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c).
The exhaustion requirement serves to ensure that state courts have “the opportunity fully
to consider federal-law challenges to” state prisoners’ incarceration. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S.
167, 178 (2001). “To provide the State with the necessary opportunity, the prisoner must fairly
present his claim in each appropriate state court (including a state supreme court with powers of
discretionary review), thereby alerting that court to the federal nature of the claim.” Baldwin v.
Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 29 (2004) (cleaned up). By its terms, 28 U.S.C. § 2254 requires that an
individual in state custody seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus first “exhaust[] the remedies
available in the courts of the State.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). “While 28 U.S.C. [§] 2241
does not by its own terms require the exhaustion of state remedies as a prerequisite to the grant of
federal habeas relief, decisional law has superimposed such a requirement in order to
accommodate principles of federalism.” United States ex rel. Scranton v. New York, 532 F.2d
292, 294 (2d Cir. 1976). Thus, even assuming that Green’s petition could proceed in habeas, his
failure to seek habeas relief in state court bars relief under either Section 2241 or Section 2254.
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We decline to expand the COA because we find that reasonable jurists could not disagree with this
conclusion. See Slack, 529 U.S. at 484.
Having declined to expand the COA, we must dismiss the appeal for lack of appellate
jurisdiction. “Here, any disposition on the issue of” whether these claims are cognizable in
habeas “would have no legal effect because the district court’s unchallenged judgment on”
exhaustion “precludes our granting [Green] relief, whatever our view on the [cognizability] issue.”
Green v. Mazzucca, 377 F.3d 182, 183 (2d Cir. 2004); see also Rhagi v. Artuz, 309 F.3d 103, 107
(2d Cir. 2002) (“Because the District Court denied a COA with respect to the question of
procedural bar, and because a COA will not issue in this Court for the reasons stated above, the
appeal is Dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction.”). We recognize that this case implicates
an important question over which the district courts would benefit from guidance. However, the
Constitution allows us to provide such guidance only in the context of resolving an ongoing case
or controversy. The district court’s exhaustion holding means that, whatever we say about the
cognizability of this claim in habeas, our decision would not have any practical effect on the
outcome of this case. Therefore, we must dismiss.
We have considered Green’s remaining arguments and conclude that they are without
merit. For the foregoing reasons, the appeal is DISMISSED.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
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