United States District Court, D. Connecticut
RULING ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
Alvin
W. Thompson United States District Judge.
The
petitioner, Donald Saturno, was incarcerated when he filed
this petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254. On May 16, 2018, he notified the court that he
would soon be living in Danbury, Connecticut. See
Notice, ECF No. 15. On May 21, 2018, a prison official
informed the court that the petitioner had been discharged
from the custody of State of Connecticut Department of
Correction.
The
petitioner challenges his July 2014 convictions for
manufacturing a bomb and possession of child pornography. For
the reasons that follow, the petition will be dismissed.
I.
Procedural Background
On July
1, 2014, in Connecticut Superior Court for the Judicial
District of Stamford, in State v. Saturno,
FST-CR13-0179761-T, the petitioner pled nolo
contendere to one count of illegal manufacture of a bomb
in violation of Connecticut General Statutes § 53-80,
and in State v. Saturno, FST-CR13-0180369-T, the
petitioner pleaded nolo contendere to one count of
possession of child pornography in violation of Connecticut
General Statutes § 53a-196d(a)(1), conditioned on his
right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.
See Pet. Writ Habeas Corpus, ECF No. 1, at 2;
State v. Saturno, 322 Conn. 80, 87 (2016). A judge
imposed a total effective sentence of twelve years of
imprisonment, execution suspended after five years, followed
by fifteen years of probation.[1] See Pet. Writ Habeas
Corpus at 2.
On
appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court pursuant to
Connecticut General Statutes § 54-94a, the petitioner
challenged the trial court's ruling denying his motion to
suppress. See Saturno, 322 Conn. at 83-88. On July
19, 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court concluded that the
trial court had jurisdiction to deny the petitioner's
motion to suppress the evidence that formed the basis for the
charges against the petitioner, the trial court properly
determined that probable cause existed to issue the
administrative search warrant, the issuance of the
administrative search warrant in an ex parte
proceeding did not violate article first, § 7 of the
Connecticut Constitution, and the execution of the
administrative search warrant did not violate the
petitioner's Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at
89-117.
While
his direct appeal was pending, the petitioner filed a state
habeas petition. See Saturno v. Warden, No.
TSR-CV15-4007153-S (Conn. Super. Ct. April 24, 2015). The
petitioner states that the trial court has not decided his
state habeas petition. See Pet. Writ Habeas Corpus
at 5.[2]
II.
Legal Standard
A
prerequisite to habeas relief under section 2254 is the
exhaustion of all available state remedies. See
O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 842 (1999)
(“[T]he state prisoner must give the state courts an
opportunity to act on his claims before he presents those
claims to a federal court in a habeas petition.”); 28
U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“[a]n 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 . . . the applicant has
exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the
State”). The exhaustion requirement seeks to promote
considerations of comity and respect between the federal and
state judicial systems. See Davila v. Davis, ___
U.S. ___, 137 S.Ct. 2058, 2064, (2017) (“The exhaustion
requirement is designed to avoid the ‘unseemly'
result of a federal court ‘upset[ting] a state court
conviction without' first according the state courts an
‘opportunity to ... correct a constitutional
violation.'”) (quoting Rose v. Lundy, 455
U.S. 509, 518 (1982)).
To
satisfy the exhaustion requirement, a petitioner must present
the essential factual and legal bases of his federal claim to
each appropriate state court, including the highest state
court capable of reviewing it, in order to give state courts
a full and fair “opportunity to pass upon and correct
alleged violations of its prisoners' federal
rights.” Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365
(1995) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). A federal claim has been “fairly
present[ed] in each appropriate state court, including a
state supreme court with powers of discretionary review,
” if it “alert[s] that court to the federal
nature of the claim.” Baldwin v. Reese, 541
U.S. 27, 29 (2004) (internal parentheses and quotation marks
omitted). A petitioner “does not fairly present a claim
to a state court if that court must read beyond a petition or
a brief . . . that does not alert it to the presence of a
federal claim in order to find material . . . that does
so.” Id. at 32.
III.
Discussion
The
petitioner raises four grounds in his petition: (1)
ineffective assistance of counsel; (2) jurisdiction; (3) the
Connecticut Supreme Court “exceeded the scope of the
direct appeal specified in [Connecticut General Statutes
§] 54-94a;” and (4) “perjury in Marjorie
Beauchette[']s testimony.” See Pet. Writ
Habeas Corpus at 9, 11, 13, 15. The petitioner indicates that
he did not exhaust the first and second grounds of the
petition and does not indicate whether he exhausted ground
three or four either on direct appeal or in his state habeas
petition. To the extent that the petitioner is challenging,
in ground three, the trial court's denial of the motion
to suppress evidence as upheld by the Connecticut Supreme
Court on direct appeal, ground three appears to have been
exhausted. See Saturno, 322 Conn. at 83 & n.1
(acknowledging that the trial court [had] determined that its
ruling on the motion to suppress was dispositive, thereby
satisfying the requirements [for filing an appeal under]
§ 54-94a” and that the issue to be considered on
an appeal pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 54-94a
“shall be limited to whether it was proper for the
court to have denied the motion to suppress. . . .”
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Based
on the petitioner's description of the claims asserted in
his state habeas petition, it appears that he has raised
grounds one and two of this petition in the state habeas
petition. See Pet. Writ. Habeas Corpus at 5, 9, 13.
As indicated above, the state habeas petition remains
pending. It is not clear whether the petitioner has raised
ground four either on direct appeal or in his state habeas
petition.
As the
petition stands, only one ground has arguably been fully
exhausted. With respect to the other three grounds, the
petitioner has not alleged that there is no opportunity for
redress in state court or that the state court process is
clearly deficient. Thus, he is not excused from exhausting
his state remedies before proceeding in federal court.
See 28 U.S.C. 2254(b)(1)(B)(i) & (ii)(federal
district court may consider a claim that has not been
exhausted in state court if “there is an absence of
available State corrective process; or” circumstances
exist that render the state court process “ineffective
to protect the rights of the [petitioner].”);
Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U.S. 1, 3 (1981)(an
exception to the exhaustion requirement is appropriate
“only if there is no opportunity to obtain redress in
state court or if the corrective process is so clearly
deficient” that any attempt to secure ...