Title: Vinnie v. Superintendent, Massachusetts Correctional Institute, Norfolk

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 
volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical 
error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 
Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-
1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 
 
SJC-12299 
 
RAYMOND P. VINNIE  vs.  SUPERINTENDENT, MASSACHUSETTS 
CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTE, NORFOLK. 
 
 
March 21, 2018. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. 
 
 
 
In 1993, Raymond P. Vinnie was convicted of murder in the 
first degree.  After plenary review, we affirmed the conviction 
and the denial of his motion for a new trial.  Commonwealth v. 
Vinnie, 428 Mass. 161, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1007 (1998), 
overruled on another ground by Commonwealth v. Paulding, 438 
Mass. 1 (2002).  In 2016, Vinnie filed a petition for a writ of 
habeas corpus pursuant to G. L. c. 248, § 1, in the county 
court, arguing that he was unlawfully imprisoned pursuant to a 
void mittimus.  A single justice of this court transferred the 
petition to the Superior Court.  A judge in that court denied 
relief.  Vinnie then filed a motion in the county court, seeking 
to reinstate his petition on the ground that the Superior Court 
judge made various procedural and substantive errors.  The same 
single justice denied the motion without a hearing.  Vinnie 
appeals from that ruling. 
 
 
The single justice properly denied Vinnie's motion to 
reinstate the petition.  The Superior Court judge's decision 
denying habeas relief was reviewable in the ordinary appellate 
process.  After habeas relief was denied in the Superior Court, 
Vinnie "could have obtained review by this court only if he was 
granted leave by a single justice pursuant to the gatekeeper 
provision of G. L. c. 278, § 33E.  He cannot circumvent the 
gatekeeper provision by filing his petition in the county court 
in the first instance."  Tyree v. Commonwealth, 449 Mass. 1034, 
1034 (2007), cert. denied, 554 U.S. 926 (2008).  There was no 
basis to "reinstate" the petition in the county court. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
Raymond P. Vinnie, pro se. 
 
Eric A. Haskell, Assistant Attorney General, for the 
respondent.