Court Opinion

ID: 9483819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:32:18.397556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:51.245350
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the denial of rehearing in banc.
The panel opinion in this case is a thoughtful attempt to deal with a difficult problem upon which the circuits are in disarray and upon which the Supreme Court has given little firm guidance. See Metheny v. Hamby, 488 U.S. 918, 109 S.Ct. 270, 102 L.Ed.2d 258 (1988) (White, J., dissenting from the denial of certiorari). As the state quite frankly points out in its reply to the petition for rehearing, this opinion sets us on a different course from that adopted by the other circuits. Indeed, the panel gives rather short shrift to the efforts of the other circuits by dismissing their approaches as “unlikely to get us anywhere.” Reed v. Clark, 984 F.2d 209, 211 (7th Cir.1993).
Before we add to the disarray among the circuits, the matter ought to be heard in banc. This course is especially advisable in light of the tension between this holding and the court’s previous opinion in Neville v. Cavanagh, 611 F.2d 673 (7th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 908, 100 S.Ct. 1834, 64 L.Ed.2d 260 (1980). In that case, this court refused, on comity grounds, to grant a habeas petition by a prisoner who unsuccessfully had argued an IAD violation before the Illinois Supreme Court in an attempt to block pending criminal charges. In denying the relief sought, this court stated:
In light of the fact that Neville does seek to derail a pending state criminal proceeding, and that he may be acquitted at trial, we believe the district court was correct in denying the petition for a writ of habeas corpus at this time. We note that this decision does not bar federal consideration of Neville’s claim. Rather, it merely delays such consideration until “a time when federal jurisdiction will not seriously disrupt state judicial processes. ”
Id. at 676 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added). Under Reed, Neville cannot stand. Here the panel specifically holds:
Unless a state fails to entertain and resolve claims under the IAD, collateral review is unavailable in federal court.
Op. at 213. Neville, then, clearly was a case in which the state court resolved the IAD claim against the prisoner. The court did not dismiss the habeas petition on jurisdictional grounds but held that, until a trial on the merits of the underlying indictment, the federal court would delay adjudication of the habeas petition. Neville, 611 F.2d at 676.
Also of note in Neville is the dissenting opinion of Judge Cudahy. He wrote:
It would be extraordinarily useful in the instant case for a federal court to promptly consider and construe this interstate detainer compact because this compact attempts to provide a nationally uniform method of transferring federal prisoners to state courts. Such an objective can be realized only by uniform interpretation of the compact.
Id. at 678 (Cudahy, J., dissenting) (footnotes omitted). This need for uniformity in the interpretation of an interstate compact is a consideration that receives little attention in the circuit cases. Perhaps it is a factor that ought to be weighted a great deal more heavily in determining whether a “statutory claim” is cognizable on habeas.