Court Opinion

ID: 9480782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:58:03.330047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:54.029859
License: Public Domain

GEORGE C. PRATT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with that part of the majority opinion that treats Grune’s letter of February 5, 1990, as an adequate notice of appeal under Fed.R.App.P. 3(c). I dissent, however, from that part of the majority opinion that holds the order of the district court to be appealable.
The district court denied Grune’s application for bail pending a determination of his application under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for a writ of habeas corpus. Gruñe seeks to appeal that denial of interim relief, claiming that the order is an interlocutory order appealable under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). The Supreme Court, however, has stressed that it “has interpreted the requirements of the collateral-order exception * * * with the utmost strictness in criminal cases”. Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 265, 104 S.Ct. 1051, 1055, 79 L.Ed.2d 288 (1984).
The majority relies on Iuteri v. Nardoza, 662 F.2d 159 (2d Cir.1981), where we held that an order granting bail to a federal prisoner pending determination of a habeas petition was appealable under Cohen. Iut-eri, however, should not control the appeal-ability of an order denying bail in a habeas proceeding.
There is an enormous difference between an order that grants bail to a habeas applicant, and one that denies him interim bail pending his desperate attempt to overturn his conviction, which already has been fully reviewed in the state courts. The Cohen doctrine requires that to be appealable the order must “come within the ‘small class’ of decisions [which] resolve an important issue”. Coopers and Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 2458, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978) (emphasis added). As we held in Iuteri, where the district court had granted bail,
[t]here are compelling reasons to entertain appeals by the Government from orders granting bail in habeas corpus proceedings where, as here, incarceration has resulted from a conviction. Because of the conviction, the Government has a justified interest in petitioner’s continued incarceration.
662 F.2d at 161. In short, when the district court releases a sentenced prisoner on a bail application, the issue presented — immediate freedom for the convicted prisoner— is unquestionably “important”.
The situation is different, however, when the district court denies a bail application pending habeas review. The petitioner who is incarcerated has been convicted, his conviction has been affirmed on appeal, and he has exhausted his state remedies — all without success. In these circumstances his liberty interest is minimal; the likelihood of his ultimate release through the habeas proceeding is extremely low; and the district judge who will pass upon the merits of his habeas petition has already determined that the petitioner has failed to show any special reasons that would warrant his release. Thus, an order denying bail pending a habeas determination should not qualify under the Cohen doctrine, because it does not fall within that “small class” of decisions which resolve an “important” issue.
I therefore dissent from the majority opinion to the extent that it directs that the appeal is dismissed without prejudice. An appeal from a denial of bail in a habeas corpus proceeding should not be appealable at all.