Bailey v. Thurston County

Opinion

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6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 9 10 JARED J BAILEY, CASE NO. 3:22-cv-05972-RAJ-JRC 11 Petitioner, ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE 12 v. 13 THURSTON COUNTY, et al., 14 Respondent. 15 16 This matter is before the Court on referral from the District Court and on petitioner’s 17 response to this Court’s order to show cause. See Dkt. 5. 18 On January 20, 2023, after screening petitioner’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition, the Court 19 issued an order to show cause. See Dkt. 4. The Court identified two deficiencies in the petition. 20 First, the Court noted that petitioner did not appear to be “in custody” for purposes of habeas 21 corpus relief. See Dkt. 4 at 2. Second, the Court explained that petitioner did not name the proper 22 respondents. See id. 23 24 1 On February 14, 2023, petitioner filed a response to the Court’s order. See Dkt. 5. 2 Petitioner claims that on December 9, 2022, he was “[o]rdered into the [c]ustody of Thurston 3 County Probation Services by Thurston County Superior Court.” Dkt. 5 at 1. Thus, he asserts 4 that he is in the custody of Thurston County. See generally id. 5 Although a petitioner may seek habeas relief when he is subject to probation, the proper

6 respondent is his probation officer and the official in charge of the probation agency or the state 7 correctional agency. See Ortiz-Sandoval v. Gomez, 81 F.3d 891, 894 (9th Cir. 1996). Further, it 8 remains unclear whether petitioner is challenging a conviction. He previously claimed there was 9 no conviction and now claims he is on probation. Compare Dkt. 1 with Dkt. 5. If there is no 10 conviction, the Court may need to abstain from considering the petition. See Brown v. Ahern, 11 676 F.3d 899, 901 (9th Cir. 2012). 12 Out of an abundance of caution, the Court will give petitioner an opportunity to file an 13 amended petition that is free of the deficiencies described above. Specifically, petitioner must (1) 14 name the proper respondent(s), (2) provide the relevant information regarding the state court

15 proceedings he is challenging, (3) and use the Court-provided form for filing a habeas petition. 16 Petitioner shall refrain from including copies of statutes or other irrelevant information in his 17 petition. Petitioner must file the amended petition by April 14th, 2023. The Clerk is directed to 18 send petitioner a copy of this District’s form for § 2254 actions together with this order. 19 20 Dated this 14th day of March, 2023.

21 A 22 J. Richard Creatura United States Magistrate Judge 23 24