Raymond J. Ramirez v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: April 21, 2025
• Docket: 23-12776
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 23-12776 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 04/21/2025 Page: 1 of 3

[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-12776 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

RAYMOND J. RAMIREZ, Petitioner-Appellant, versus SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 0:23-cv-61353-DMM ____________________ USCA11 Case: 23-12776 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 04/21/2025 Page: 2 of 3

2 Opinion of the Court 23-12776

Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Raymond J. Ramirez, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s order granting voluntary dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. He argues that the district court abused its discretion by recharacterizing his “Notice of Venue Transfer/Motion to Not En- ter Ruling,” as a Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2) motion without providing him notice of its intention to do so. He argues that, had the court provided notice, he would have moved to withdraw the “recharac- terized motion” and, instead, moved forward with his habeas cor- pus proceeding. “We review de novo a district court’s decision to dismiss a § 2254 petition . . . [b]ut we review the district court’s determina- tion of the relevant facts, such as the petitioner’s diligence, only for clear error.” Lugo v. Sec’y, Florida Dept. of Corr., 750 F.3d 1198, 1206 (11th Cir. 2014). In Diaz v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., we held that a petitioner was not entitled to equitable tolling of the limitations period for filing a federal habeas petition under the facts in that case. 362 F.3d 698, 702 (11th Cir. 2004). In so doing, we explained that the district court did not err in granting petitioner’s motion for voluntary dis- missal of his § 2254 petition without advising him of potential stat- ute-of-limitations consequences because “the district court . . . merely granted the precise action requested by Diaz.” Id. at 701. We noted that the petitioner’s case did not involve a USCA11 Case: 23-12776 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 04/21/2025 Page: 3 of 3

23-12776 Opinion of the Court 3

recharacterization of his pleadings. Id. Nor did it entail “any action taken by the district court, either sua sponte or at the sole request of Diaz’s opposing party, that prevented Diaz or hindered him from pursuing his pending claims within the period of the statute of lim- itations . . . .” Id. Here, the district court did not err in dismissing Ramirez’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition without prejudice because it properly con- strued his transfer motion as requesting a voluntary dismissal. Ramirez’s “Notice of Venue Transfer/Motion to Not Enter Rul- ing” explicitly asked that the district court not rule on his petition, as he was pursuing other challenges to his conviction and sentence, specifically in the Supreme Court and the Broward County Circuit Court. The district court did not act sua sponte or at the sole request of the state, and it did not rule in a manner that prevented Ramirez from pursuing his habeas claims within the statute of limitations period. Id. Rather, the district court acknowledged that the trans- fer motion essentially constituted a voluntary dismissal of the case and did as Ramirez asked, as well as cautioning him that the dis- missal would not toll the federal limitations period. Id. Thus, the district court properly dismissed the § 2254 petition because it merely granted the request that Ramirez made in his “Notice of Venue Transfer/Motion to Not Enter Ruling.” Id. Accordingly, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.