Arthur Sanford v. Harold Clarke, No. 20-6712 (4th Cir. 2022)
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Petitioner was convicted of second-degree murder in the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News, Virginia. After exhausting direct appeals to the Virginia Court of Appeals and the Virginia Supreme Court, Petitioner filed a pro se writ of habeas corpus in the Newport News Circuit Court. That court dismissed the petition. Petitioner, proceeding pro se, unsuccessfully appealed the dismissal to the Virginia Supreme Court. After that, Petitioner filed a 28 U.S.C. Section 2254 petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The district court ordered the state to file a responsive pleading to show cause why the writ should not be granted. It also instructed the state to treat the order as a “request that the records of the state criminal trial and habeas corpus proceedings, if pertinent and available, be forwarded to the Clerk’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia. Petitioner appealed the denial of Rule 60(b) motion. When the district court sent its records to the Fourth Circuit, the state habeas records were not included.
The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded to the district court with the following instructions: (1) the state must file a Rule 5-compliant Answer; (2) the district court shall determine if it has the records it requested—those “pertinent and available”— and, in this inquiry, address the state habeas records that were missing when the file was transferred to the Fourth Circuit; and (3) finally, the district court shall reconsider the state’s motion to dismiss, considering the complete answer and the records it first requested.
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