ALD-150 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 12-1711
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IN RE: RAPHAEL MENDEZ, Petitioner
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On Petition for a Writ of Mandamus
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Submitted Under Rule 21, Fed. R. App. P.
April 5, 2012
Before: SLOVITER, FISHER AND WEIS, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: April 17, 2012)
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OPINION
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PER CURIAM.
Raphael Mendez has filed a petition for a writ of mandamus appearing to
seek an order directing his release from civil commitment so that he may be tried
on criminal charges that were dismissed decades earlier.
In 1990, Mendez was indicted in the District Court of the Virgin Islands of
assault with a deadly weapon and related offenses. Prior to trial, Mendez requested
a psychological evaluation and was found incompetent to stand trial. He was
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committed to FMC-Butner in North Carolina for observation. Upon further
review, he was indefinitely committed under 18 U.S.C. § 4246 by the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina and all charges against
Mendez in the District Court of the Virgin Islands were dismissed.1 He appealed
the commitment to the Fourth Circuit, which affirmed. United States v. Mendez,
968 F.2d 1212 (4th Cir. 1992).
Since then, Mendez has filed numerous appeals and other actions. Most
recently, the Fourth Circuit denied Mendez’s petition for writ of mandamus
wherein he sought an order directing his release from civil commitment and return
to the Virgin Islands. See
In re: Mendez, No. 12-1105, 2012 WL 924821(4th Cir. Mar. 20, 2012). Prior to
that, the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands affirmed the denial of the Superior
Court of the Virgin Islands dismissal of Mendez’s pro se habeas petition for lack of
jurisdiction. See Mendez v. Gov’t of the Virgin Islands, 2012 WL 220432 (V.I.
Jan. 18, 2012). Mendez had asked the Superior Court to relieve him from his
current federal civil commitment, and order that he be brought to trial in the Virgin
Islands on the dismissed criminal charges.
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Mendez was later transferred to a facility in Rochester, Minnesota.
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Although the petition that Mendez has filed in this Court is less than clear,
he again appears to seek an order directing his release from civil commitment. He
further asks the Court to reopen the dismissed criminal charges in order to correct
“manifest injustice.”
A writ of mandamus is a drastic remedy available only in extraordinary
cases. See In re Diet Drugs Prods. Liab. Litig., 418 F.3d 372, 378 (3d Cir. 2005).
A petitioner seeking mandamus must demonstrate that “(1) no other adequate
means exist to attain the relief he desires, (2) the party’s right to issuance of the
writ is clear and indisputable, and (3) the writ is appropriate under the
circumstances.” Hollingsworth v. Perry, 130 S.Ct. 705, 710 (2010) (per curiam)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Mandamus cannot serve as a
substitute for an appeal. See Madden v. Myers, 102 F.3d 74, 77 (3d Cir. 1996).
Here, there is no basis for granting the petition for a writ of mandamus as
Mendez has not shown a clear and indisputable right to the writ or that he has no
other adequate means to obtain the relief desired. To the extent Mendez is
challenging the order of commitment under § 4246, jurisdiction lies in the Eastern
District of North Carolina. To the extent that Mendez asks us to “reopen” the
criminal charges that were dismissed decades earlier, we lack the authority to do so
and, in any event, such relief is not available by way of mandamus.
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For these reasons, we will deny Mendez’s petition for a writ of mandamus.
Mendez’s “Motion to require the Virgin Islands Supreme Court to release the
docket sheet for case No. 2009-0084” is also denied.
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