Case ID: f-appx_671/html/0432-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Juan M. ALCARAZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Brian WILLIAMS, Warden; and Attorney General for the State of Nevada, Respondents-Appellees.
    No. 15-15268
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued October 21, 2016
    Resubmitted November 17, 2016 San Francisco, California
    Filed November 23, 2016
    Angela H. Dows, Esquire, Attorney, Premier Legal Group, Las Vegas, NV, for Petitioner-Appellant.
    Matthew S. Johnson, Deputy Attorney General, AGNV-Nevada Office of the Attorney General, Carson City, NV, for Respondents-Appellees. .
    
      Before: GRABER and MURGUIA, Circuit Judges, and O’CONNELL, District Judge.
    
      
       The Honorable Beverly Reid O’Connell, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Petitioner Juan M. Alcaraz appeals the district court’s dismissal of his habeas petition as untimely. Taking Petitioner’s allegations as true and reviewing de novo whether equitable tolling applies, Fue v. Biter, 842 F.3d 650, 653-54 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc), we reverse and remand.

Petitioner has demonstrated “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way and prevented timely filing.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649, 130 S.Ct. 2549, 177 L.Ed.2d 130 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[Determining whether a petitioner acted with reasonable diligence is a fact-specific inquiry.” Fue, 842 F.3d at 654.

Petitioner’s lawyer had abandoned him, Petitioner had no access to his case file, and he diligently contacted the state court at regular intervals less than a year apart: in August 2011, April 2012, October 2012, and December 2012. See id. (reaffirming that “twenty-one months is not an unusually long time to wait for a court’s decision” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Once he learned of the state court’s decision, he diligently sought to obtain his case file—by contacting his lawyer and the state court. See, e.g., Ramirez v. Yates, 571 F.3d 993, 998 (9th Cir. 2009) (“[I]t is unrealistic to expect a habeas petitioner to prepare and file a meaningful petition on his own within the limitations period without access to his legal file.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796, 801 (9th Cir. 2003) (“But without the file, which [the lawyer] still possessed, it seems unrealistic to expect [the prisoner] to prepare and file a meaningful petition on his own within the limitations period.”); accord Gibbs v. Legrand, 767 F.3d 879, 889 (9th Cir. 2014); Espinoza-Matthews v. California, 432 F.3d 1021, 1027-28 (9th Cir. 2005). Unlike the petitioner in Waldron-Ramsey v. Pacholke, 556 F.3d 1008 (9th Cir. 2009), Petitioner has been (so far as the record reveals) fully cooperative, affirmatively active in seeking his legal files, and unable to review any part of his files. Petitioner had miscalculated his federal due date but he “filed his federal petition ... well within the time he thought he had remaining.” Fue, 842 F.3d at 656.

REVERSED and REMANDED. 
      
      
         This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.