Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00784/USCOURTS-caed-2_07-cv-00784-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 28:2254 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (State)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

EDWARD TERRELL,

Petitioner, No. CIV S-07-0784 LKK EFB P

vs.

JEANNE. S. WOODFORD, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Respondent.

 /

Petitioner is a state prisoner without counsel seeking a writ of habeas corpus. See 28

U.S.C. § 2254. On February 16, 2007, petitioner filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus. 

Respondent moves to dismiss on the ground that he filed his petition beyond the one-year

limitation period. For the reasons explained below, the court finds that the petition is timely and

the motion must be denied.

I. Facts

On June 20, 2003, petitioner was convicted of robbery and sentenced to serve a term of

25 years to life in prison. Pet., Ex. A, at 2. The appellate court affirmed the judgment on

December 17, 2004. Resp.’s Mot. to Dism., Docs. Lodged in Supp. Thereof, Ex. B. In their

briefs, the parties agree that the judgment became final on January 26, 2005. On February 14,

2005, petitioner filed a petition for review in the California Supreme Court. Resp.’s Ex. B. On

February 15, 2005, that court issued an order declining to entertain the petition upon the ground

it was late. Id.

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Petitioner began the process of seeking state post-conviction relief on April 21, 2005,

when he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the California Supreme Court. Resp.’s Ex.

D. As grounds for relief, petitioner asserted that his appellate counsel was ineffective by failing

timely to seek review of the appellate court’s judgment affirming his conviction. On March 22,

2006, that court summarily denied relief. Id.

Several months later, on June 30, 2006, petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas

corpus in the trial court. Resp.’s Ex. E. That petition asserted that the trial court lacked

jurisdiction to convict him because he was illegally detained when the charges were filed. On

August 4, 2006, the trial court denied relief in a reasoned opinion on the merits. Id. On October

11, 2006, petitioner filed a habeas petition in the state appellate court raising the same grounds

for relief he had presented to the trial court and that court summarily denied relief on October 19,

2006. Resp.’s Ex. F.

Petitioner then returned to the trial court by filing a habeas petition on December 15,

2006. Resp.’s Ex. G. In that petition he alleged that his counsel was ineffective for failing to

move to dismiss on the ground that petitioner was illegally in custody when he was charged with

robbery, thereby depriving the trial court of jurisdiction and for failing to call certain witnesses

petitioner believed would testify favorably for him. Id. On February 15, 2007, petitioner filed

another habeas petition in the appellate court, alleging that appellate counsel was ineffective by

filing the petition for review late; trial counsel was ineffective by failing to move to suppress

evidence of an overly suggestive identification procedure; denial of the right to be present during

the sentencing proceeding; the trial court admitted unduly prejudicial identification evidence;

petitioner was illegally in custody when he was charged with robbery, thereby depriving the trial

court of jurisdiction. Id. On February 20, 2007, the trial court denied the second petition in a

reasoned decision on the merits. Id. On March 1, 2007, the appellate court summarily denied

petitioner’s second petition in that court. Id.

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On February 16, 2007, petitioner filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in this

court in which he raises the same grounds he presented in his second petition filed in the state

appellate court. 

II. Standards 

A one-year limitation period for seeking federal habeas relief begins to run from the

latest of the date the judgment became final on direct review, the date on which a state-created

impediment to filing is removed, the date the United States Supreme Court makes a new rule

retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review or the date on which the factual predicate of

a claim could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(d)(1). Where a California prisoner fails timely to file a petition for review in the

California Supreme court, the judgment becomes final 40 days after the appellate court files its

decision. See Cal. Rules of Court, Rules 8.264(b)(1), 8.5(e); Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 12a. A

“properly filed” state post conviction application tolls the statute of limitations as long as that

application remains “pending.” 28 U.S.C.§ 2244(d)(2). An application is properly filed when it

is delivered to and accepted by a court “in compliance with the applicable laws and rules

governing filings.” Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8 (2000). In California, a properly filed post

conviction application is “pending” during the intervals between a lower court decision and

filing a new petition in a higher court. Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214, 223 (2002). Once

respondent has demonstrated the petition is not timely, petitioner has the burden of showing facts

entitling him to statutory tolling. Smith v. Duncan, 297 F.3d 809, 814 (9th Cir. 2002). 

III. Analysis

The parties agree that the judgment of conviction became final on January 26, 2005. 

Accordingly, the one year limitations period in which to file this action began to run the next

day, January 27, 2005. See Patterson v. Stewart, 251 F.3d 1243, 1246 (9th Cir.2001)

(calculating AEDPA's one-year limitation period according to Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)). 

Accordingly, petitioner had one year, plus any period of tolling, to commence this habeas case. 

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It appears from the parties’ briefs that there is no dispute that 85 days of the limitation period

elapsed from the time the judgment on appeal became final until April 21, 2005, when he filed

his initial post-conviction application in the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme

Court denied that application on March 22, 2006, and the respondent does not dispute that

petitioner is entitled to statutory tolling while it was actually under consideration, i.e., from April

21, 2005, through March 22, 2006. Respondent, however, contends that the limitation period

expired on December 28, 2006, and, therefore, the February 16, 2007, federal petition is

untimely. Respondent sweeps aside from any consideration the numerous other filings and

rulings by the California courts after March 22, 2006. 

On June 30, 2006, 100 days after the California Supreme Court denied relief, petitioner

filed a new habeas petition in the trial court. That court issued a reasoned decision denying

relief on the merits on August 4, 2006. Under respondent’s analysis, no period of time is tolled

for petitioner to prepare and file the June 30, 2006, petition. Respondent’s approach is too

restrictive. While one might argue that 100 days is too long to constitute a “reasonable period”

to file the next state court petition, that question is resolved by reference to California law and

how the California court disposed of the petition. 

On October 11, 2006, petitioner filed another petition in the state appellate court which

was denied on October 19, 2006. He filed again in the trial court on December 15, 2006, and

while that petition was pending, filed yet another petition in the state appellate court on February

15, 2007. Significantly, the trial court issued a second reasoned decision on the merits, on

February 20, 2007. The appellate court summarily denied the petition before it on March 1,

2007. Again, respondent’s argument is that none of these times periods are tolled.

Respondent has not shown that this action is untimely. The crux of his argument is that

only the initial state court petition results in any period of tolling, and that none of the other state

court petitions provide any further period of tolling. Thus, argues respondent, this action is

untimely because petitioner did not proceed directly to this court after the California Supreme

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 The Supreme Court has held that:

“an application is ‘properly filed” when its delivery and acceptance are in

compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings. These usually

prescribe, for example, the form of the document, the time limits upon its

delivery, the court and office in which it must be lodged, and the requisite filing

fee.

Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8 (2000) (emphasis in original).

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Court denied habeas relief on March 22, 2006. Relying on Nino v. Galaza, 183 F.3d 1003, 1006-

07 (9th Cir. 1999), respondent contends that as a matter of law, “[s]tatutory tolling does not

apply to periods between petitions that do not form part of a progressive series from the superior

court, to the court of appeal, to the California Supreme Court.” Resp.’s Mot. to Dism, at 5. 

Respondent leaps over a crucial analytical step in the statutory tolling question, i.e., whether the

petitions in the trial and appellate courts were “properly filed.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). 

Thus, the court turns to this question.

Under the applicable statutory provision, 

[t]he time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or

other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending

shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this subsection.

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Whether the five state court petitions in question here were “properly

filed” must be determined according to state law.1 Regrettably, the California courts have done

little to clarify how one is to determine whether a state post-conviction application for collateral

review is “properly filed,” particularly where the question involves the time period within which

that state petition must be presented to the state court. However, it is important to note that the

tolling provision of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) is designed to defuse the obvious conflict between the

exhaustion requirement and the one-year limitation period. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167,

178 (2001) (the limitation period “promotes the exhaustion of state remedies while respecting

the interest in the finality of state court judgments.”). The exhaustion requirement is nothing

more than an expression of respect for the state’s obligation to be the first to consider potential

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federal constitutional infirmities in its criminal judgments. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420,

436 (2000); O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999). Statutory tolling is intended “to

give States the opportunity to complete one full round of review, free of federal interference.” 

Saffold, 536 U.S. at 223. Thus, “it is the [states’] interest that the tolling provision seeks to

protect . . . .” Id. With these policies in mind, the court turns to respondent’s assertions.

 One might intuitively assume, as respondent does here, that to benefit from statutory

tolling, California prisoners must seek state post-conviction relief first in the trial court, next in

the appellate court and finally in the California Supreme Court. There is an obvious, if

superficial, logical attraction to orderly progression and it would seem that filing first in a higher

court, and then filing in the trial and intermediate appellate courts would not constitute a

sequence of properly-filed petitions. The United States Supreme Court has held that a California

prisoner’s state post-conviction application is “pending” during the time it takes a court to

resolve a petition and during the reasonable “intervals between a lower court decision and a

filing of a new petition in a higher court . . .,” thereby giving California “the opportunity to

complete one full round of review, free of federal interference.” Saffold, 536 U.S. at 222, 223. 

The Ninth Circuit has interpreted Saffold to mean that once a California prisoner completes one

full round of post-conviction review by beginning in the trial court and proceeding through to the

California Supreme Court, he will not benefit from interval tolling if he then returns to the trial

court with a new claim instead of filing a federal petition. Biggs v. Duncan, 339 F.3d 1045, 1048

(9th Cir. 2003). Yet, these cases address the question of whether an application was “pending,”

while skirting the “properly filed” requirement. See Pace v. DeGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 414

(2005) (“What we intimated in Saffold we now hold: When a post-conviction petition is untimely

under state law, “that [is] the end of the matter” for purposes of [the ‘properly filed’ requirement]

of § 2244(d)(2).”). Furthermore, the Supreme Court acknowledged in Saffold, that given

California’s “original writ” system, its prisoners might not always file an initial habeas petition

in the trial court. Saffold, 536 U.S. at 221-22. The High Court recognized that in California, a

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higher state court may entertain an original petition in the first instance, but likely will deny the

writ. Id., at 221 (citing In re Ramierz, 86 Cal.App.4th 1312, 1316 (Cal. App. 2001)). A

petitioner may then file a similar petition in a lower court, although the lower court could deny

the writ on the ground the petition is successive. See In re Clark, 5 Cal.4th 750, 767-771 (Cal.

1993). While this may seem counter-intuitive, the lack of a clearly defined order or sequence to

which “properly filed” applications must adhere cannot be attributed to the federal courts, which

have tried to divine specific rules in California’s post-conviction system. See Chavis, 126 S.Ct.

at 853 (discussing the absence of a specific determinate time limit and California’s failure to

alleviate the problem by clarifying the scope of the words “reasonable time”).

The Ninth Circuit also has acknowledged that, given the nature of California’s postconviction system, a petitioner’s seemingly random stagger through California’s post-conviction

system does not necessarily render a federal petition time-barred. See Gaston v. Palmer, 417

F.3d 1030, 1042 (9th Cir. 2005), amended by 447 F.3d 1165 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Not all California

habeas applicants proceed through the California courts in as orderly a fashion as the applicant in

Saffold.”). Although respondent does not address Gaston, the court finds the Ninth Circuit’s

discussion therein instructive here.

Gaston involved a petitioner who filed six habeas applications in California’s state

courts. Gaston, 414 F.3d at 1033. He filed first in the appellate court, next in the trial court and

then in the California Supreme Court. Id. He then returned to the trial court, and upon denial of

relief filed in the appellate court and again in the California Supreme Court. Id. The

petitioner’s second, third, fourth and fifth petitions were denied without comment, which the

Ninth Circuit construed (consistently with its precedent at the time), as decisions on the merits. 

Id., at 1038. The Ninth Circuit reviewed the precedent and rules governing California’s postconviction remedies, and observed that the timeliness of the federal petition rested entirely on

whether the state petitions were “properly filed” within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2). Id., at

1038. The court decided that when a California court disposes of a habeas petition on the merits,

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this “necessarily implies that [it] was ‘properly filed,” because it is axiomatic that a court will

not rule on the merits of an improperly filed application.” Gaston, 447 F.3d at 1038. 

This court is aware that since Gaston was decided, the Supreme Court has instructed the

lower courts that an order stating that a petition was “denied on the merits,” is not necessarily an

“absolute bellwether” on the question of timeliness. Chavis v. Evans, 126 S.Ct. at 852. 

Moreover, the rule announced in Chavis resulted in the Ninth Circuit issuing an amended

opinion in Gaston finding that petitioner was not entitled to interval tolling. Gaston, 447 F.3d at

1166. But Chavis did not alter the Ninth Circuit’s assessment of how California’s postconviction system functions or how it in fact continues to function. The decision in Chavis

simply did not impose a rule of progression from the trial court to the California Supreme Court. 

In Chavis, the issue was whether a California prisoner’s habeas petition filed in the California

Supreme Court three years after the appellate court denied relief was “pending,” for purposes of

statutory tolling. Chavis, 126 S.Ct. at 849. The application was “pending” only if it was

“properly filed,” which in turn depended on whether it was filed within a “reasonable time”

under California law. Id., at 851-52. The California Supreme Court’s order denying relief

stated, “Petition for writ of habeas corpus is DENIED,” id., at 851, giving no hint of whether the

petition was timely or not. Ultimately, the Court decided that so long as California clings to its

nebulous “reasonable time” standard, in cases where its courts give no “clear indication that a

particular request for appellate review was timely or untimely,” the federal courts must “examine

the delay in each case and determine what the state courts would have held in respect to

timeliness.” Id., at 852.

A similar question arose in Saffold, where the petitioner filed a habeas application in the

California Supreme Court four-and-one-half months after the appellate court’s order denying

relief. Saffold, 536 U.S. at 226. There, the California Supreme Court denied the petition “on the

merits and for lack of diligence.” Id., at 225. The California Supreme Court’s reference to the

merits did not conclusively establish that the petition was timely because a court “will

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sometimes address the merits of a claim that it believes was presented in an untimely way . . . .” 

Id., at 225-26. Thus, while not clear, the order’s language suggested that the petition was late

but lacked merit in any event. The ambiguity, however, made it impossible for the federal courts

to say with any level of certainty without further probing in the District Court.

This case differs materially from both Chavis and Saffold in this important respect. Here,

the trial court did not deny petitioner’s habeas applications on the ground that they were

successive. Neither did it issue oblique orders stating, “denied on the merits.” Rather, it issued 

reasoned opinions on the merits, explaining why petitioner’s claims failed under the applicable

law. The denials contained not one word about timeliness or any other procedural matter. 

California’s nebulous criteria allow the state courts wide discretion in determining whether a

petition is late or filed in the wrong court. As with timeliness, if California wanted strict limits

on the time and manner for filing habeas petitions, presumably it would delineate them. See

Chavis, 546 U.S. at 853 (noting that California is free to enact specific time limits for seeking

post-conviction relief). To date, it has not done so. Bearing all the above in mind, the court now

turns to the question of whether petitioner’s state habeas petitions were “properly filed” and

“pending” so as to toll the limitations period long enough to render his federal petition timely.

 The parties agree that the conviction became final on January 26, 2005, giving

petitioner until January 26, 2006, to file a federal petition. From the date the conviction became

final until April 21, 2005, when petitioner filed his initial habeas petition in the California

Supreme Court, 85 days of the limitation period elapsed, pushing the federal filing date out to

April 21, 2006. Respondent concedes that the April 21, 2005, petition in the California Supreme

Court tolled the limitations period at least until relief was denied on March 22, 2006, i.e., 335

days. At that point, petitioner had until March 22, 2007, to file his federal petition. Under Pace

and Chavis, petitioner’s June 30, 2006, petition in the trial court was “properly filed.” Therefore,

petitioner is entitled to statutory tolling for the 100-day interval between the California Supreme

Court’s denial and the filing of the new petition in the trial court and the time the petition was in

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fact under consideration. However, even without any of the 100 days being tolled, the federal

petition is timely. The trial court denied relief on August 4, 2006, and 68 days later, on October

11, 2006, petitioner filed an application for habeas relief in the appellate court. On October 19,

2006, the appellate court denied relief without comment or citation. The court acknowledges

that the decision in Chavis suggests that 68 days might not be“reasonable,” because it is outside

the 30 to 60 days other states allow to appeal a lower court’s denial of post-conviction relief. 

Chavis, 546 U.S. at 849-50, 853. However, respondent has not argued that the appellate court

was of that same opinion. Thus, the court finds that it was reasonable. Petitioner filed a second

petition in the trial court on December 15, 2006, 57 days after the appellate denied relief. While

the trial court was considering that petition, petitioner filed his second petition in the appellate

court on February 15, 2007. He filed his federal petition on February 16, 2007, and on February

20, 2007, the trial court denied petitioner’s second habeas application in a reasoned decision on

the merits. For the same reason, the trial court’s first reasoned decision signaled that petitioner’s

first application in that court was “properly filed,” so was petitioner’s second habeas petition in

that court “properly filed.” Petitioner filed his federal habeas petition before the trial court

denied the second application, and therefore whether petitioner “properly filed” his second

petition in the appellate court is inapposite. The court finds that petitioner used only 85 days of

the limitation period, i.e. the time petitioner waited to file his initial habeas petition in the

California Supreme Court. Thus, the that the February 16, 2007, federal petition is timely. 

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons explained above, respondent fails to show that the February 16, 2007,

federal petition was filed beyond the one-year limitation period. Respondent’s motion to dismiss

must be denied.

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Accordingly, it is hereby RECOMMENDED that:

1. Respondent’s September 24, 2007, motion to dismiss be denied, and that respondent

be admonished that he may not file a second motion to dismiss. 

2. That respondent be given 30 days to file an answer and that the answer shall be

accompanied by any and all transcripts or other documents relevant to the determination of the

issues presented in the application. See Rule 5, Fed. R. Governing § 2254 Cases. 

2. That petitioner be given 30 days thereafter to file his reply, if any.

These findings and recommendations are submitted to the United States District Judge

assigned to the case, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(l). Within fourteen days

after being served with these findings and recommendations, any party may file written

objections with the court and serve a copy on all parties. Such a document should be captioned

“Objections to Magistrate Judge’s Findings and Recommendations.” Failure to file objections

within the specified time may waive the right to appeal the District Court’s order. Turner v.

Duncan, 158 F.3d 449, 455 (9th Cir. 1998); Martinez v. Ylst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991).

Dated: February 22, 2008.

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