Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-03434/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-03434-3/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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United States District Court 

Northern District of Californi

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

RICHARD LONDON, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

JOE A. LIZARRAGA, Warden, 

Respondent. 

Case No. 13-cv-03434-YGR (PR) 

ORDER GRANTING RESPONDENT’S 

MOTION TO DISMISS PETITION AS 

UNTIMELY; AND DENYING 

CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY 

INTRODUCTION 

 Petitioner Richard London, an inmate currently incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison, 

filed a pro se action for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenging a 1978 

judgment of conviction from the San Francisco County Superior Court and asserting a claim of 

ineffective assistance of counsel during the plea bargaining process. 

 Before the Court is Respondent’s motion to dismiss the instant petition as untimely under 

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)—the statute of limitations set by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death 

Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Petitioner has filed an opposition. Dkt. 11. Respondent has 

filed a reply. Dkt. 12. Petitioner has filed a sur-reply.1 Dkt. 14. 

 Having considered all of the papers filed by the parties, the Court GRANTS Respondent’s 

motion to dismiss the petition as untimely. 

BACKGROUND 

 In 1978, a San Francisco County jury found Petitioner guilty of two counts of first degree 

murder in San Francisco County Superior Court case number 92091. Dkt. 1 at 22; London v. 

Subia, No. CIV S-07-1489-LKK, 2010 WL 4483473, at *1 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 1, 2010). 

 On October 20, 1978, the trial court sentenced Petitioner to seven years to life in state 

prison. Id. 

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 Petitioner’s motion for leave to file a sur-reply is GRANTED. Dkt. 13. 2

 Page number citations refer to those assigned by the Court’s electronic case management 

filing system and not those assigned by Petitioner. 

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 Petitioner claims that on unspecified dates, the California Court of Appeal, California 

Supreme Court, and another unnamed court upheld his criminal judgment on appeal.3 Dkt. 1 at 3. 

 On March 9, 2013,4 Petitioner filed a state habeas petition in California Supreme Court 

case number S209307, raising the same ineffective assistance of counsel claim raised in his federal 

habeas petition. Dkt. 1 at 4; Dkt. 8, Ex. 1. The petition was summarily denied on May 1, 2013. 

Dkt. 1 at 4; Dkt. 8, Ex. 2. 

 On July 18, 2013,5 Petitioner filed the instant federal habeas petition. 

DISCUSSION 

 The AEDPA, which became law on April 24, 1996, imposes a statute of limitations on 

petitions for a writ of habeas corpus filed by state prisoners. Petitions filed by prisoners 

challenging non-capital state convictions or sentences must be filed within one year of the latest of 

the date on which: (A) the judgment became final after the conclusion of direct review or the time 

passed for seeking direct review; (B) an impediment to filing an application created by 

unconstitutional state action was removed, if such action prevented petitioner from filing; (C) the 

constitutional right asserted was recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right was newly 

recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactive to cases on collateral review; or (D) the 

factual predicate of the claim could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A)-(D). 

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 Petitioner did not include the dates of these decisions in his petition. The Court has 

conducted its own search of the California courts’ official website using Petitioner’s first and last 

names, and the search returned no results for direct appeal cases. A search of Westlaw using 

Petitioner’s first and last names also returned no results for direct appeal cases in the California 

courts relating to case number 92091, although there exists one United States Supreme Court case, 

London v. California, 449 U.S. 1114 (1981), in which a “[p]etition for writ of certiorari to the 

Court of Appeal of California, First Appellate District,” was denied. Respondent alleges that a 

“search of [their] own internal docketing system revealed a single direct appeal case that was 

opened on October 14, 1979, and closed on July 29, 1980.” Dkt. 8 note 1. 4

 A pro se federal or state habeas petition is deemed filed on the date it is delivered to 

prison authorities for mailing. See Saffold v. Newland, 250 F.3d 1262, 1268 (9th Cir. 2001), 

vacated and remanded on other grounds, Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214 (2002) (holding that a 

federal or state habeas petition is deemed filed on the date the prisoner submits it to prison 

authorities for filing, rather than on the date it is received by the court). Petitioner signed his state 

supreme court petition and his federal habeas petition on March 9, 2013 (Dkt. 8, Ex. 1 at 6) and 

July 18, 2013 (Dkt. 1 at 7), respectively. For the purposes of this discussion, the Court deems 

those petitions as filed on those dates. See Saffold, 250 F.3d at 1268. 5 See supra note 4. 

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 The one-year period generally runs from “the date on which the judgment became final by 

the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(d)(1)(A). AEDPA’s one-year time limit, however, did not begin to run against any state 

prisoner before the date of the Act’s enactment, April 24, 1996. Calderon v. United States District 

Court (Beeler), 128 F.3d 1283, 1287 (9th Cir. 1997) (allowing § 2244(d)’s limitations period to 

commence before AEDPA’s enactment would have an impermissible retroactive effect), overruled 

in part on other grounds by Calderon v. United States District Court (Kelly), 163 F.3d 530 (9th 

Cir. 1998) (en banc). A prisoner with a state conviction finalized before April 24, 1996—such as 

Petitioner’s 1978 conviction—had one year from the enactment of AEDPA, i.e., April 24, 1997, to 

file a federal habeas petition on time. See Patterson v. Stewart, 251 F.3d 1243, 1245-46 (9th Cir. 

2001). The present federal habeas petition was filed on July 18, 2013, over sixteen years after the 

limitations period had expired. 

 Petitioner concedes that he filed his federal petition beyond the one-year limitations period 

provided in section 2244(d)(1)(A), but argues that his petition is timely under sections 

2244(d)(1)(B)-(D). Dkt. 1 at 12-13; Dkt. 11 at 8. 

I. DELAYED COMMENCEMENT OF THE LIMITATIONS PERIOD 

As mentioned above, a petitioner may attempt to justify the late filing of his habeas 

petition by demonstrating his eligibility for a delayed commencement of the limitations period 

under either subheadings (B), (C) or (D) of section 2244(d)(1). Here, Petitioner claims in his 

petition as well as in his opposition to the motion to dismiss that he is entitled to a delayed 

commencement of the limitations period. 

First, Petitioner does not present any evidence or argument suggesting there existed 

unconstitutional state action that created an impediment to his filing the petition. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(d)(1)(B). Therefore, he is not entitled to a delayed commencement of the limitations 

period under section 2244(d)(1)(B). 

Second, under section 2244(d)(1)(C), the one-year limitation period starts on the date on 

which “the constitutional right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right 

has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on 

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collateral review.” In interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3), an analogous provision for federal 

prisoners seeking to file under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, the Supreme Court has held that the one-year 

limitation period begins to run on the date on which the Supreme Court recognized the new right 

being asserted, not the date on which that right was made retroactive. See Dodd v. United States, 

545 U.S. 353, 357 (2005). Petitioner argues that he is entitled to a later start date of the statute of 

limitations due to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399 (2012), and 

Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376 (2012), which he contends established a new constitutional rule. 

Frye and Lafler concerned the defense counsel’s failure to communicate to the defendant a formal 

plea offer from the prosecution regarding a plea with favorable terms and conditions and allowing 

that offer to lapse. Frye, 132 S. Ct. at 1410; Lafler, 132 S. Ct. at 1383. The Supreme Court found 

this constituted deficient performance. Id. However, Petitioner’s contention—that Frye and 

Lafler established a new constitutional rule—has been directly rejected by the Ninth Circuit. In 

Buenrostro v. United States, 697 F.3d 1137, 1140 (9th Cir. 2012), the Ninth Circuit held that 

neither Frye nor Lafler decided a new constitutional rule but rather applied the Sixth Amendment 

right to effective assistance of counsel according to the test articulated in Strickland v. 

Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984), and extended it to the plea-bargaining context in Hill v. 

Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985). “Because the Court in Frye and Lafler repeatedly noted its 

application of an established rule to the underlying facts, these cases did not break new ground or 

impose a new obligation on the State or Federal Government.” Buenrostro, 697 F.3d at 1140. 

Therefore, Petitioner is not entitled to a delayed commencement of the limitations period under 

section 2244(d)(1)(C). 

Finally, Petitioner fails to show that he could not have discovered the factual basis for his 

ineffective assistance of counsel claim despite due diligence. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(D). 

Even if Petitioner had meant to argue that he did not understand the legal significance of the facts 

of his aforementioned underlying claim before Frye and Lafler were decided, such an argument is 

unavailing. A prisoner does not “need[] to understand the legal significance of those facts—rather 

than simply the facts themselves—before the due diligence (and hence the limitations) clock 

start[s] ticking . . . . Time begins when the prisoner knows (or through diligence could discover) 

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the important facts, not when the prisoner recognizes their legal significance.” Hasan v. Galaza, 

254 F.3d 1150, 1154 n.3 (9th Cir. 2000) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 

Accordingly, Petitioner is not entitled to a delayed commencement of the limitations 

period under either subheadings (B), (C) or (D) of section 2244(d)(1), and the petition is untimely. 

II. EQUITABLE TOLLING 

 The Supreme Court has determined that AEDPA’s statute of limitations is subject to 

equitable tolling in appropriate cases. Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 645 (2010). “When 

external forces, rather than a petitioner’s lack of diligence, account for the failure to file a timely 

claim, equitable tolling of the statute of limitations may be appropriate.” Miles v. Prunty, 187 

F.3d 1104, 1107 (9th Cir. 1999). Equitable tolling, however, is unavailable on most cases because 

extensions of time should be granted only if “extraordinary circumstances beyond a prisoner’s 

control make it impossible to file a petition on time.” Beeler, 128 F.3d at 1288 (citation and 

internal quotation marks omitted). The prisoner must show that “the ‘extraordinary 

circumstances’ were the cause of his untimeliness.” Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796, 799 (9th Cir. 

2003) (citations omitted). The petitioner bears the burden of showing he is entitled to equitable 

tolling, and the determination of whether such tolling applies is a fact-specific inquiry. Id. Thus, 

petitioner bears the burden of showing that this “extraordinary exclusion” should apply to him, 

Miranda v. Castro, 292 F.3d 1063, 1065 (9th Cir. 2002), and that “the extraordinary 

circumstances were the cause of his untimeliness and that the extraordinary circumstances made it 

impossible to file a petition on time,” Ramirez v. Yates, 571 F.3d 993, 997 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted). Another statement of the standard is that a litigant seeking 

equitable tolling bears the burden of establishing two elements: “(1) that he has been pursuing his 

rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way,” preventing 

timely filing. Holland, 560 U.S. at 655 (quoting Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 418 (2005)); 

accord Rasberry v. Garcia, 448 F.3d 1150, 1153 (9th Cir. 2006). 

 Here, in his sur-reply, Petitioner has alleged that he is entitled to equitable tolling because 

he allegedly faced “extreme limitations . . . due to his incarceration and lack of access or 

opportunity to an adequate law library or the tools and help he needed to prepare the present 

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petition in question.” Dkt. 14 at 4. 

 First, Petitioner points to his incarcerated status, which the Court construes as an argument 

for equitable tolling based on the fact that he is a layman without any litigation experience. 

However, ignorance of the law and lack of legal sophistication do not alone constitute 

extraordinary circumstances warranting equitable tolling. Rasberry, 448 F.3d at 1154 

(cataloguing cases from other circuits and holding that “a pro se petitioner’s lack of legal 

sophistication is not, by itself, an extraordinary circumstance”); see also Hughes v. Idaho State Bd. 

of Corr., 800 F.2d 905, 909 (9th Cir. 1986) (illiteracy of pro se petitioner insufficient cause to 

avoid procedural bar); United States v. Flores, 981 F.2d 231, 236 (5th Cir. 1993) (pro se status, 

illiteracy, deafness and lack of legal training does not justify equitable tolling). Therefore, 

Petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling based solely on the fact that he is a layman without 

any litigation experience. 

 Second, Petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling based on his claim of lack of access to 

the prison law library either. Petitioner seems to claim that his lack of access to the law library led 

to a delay in his notification of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Frye and Lafler. Dkt. 14 at 4. 

However, as mentioned above, it matters not that the Frye and Lafler decisions were issued in 

2012 because they did not decide a new rule of constitutional law. The Court has found above that 

Petitioner is not entitled to a delayed commencement of the limitations period under section 

2244(d)(1)(C). In addition, Petitioner has not alleged whether he was denied access to the prison 

law library throughout his sixteen-year delay in filing his federal habeas petition. Even if 

Petitioner had alleged a lack of access to the law library during a portion of that time frame, this 

alleged lack of access did not make it impossible for him to file a federal petition on time, Beeler, 

128 F3d at 1288, or, put differently, was not the cause of his untimeliness, Spitsyn, 345 F3d at 

799. Petitioner has not alleged any facts from which the Court could infer that his failure to raise 

his ineffective assistance of counsel claim prior to the expiration of the limitations period was 

because of circumstances which were beyond his control and which made it impossible to file a 

timely federal petition. Instead, it was Petitioner’s sixteen-year delay in filing the instant federal 

habeas petition, rather than extraordinary circumstances, that led him to exceed the limitations 

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period. See Miranda, 292 F.3d at 1065. The limitations period will not be equitably tolled. 

 Accordingly, Respondent’s motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and the petition is 

DISMISSED because it was not timely filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).6

III. CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY 

 The federal rules governing habeas cases brought by state prisoners have been amended to 

require a district court that dismisses or denies a habeas petition to grant or deny a certificate of 

appealability (“COA”) in its ruling. See Rule 11(a), Rules Governing § 2254 Cases, 28 U.S.C. 

foll. § 2254 (effective December 1, 2009). 

 For the reasons stated above, Petitioner has not shown “that jurists of reason would find it 

debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 

U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Accordingly, a COA is DENIED. 

CONCLUSION 

 For the reasons outlined above, the Court orders as follows: 

 1. Petitioner’s motion for leave to file a sur-reply is GRANTED. Dkt. 13. 

 2. Respondent’s motion to dismiss the petition as untimely (dkt. 8) is GRANTED, and 

this action is DISMISSED with prejudice. 

 3. A certificate of appealability is DENIED. Petitioner may seek a certificate of 

appealability from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

 4. The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment, terminate all pending motions, and 

close the file. 

 5. This Order terminates Docket Nos. 8 and 13. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: ______________________________________ 

YVONNE GONZALEZ ROGERS 

United States District Judge 

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 In his opposition, Petitioner moves for an evidentiary hearing to “allow [him] to show 

that if the facts are fully developed he can demonstrate that he is entitled to relief and that it is the 

duty of the Court to provide the necessary facilities and procedures for an adequate inquiry.” Dkt. 

11 at 6. Because the Court has found that the petition must be dismissed as untimely, and that 

Petitioner has not shown that he is entitled to a delayed commencement of the limitations period 

or to equitable tolling, his motion for an evidentiary hearing is DENIED. 

March 17, 2015

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