Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_96-cv-06252/USCOURTS-caed-1_96-cv-06252-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 28:2254 Ptn for Writ of H/C - Stay of Execution

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28 *Robert Ayers is substituted for his predecessor Steven W. Ornoski,

as Acting Warden of San Quentin State Prison pursuant to Federal

96dp6252.OGrntgMo4Abey.Ray.wpd 1 Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d).

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CLARENCE RAY, JR., )

)

Petitioner, )

)

vs. )

)

Robert Ayers, as Acting Warden of )

San Quentin State Prison* )

)

Respondent. )

)

Case No. CIV. F-96-6252-AWI

DEATH PENALTY CASE

ORDER GRANTING PETITIONER’S

MOTION FOR ABEYANCE AND

DENYING WITHOUT PREJUDICE

RESPONDENT’S APPLICATION FOR

ENLARGEMENT OF TIME TO FILE

FURTHER BRIEFS AND PLEADINGS

This matter is before the Court on the Motion of Petitioner

Clarence Ray, Jr. (“Ray”) to hold in abeyance federal proceedings

pending exhaustion of state remedies before the California Supreme

Court. The motion is contested by Respondent Robert Ayers, as Acting

Warden of San Quentin State Prison (the “State”). At the same time

the State filed it’s opposition to Ray’s motion it also filed an

application for enlargement of time to file a responsive pleading.

The Court finds the motions amenable to resolution without hearing.

I. Procedural History.

On July 28, 1989, Ray was sentenced to death by the Kern County

Superior Court for the April 17, 1984 murder of a woman, the attempted

murder of her male companion, and the attempted robbery of both. He

became a suspect in these crimes following a confession given in the

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Michigan state prison system, where he was serving a life sentence for

a murder committed subsequent to the Kern County crimes. Following

his sentence in Kern County, Ray was returned to Michigan authorities

where he remains incarcerated. 

On April 24, 1991, appellate counsel, Charles Bush, was appointed

to represent Ray on his automatic direct appeal and related habeas

proceedings. After several proceedings, the trial record was filed

on October 1, 1992. Direct appeal proceedings moved forward with

Ray’s opening brief filed July 12, 1993, the State’s opposition filed

March 10, 1994, and Ray’s reply brief filed August 30, 1994. The

opinion of the California Supreme Court affirming Ray’s conviction and

sentence was issued on May 6, 1996 and the order denying rehearing was

filed on June 26, 1996. Certiorari was denied by the United States

Supreme Court on November 4, 1996.

During the direct appeal proceedings, Mr. Bush initiated efforts

to prepare a state habeas petition. On July 12, 1993, the same day

he filed the appellant’s opening brief, he requested $16,600 to fund

an investigation of Ray’s competency and various jury issues. This

request was denied nearly a year later on June 22, 1994. On May 24,

1995, nearly a year after that, Mr. Bush requested $46,925 to fund a

broad investigation including issues related to Ray’s confessions,

alternate suspects, a contested photo line-up, ballistics, other

forensic issues, mental state defenses, mitigation, prior crimes, and

shackling. By separate application, Mr. Bush requested funds to

travel to Michigan to interview Ray. Whereas the court granted the

travel authorization on May 17, 1996, the request for investigation

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 This information is taken from Ray’s federal petition at ¶¶ 41, 1

45, and 46. In the federal petition, Ray alleges that the document

search funds had been requested originally in the initial (July 12,

1993) funds request. The denial of the second request came between

the issuance of the opinion on direct appeal and the order denying

rehearing.

96dp6252.OGrntgMo4Abey.Ray.wpd 3

funds was denied on June 19, 1996, except for $2,500 to conduct a

limited document search.1

Ray’s first state habeas petition, California Case No. S057313,

was filed on November 14, 1996, nearly two years and three months

after his reply brief on direct appeal was filed. On September 10,

1998, Ray filed a motion for leave to supplement his initial state

habeas petition with allegations regarding timeliness. The Supreme

Court granted this motion on July 31, 2002, and on August 29, 2002,

Ray filed those supplemental timeliness allegations. Ray’s second

state habeas petition was filed on September 27, 2002 under California

Case No. S110219. Not long thereafter, the California high court

denied Ray’s first state habeas petition on April 9, 2003. With the

exception of one sub-claim, which was denied as premature, all claims

in the initial petition were denied as untimely pursuant to in re

Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th 770, 780-81 (1998) and in re Clark, 5 Cal. 4th

750, 763-99 (1993). One of those untimely claims also was found

“pretermitted” under in re Dixon, 41 Cal. 2d 757, 759 (1953). In

addition, with the exception of the one premature sub-claim, all

untimely claims and the untimely/pretermitted claim were denied on the

merits. The second state habeas petition, which among other claims

raises the issue of Ray’s mental retardation and the consequent

constitutionality of his death sentence under Atkins v. Virginia, 536

U.S. 304 (2002), is still pending before the California Supreme Court.

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 Between February 1997 and December 2005, the Court was not 2

advised of the status of state court proceedings, and specifically did

not learn of the second state habeas petition or the denial of the

initial state petition until that time. 

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Federal proceedings in this Court were initiated by a request for

appointment of counsel and a stay of execution of Ray’s sentence on

November 8, 1996. An application to proceed in forma pauperis was

added on November 25, 1996. All requests were granted on November 25,

1996 and December 18, 1996. By February 10, 1997, however, the

Selection Board had not yet recommended counsel for appointment and

the Federal Defender’s Office requested an additional stay of

execution during the attorney selection process. Given the status of

the (first) state habeas petition (which was the only state petition

on file at the time), the Court declined to consider appointment of

federal counsel until completion of the state habeas proceedings.

Over eight years later, and following the decisions by the Supreme

Court in Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005) and Pace v. DiGuglielmo,

544 U.S. 408 (2005), Ray returned to this Court to renew his

application for appointment of federal counsel on December 28, 2005.2

The Federal Defender was appointed on March 14, 2006. Ray’s initial

federal habeas petition was filed concurrently with the instant motion

for abeyance on June 13, 2006, approximately three months following

appointment of federal counsel.

II. Ray’s Motion for Abeyance.

The parties agree that the Supreme Court’s decision in Rhines is

controlling. Rhines permits a district court to hold in abeyance a

mixed petition, that is, one which contains both exhausted and

unexhausted claims, while the petitioner pursues state post-conviction

remedies, provided three requirements are met. 544 U.S. at 277-78.

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First there must be “good cause for the petitioner’s failure to

exhaust his claims first [or earlier] in state court.” Id. at 277.

Second, the unexhausted claims must not be “plainly meritless.” Id.

Third, a mixed petition “should not be stayed indefinitely,” meaning,

there should be specific limits on the trip to state court and back

to federal court. Id. at 277-78.

A. Ray’s Contentions in Favor of Abeyance.

The focus of Ray’s argument is the validity and merit of his

second state habeas petition alleging his execution is proscribed

under Atkins, 536 U.S. at 335. Because Atkins was just decided in

2002, he claims he has “good cause” for not exhausting that claim

prior to its presentation in the state court on September 27, 2002.

Second, he argues the Atkins claim and related claims have merit

because he is seriously and verifiably mentally impaired. Third, he

claims he has not engaged in dilatory conduct because he first

requested federal counsel in this case just four days after the

finality of his direct appeal proceeding, on November 8, 1996

(following the denial of certiorari by the United States Supreme Court

on November 4, 1996). He filed the present federal petition within

three months from appointment of federal counsel after Rhines changed

the rules for proceeding with some aspects of federal habeas

litigation (like filing a protective petition) during pendency of

state exhaustion proceedings.

He maintains that if the Court rules on the currently exhausted

federal claims (i.e., those presented on direct appeal and/or in the

first habeas petition), without waiting for the resolution of his

Atkins claims, the presentation of the Atkins claims in a subsequent

federal petition may be barred as successive. 

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B. The State’s Contention in Opposition to Abeyance.

As a primary argument, the State claims Ray’s request for

abeyance is premature because some of the claims in the federal

petition have never been raised before the California Supreme Court

in any pleading. In support of this contention, the State provides

three concrete examples of claims presented in the federal petition

it contends were never presented on direct appeal or in either of the

state habeas petitions. The claims cited by way of example are Claim

6.C., Claim 7.A., and that portion of Claim 25 dealing with Ray’s

relative non-culpability for other criminal activity.

The focus of the State’s second argument is the untimeliness of

Ray’s first state habeas petition and consequent unavailability of

statutory tolling under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Subsection (d)(2) of

§ 2244 provides that the one-year federal limitations period is

tolled, as a matter of statute, during the time in which “a properly

filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral

review” is pending in state court. Thus, where a “properly filed”

petition for habeas relief is filed in state court during the one-year

federal limitations period, the statute will be tolled during pendency

of that state proceeding. As noted in the recitation of the background

facts, Ray’s first state habeas petition was filed (November 14, 1996)

within a year of the finality of Ray’s direct appeal proceedings

(November 4, 1996). However, since Ray’s first state habeas petition

was denied on independent grounds of untimeliness, that petition does

not qualify for statutory tolling because under Pace, 544 U.S. at 413,

a state petition denied as untimely is not properly filed. The State

cites to Bonner v. Carey, 425 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir. 2005), as additional

authority for this proposition. In Bonner, the court held that a

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petition dismissed as untimely by a California court is not “properly

filed” and, in turn, is not entitled to statutory tolling under §

2244(d)(2). Id. at 1149. The State further argues that since the

first state petition was not properly filed and did not toll the

limitations period, the second state petition also did not toll the

limitations period for those claims.

C. Resolution.

Addressing the State’s arguments, Ray resolutely disputes the

contention of non-exhaustion of any claims presented in the federal

petition. In his reply brief he points out where and how his

allegations have been exhausted, noting that he did not utilize

exactly the same language in the federal petition as he did in the

state pleadings, and that, in any event, the factual and legal bases

for the claims are not fundamentally altered by new allegations. In

support of this latter proposition he cites Landrigan v. Schriro, 441

F.3d 638, 648 (9th Cir. 2006), which holds “[n]ew factual allegations

do not render a claim unexhausted unless they fundamentally alter the

legal claim already considered by state courts.” The Court declines

to weigh in on the exhaustion dispute at this time. It may well be

that on further analysis Ray is correct, because the contested

allegations are not new, or if they are, they do not fundamentally

alter claims already pending before or previously denied by the

California Supreme Court. It may also be that additional allegations

do, as the State contends, introduce entirely new factual bases for

previously exhausted claims. See e.g., Correll v. Stewart, 137 F.3d

1401, 1412 (9th Cir. 1998) (trial counsel’s failure to develop a

mental competency defense is distinct from trial counsel’s failure to

present a misidentification defense). 

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 On this subject, the Court notes that prior to Pace, the Ninth 3

Circuit had determined a procedurally barred state habeas petition

nonetheless was “properly filed” within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2)

for statutory tolling purposes so long as the procedural bar was not

a condition to filing. Dictado v. Ducharme, 244 F.3d 724, 727-28 (9th

Cir. 2001) (cited by Smith v. Duncan, 297 F.3d 808, 812 (9th Cir.

2002) and Jenkins v. Johnson, 330 F.3d 1146, 1150 (9th Cir. 2003)).

Specifically with respect to untimely bars determined in state court,

Dictado held that if a state’s rule governing timely commencement of

post-conviction relief proceedings contained exceptions that required

the state courts to examine the merits of the petition before

dismissing it, even if ultimately found untimely, the petition should

be regarded as properly filed because the state statute or rule did

not impose an absolute bar to filing. 244 F.3d at 727-28. Pace

reversed this precedent.

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The Court further declines to address the question if whether any

of Ray’s claims in the first state habeas petition can withstand a

statute of limitations challenge. The Court notes that while the

State has presented the foundation of a cogent argument for lack of

statutory tolling under Pace and Bonner, the issue of equitable

tolling is still wide open. In light of the fact that a valid state 3

habeas petition is still pending in state court, the Court will not

venture to reach either statutory or equitable tolling in Ray’s case

until that state petition is resolved. 

Ray’s motion for abeyance of federal proceedings is granted, with

all exhaustion disputes and the statute of limitations challenge

reserved following resolution of the state petition. Should Ray

decide to present additional claims to the California Supreme Court,

the status of any such additional petition shall be described in the

quarterly status reports his counsel currently provides to the Court.

III. The State’s Motion to Enlarge Time for Filing a Motion to

Dismiss and then an Answer to the Federal Petition.

The State requests 45 days from the issuance of a ruling on Ray’s

abeyance motion within which to file a motion to dismiss (for lack of

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exhaustion), and then 30 days to answer the federal petition following

the ruling on the motion to dismiss. 

In light the Court’s ruling to hold federal proceedings in

abeyance pending resolution of the state petition, the request for

enlargement of time to file further motions and pleadings is denied

without prejudice. When the California court does rule on the pending

state petition, the Court will schedule a case management conference

to establish a briefing schedule for whatever motions the State

intends to advance.

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

DATED: July 20, 2006 

 /s/ Anthony W. Ishii 

 Anthony W. Ishii

 United States District Judge

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