Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-01403/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-01403-0/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

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Socorro Vidal Colin,

Petitioner,

v.

Juan Torrie,

Respondent.

Case No.: 16-cv-01403-BEN-AGS

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION 

TO DENY MOTION FOR STAY AND 

ISSUE AN ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE

Petitioner Socorro Vidal Colin filed a motion to stay her pending habeas corpus 

petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, to permit her to exhaust her state remedies on unidentified 

claims. Respondent filed an opposition, but Colin chose not to file a reply. For the reasons 

that follow, this Court recommends that her motion be denied and that an Order to Show 

Cause be issued requiring Colin to explain why her petition should not be dismissed as 

untimely.

I. BACKGROUND

On August 22, 2013, a San Diego County Superior Court jury found Colin guilty of

possession of heroin for sale, two counts of felonious child abuse, and possession of 

methadone. She appealed that conviction, claiming her Miranda rights were violated, but 

the California Court of Appeal rejected that argument and affirmed on November 7, 2014. 

The California Supreme Court denied Colin’s petition for review on January 14, 2015. 

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Colin then signed her habeas petition on June 3, 2016, and filed it five days later. In it, 

Colin again argues that her Miranda rights were violated, but also raises a number of other 

arguments that she admits were never presented to the California state courts. Thereafter, 

Colin filed the current motion, requesting to stay her petition while she exhausts her state

remedies as to unidentified claims. She does not explain why she failed to exhaust those 

remedies earlier.

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II. DISCUSSION

The exhaustion of available state remedies is a prerequisite to habeas corpus relief 

under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). In Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509 (1982), the Supreme Court 

held that “a district court must dismiss habeas petitions containing both unexhausted and 

exhausted claims.” Id. at 522. Such a dismissal leaves “the prisoner with the choice of 

returning to state court to exhaust his claims or of amending or resubmitting the habeas 

petition to present only exhausted claims to the district court.” Id. at 510.

When Lundy was decided, there was no statute of limitations for filing a federal 

habeas corpus petition; after exhausting claims in state court, a petitioner could return to 

federal court “with relative ease.” Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 274 (2005). But the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 added a one-year statute of 

limitations for bringing a habeas petition in federal court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). In 

Rhines, the Supreme Court recognized petitioners can effectively be denied the opportunity 

for collateral review “[a]s a result of the interplay between AEDPA’s 1-year statute of 

limitations and Lundy’s dismissal requirement.” Id. at 275. Therefore, the Court held that 

federal judges have discretion to stay mixed petitions and hold habeas proceedings in 

abeyance while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust all claims. Id. But the Court 

also held that a stay and abeyance “should be available only in limited circumstances.” Id.

 

1 Neither party suggests that Colin litigated post-conviction proceedings with the 

California state courts. According to the California Supreme Court’s website, she has not 

filed a habeas corpus petition there.

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at 277; see also Blake v. Baker, 745 F.3d 977, 981-82 (9th Cir. 2014) (“[R]outinely granting 

stays would undermine the AEDPA’s goals of encouraging finality and streamlining 

federal habeas proceedings.”). 

A Rhines stay is available only in the limited circumstance that: (1) there is good 

cause for failing to exhaust the claims in state court; (2) the unexhausted claim(s) 

potentially have merit; and (3) the petitioner was not intentionally dilatory in pursuing the 

litigation. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 278. 

Colin fails to satisfy the first or second condition. She provides no explanation for 

her failure to exhaust her claims in state court, much less good cause. Moreover, the State 

persuasively argues that her claims are likely time-barred, regardless of what happens in 

state court. Because Colin did not seek certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court after the 

California Supreme Court denied her petition on January 14, 2015, her conviction became 

final for the purposes of the AEDPA’s statute of limitations 90 days later, when the 

certiorari period lapsed. See Bowen v. Roe, 188 F.3d 1157, 1158-59 (9th Cir. 1999). 

Accordingly, the one-year time period began to run on April 14, 2015, and expired one 

year later in April 2016. Yet, as noted above, she filed the instant petition nearly two 

months later, on June 8, 2016, without ever suggesting that any tolling doctrine applies.

So, regardless of whether she returns to state court to exhaust her state remedies, all of her 

claims are untimely.

Colin has one last refuge, however: the Ninth Circuit permits a second form of stay, 

the so-called Kelly stay. Kelly v. Small, 315 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2002); see generally King 

v. Ryan, 564 F.3d 1133, 1139-41 (9th Cir. 2009) (discussing the validity of the Kelly-stay 

procedure after the Supreme Court’s Rhines opinion). A Kelly stay is available when a 

petitioner dismisses all unexhausted claims, stays the federal case as to the exhausted 

claims, then pursues exhaustion in the state courts, and finally, after exhausting all 

outstanding claims, amends the federal petition. See Kelly, 315 F.3d at 1070. But where, 

as here, the exhausted claim is untimely, a Kelly stay would be futile. Even if Colin 

successfully exhausted her unidentified remaining claims, they would simply relate back 

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to a time-barred petition. See Figueroa v. Lea, No. 12-CV-2882 BEN, 2014 WL 1028500, 

at *7 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 17, 2014) (“Even if the unexhausted claims relate back to the petition 

. . . , since the petition itself is untimely, a stay under Kelly would still be futile.”); see also

Richson v. Biter, No. CV 14-7276-SJO, 2015 WL 5031916, at *9 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 24, 

2015). Thus, even if Colin requested the Kelly-stay procedure—which she has not—it 

would be unavailing.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, this Court recommends that Colin’s motion for stay be 

denied and an order to show cause be issued requiring Colin to explain why her petition 

should not be dismissed as untimely.

Dated: December 23, 2016

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