Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-02197/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-02197-0/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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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ROBERT E. LEE, 

Petitioner, No. CIV S-03-2197 LKK KJM P

vs.

MARK SHEPHERD, Warden, 

Respondent. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

 /

This matter is proceeding on petitioner’s third amended petition for writ of habeas

corpus filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On July 12, 2006, the court heard argument on

respondent’s motion to dismiss. Petitioner was represented by Matthew Alger, Esq.; respondent

was represented by Carlos Martinez, Deputy Attorney General.

A. Procedural Background

Petitioner filed his original petition for a writ of habeas corpus on October 20,

2003. Respondent filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the petition was not timely filed under

the AEDPA’s statute of limitations. On August 5, 2004, the court issued findings and

recommendations recommending that the motion be denied. These were adopted by the district

court on September 9, 2004. 

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On October 6, 2004, petitioner filed a motion to stay the proceedings to allow him

to exhaust his state remedies on an unexhausted claim. This court granted the stay on November

15, 2004.

On March 24, 2006, the court lifted the stay and ordered petitioner to file his third

amended petition.

On May 15, 2006, respondent filed a second motion to dismiss, again based on the

AEDPA statute of limitations and the intervening decision in Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408

(2005).

B. The State Court Proceedings

On December 12, 2001, petitioner was sentenced to a total term of twenty-six

years in prison following his no contest plea to several counts of burglary and his admission that

he had suffered a prior conviction for a serious felony. First Motion to Dismiss (MTD I), Ex. A

(Abstract of Judgment).

Petitioner did not directly appeal his conviction.

Petitioner’s first challenge to his conviction was a “Notice of Motion and Motion

to Vacate Judgment. Petition for Writ Error Coram Nobis,” mailed to Sacramento County

Superior Court on September 6, 2002. Opp’n to MTD I, Ex. 1 (Motion/Petition). In a letter

dated October 31, 2002, Roland L. Candee, acting presiding judge of the Sacramento County

Superior Court informed petitioner that a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must be

raised in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Opp’n to MTD I, Ex. 2 (Letter from Judge

Candee). 

Petitioner next filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Sacramento County

Superior Court on December 31, 2002. MTD I, Ex. C (superior court writ). On January 23,

2003, the superior court denied the writ as untimely and on the merits. MTD I, Ex. B (superior

court denial). 

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Before the superior court issued its decision, petitioner filed a similar writ in the

California Supreme Court on January 8, 2003. This latter writ was denied on July 30, 2003. 

MTD I, Ex. C (Supreme Court denial, Supreme Court writ). 

C. Analysis

One of the changes the AEDPA made to the habeas statutes was to add a statute of

limitations for filing a habeas petition:

(d)(1) A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for

a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the

judgment of a State court. The limitation period shall run from the

latest of–

(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion

of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such

review;

(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an application

created by State action in violation of the Constitution or laws of

the United States is removed, if the applicant was prevented from

filing by such State action;

(C) 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 collateral review; or

(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims

presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due

diligence.

(2) The 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. 

Because petitioner did not appeal his conviction, it was final at the expiration of

the sixty day period for filing the notice of appeal, on February 10, 2002. Cal. Rules of Court,

31(d) (2002); Lewis v. Mitchell, 173 F. Supp. 2d 1057, 1060 (C.D. Cal. 2001). Accordingly, the

AEDPA year began to run on February 11, 2002, and expired on February 11, 2003. Fed. R. Civ.

P. 6(a) (excluding the day from which the period begins to run from the calculation of the time). 

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 This is the date on the proof of service and the date the court thus assumes it was 1

delivered to the prison authorities for mailing, a date which becomes the filing date under the rule

of Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 276 (1988). 

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The Motion/Petition filed on September 6, 2002 , stopped the AEDPA clock on day 207 of the 1

limitations period. The limitations period began running again on November 1, 2002, after Judge

Candee issued his letter. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a). Absent further tolling, the statute of limitations

period would have expired on April 7, 2003. 

During the litigation on the first motion to dismiss, respondent conceded that time

was tolled from December 31, 2002, when the writ for habeas corpus was filed in the superior

court, until July 30, 2003, when the Supreme Court denied the petition, a period of 211 days. 

Respondent argued, however, that the original Motion/Petition did not toll the running of the

limitations period. The court found that the motion was a properly filed collateral attack on

petitioner’s conviction and thus operated to toll the limitations period. August 5 Findings and

Recommendations at 4-6.

In the current motion, however, respondent no longer challenges the

Motion/Petition as a basis for tolling, but instead argues that the December 31, 2002 petition did

not toll the statute of limitations because the superior court’s denial of that pleading as untimely

means that the petition was not timely filed. As a result, he argues, the time between the denial

of the Motion/Petition and the denial of the superior court writ was similarly not tolled as a

result. Respondent also argues that, consonant with Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803

(1991), this court should presume that the California Supreme Court did not disregard the

superior court’s finding of untimeliness when it issued its single-line denial. In respondent’s

view, then, the limitations period was tolled only fifty-five days while the Motion/Petition was

pending in the superior court, but was not tolled by the second superior court or Supreme Court

petitions or by the time between the filing of any of these pleadings. Respondent thus argues that

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the statute of limitations expired by May 8, 2003, well before the initial federal petition was filed.

Petitioner argues that the original Motion/Petition is still pending because Judge

Candee’s letter was not a decision, and that he is entitled to equitable tolling because of his

mental illness. 

Neither position controls the resolution of the instant question. 

In Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 7-8 (2000), the Supreme Court held that a state

habeas petition will toll the federal statute of limitations only if it is properly filed in accordance

with the requirements of state law. In Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. at 413, 417, the Supreme

Court held that “time limits, no matter their form, are ‘filing” conditions,’” so that a petition

denied as untimely will not toll the statute of limitations. 

Under Pace, the second superior court petition, explicitly denied as untimely, did

not toll the statute of limitations. The remaining question is what effect, if any, this denial has on

the Supreme Court petition, which was denied in a one line order: “Petition for writ of habeas

corpus is DENIED.” MTD I, Lodged Doc. 3. 

In Ylst v. Nunnemaker, the Supreme Court considered whether a one-line habeas

denial from the California Supreme Court had overturned a Court of Appeal’s explicit finding

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 The Supreme Court petition is dated December 15, 2005, before the superior court 2

petition was mailed, but it does not appear to have been mailed before the superior court petition.

There is no proof of service attached to the Supreme Court petition and petitioner has presented

nothing showing when the petition was given to prison authorities for mailing. Accordingly, the

court will use the January 8, 2003 filing date as the date for the Supreme Court petition. 

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that petitioner’s Miranda issue was procedurally defaulted. The Court fashioned a rebuttable

presumption to address the question:

Where there has been one reasoned state judgment rejecting a

federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or

rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground. . . .[W]here, as

here, the last reasoned opinion on the claim explicitly imposed a

procedural default, we will presume that a later decision rejecting

the claim did not silently disregard that bar and consider the merits.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The maxim is that silence implies consent, not the opposite–and

courts generally behave accordingly, affirming without further

discussion when they agree, not when they disagree, with the

reasons given below. 

501 U.S. at 803-04. As the Court recognized, this presumption means that an unexplained order

leaves intact “a decision (or, in the case of habeas, the consequences of a decision).” Id. at 804. 

The Ninth Circuit has found the Nunnemaker “look-through” process to apply when considering

whether a reasoned, lower court finding of timeliness, followed by unexplained appellate court

denials of collateral relief, controls the determination whether the state action was properly filed. 

Bonner v. Carey, 425 F.3d 1145, 1148 n.6 (9th Cir. 2005), as amended by 439 F.3d 993 (2006),

cert. denied, U.S. , 127 S.Ct. 132 (2006). 

This case, however, is complicated by the fact that petitioner did not proceed in an

orderly fashion through the levels of California collateral review. Before he had received a

decision on the superior court petition, petitioner filed his petition in the Supreme Court. In the 2

body of that document, he did not mention that he was simultaneously seeking relief from the

superior court. MTD I, Lodged. Doc. 3 at 6. His exhibits include a petition addressed to the

superior court, along with a motion for reconsideration and a traverse to the petition, all dated

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 Accordingly, the court need not consider whether petitioner was entitled to “gap” 3

tolling between the September 6 Motion/Petition and the January 8 Supreme Court petition. See

Evans v. Chavis, 546 U.S. 189 (2006). Moreover, the court need not address whether Judge

Candee’s letter constituted a decision nor whether petitioner’s psychiatric problems support a

finding of equitable tolling. 

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December 31, 2002, plus a copy of the superior court’s order of August 9, 2002, denying

petitioner’s request for a transcript. None of these documents necessarily alerted the Supreme

Court to the pendency of a similar writ in the superior court. Even if the attached superior court

petition might alert the Supreme Court to the pendency of the lower court action, its utility was

destroyed by the fact that the other two documents—the motion for reconsideration and the

traverse—were dated the same day as the attached superior court petition. These latter

documents thus appear more as extra argument presented by a pro per inmate in support of the

Supreme Court petition rather than a record of a previous action. More important, none of these

exhibits alerted the Supreme Court to the superior court’s January 23, 2003 determination that

the superior court petition was untimely. Accordingly, there is no suggestion in the record that

the Supreme Court’s unexplained ruling signaled its agreement with an order it had no reason to

know had been entered. Moreover, because the Supreme Court did not deny the petition as

untimely, it was properly filed and tolled the AEDPA statute of limitations from January 8

through July 30, 2003. See California Rules of Court Rule 29.4 (habeas is final on day CSC

issues order summarily denying it). 

January 8, 2003, the date the Supreme Court petition was filed, was day 276 of the

limitations period. When the limitations period began to run again, on July 31, 2003, 89 days

remained. October 20, 2003, the date the original petition was filed, was day 82 of the remaining

limitations period. The petition was timely.3

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY RECOMMENDED that respondent’s renewed

motion to dismiss be denied. 

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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 twenty

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.” Any reply to the objections

shall be served and filed within ten days after service of the objections. The parties are advised

that failure to file objections within the specified time may waive the right to appeal the District

Court’s order. Martinez v. Ylst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991).

DATED: January 12, 2007.

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