Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-02735/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-02735-0/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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NOT FOR CITATION

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GEORGE R. CHANDLER, JR.,

Petitioner,

 vs.

DIRECTOR OF CORRECTIONS, 

Respondent.

 

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No. C 05-2735 PJH (PR) 

RULINGS; ORDER

GRANTING RESPONDENT'S

MOTION TO DISMISS

(Docs 2, 3, 9, 11, 13 & 15) 

This is a habeas case brought pro se by a state prisoner under 28 U.S.C. §

2254. 

Before the court for ruling are respondent’s motion to dismiss the case as

barred by the statute of limitations and petitioner’s motions for leave to file a

supplemental pleading, for an evidentiary hearing, to amend the petition, and for

judicial notice. The motions are submitted.

1. Motion to file supplemental pleading and “Motion to Amend”

In 1999 petitioner was convicted on three counts of rape. With an

enhancement for a 1987 conviction for robbery, he was sentenced to prison for

twenty years. This petition is directed to the 1999 rape conviction; at the same time

he filed this petition, petitioner filed another case, No. C 05-2736 PJH (PR), directed

to the 1987 conviction. The court dismissed that case because petitioner was no

longer in custody on the 1987 conviction. 

In the order of dismissal in C 05-2736 PJH (PR), the court noted that the “in

custody” requirement is met if a petitioner files a petition directed to a conviction

which was enhanced by the earlier conviction he or she wishes to challenge. See

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 1 Because the motion was filed and the court issued its order to show cause at

roughly the same time, the court did not rule on the motion in the order to show cause.

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Lackawanna County District Aty. v. Coss, 532 U.S. 394, 401-02 (2001). The

dismissal was without prejudice to attempting to amend this case to add the claim

regarding the 1987 conviction. The court also warned petitioner, however, that

although the Lackawanna court had concluded that this maneuver satisfies the

custody requirement, the Court had also held that such claims cannot be considered

in petitions directed to the later conviction as enhanced by the conviction at issue,

though for reasons of finality and ease of administration rather than lack of custody. 

Id. at 402-04. He was also told that his claims did not appear to meet the only

exception recognized in Lackawanna, namely for contentions that a conviction was

obtained without counsel in violation of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963),

id. at 404, and that the Supreme Court in Lackawanna had found it unnecessary to

decide whether the bar could be avoided by a showing that a petitioner was

prevented from litigating the claim earlier by, for instance, the refusal of a state court

to consider his claims or because he only discovered compelling evidence of actual

innocence after the time for collateral review had passed. Id. at 405-06. That is, he

was told that may be an exception to the Lackawanna bar for prisoners who were

prevented from litigating the claim earlier, and was warned that amending would be

futile unless he were able to establish that such an exception existed and applied to

him. 

Petitioner has filed a motion for leave to file a “supplemental” pleading to add

the claim regarding the 1987 case.1

 In the motion and the proposed supplemental

pleading, however, petitioner makes no effort to show that he was prevented from

litigating his claims earlier. Thus, even if that exception does exist, he has not shown

that it applies to him, so allowing the supplemental pleading would be futile. The

motion will be denied.

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Petitioner’s motion to amend is simply a renewed effort to add the claim

regarding the 1987 conviction to this petition. It also does not contain any contention

that he was prevented from litigating his claims earlier. It will be denied.

2. Respondent’s motion to dismiss and petitioner’s motion for an evidentiary

hearing

Respondent moves to dismiss the petition as barred by the statute of

limitations. Petitioner opposes the motion on grounds he is entitled to equitable

tolling and that he is actually innocent. He asks for an evidentiary hearing to

establish his actual innocence.

a. Motion to dismiss

The statute of limitations is codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). 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: (1) the judgment became final after the

conclusion of direct review or the time passed for seeking direct review; (2) an

impediment to filing an application created by unconstitutional state action was

removed, if such action prevented petitioner from filing; (3) 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 (4) the

factual predicate of the claim could have been discovered through the exercise of

due diligence. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). Time during which a properly filed application

for state post-conviction or other collateral review is pending is excluded from the

one-year time limit. Id. § 2244(d)(2). 

Respondent asserts, and petitioner does not dispute, that he was convicted in

1999 and that he abandoned his appeal when it was before the California Court of

Appeal. That court dismissed the appeal on June 13, 2000. He then did nothing until

he filed a state habeas petition on October 14, 2003. He was engaged in state

postconviction proceedings from then until May 11, 2005. This petition was filed on

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July 5, 2005.

Thus, absent equitable tolling, the statute of limitations expired in June of

2001, long before petitioner filed any state postconviction actions which would

statutorily toll the limitations period. Petitioner contends that he is entitled to

equitable tolling or that the court should consider his claims because he is actually

innocent.

The Ninth Circuit has held that habeas petitioners may be entitled to equitable

tolling of the statute of limitations if they show “‘extraordinary circumstances’ beyond

a prisoner’s control mak[ing] it impossible to file a petition on time.” See Calderon v.

United States District Court (Beeler), 128 F.3d 1283, 1288-89 (9th Cir. 1997) (quoting

Alvarez-Machain v. United States, 107 F.3d 696, 701 (9th Cir.1997)). In Beeler the

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted that equitable tolling “will not be available in

most cases” and expressed its confidence that the district courts would “take

seriously Congress's desire to accelerate the federal habeas process, and will only

authorize extensions when this high hurdle is surmounted.” See id. 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). 

As grounds for equitable tolling, petitioner contends that for eleven months he

believed a state writ had been filed, because his appellate attorney had said in a

letter that he would do so; and that for another eleven months he was unable to get

to the prison law library because of lockdowns and restrictions on law library access. 

Petitioner’s direct appeal was final on June 13, 2000, and he did nothing that

would support statutory tolling until October 13, 2003, a period of approximately three

years and four months. In addition, about two months passed from the completion of

state postconviction review and his filing this petition. That is, the petition was filed

about forty-two months after the direct appeal was completed, or thirty months late,

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assuming tolling for the entire period petitioner was pursuing state postconviction

remedies. 

Petitioner does not contend that the statute began running on any date other

than the completion of direct review, so absent tolling, the deadline to file the federal

petition was June 13, 2001, one year after completion of direct review. See 28

U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1); Patterson v. Stewart, 251 F.3d 1243, 1246 (9th Cir. 2001) (the

one-year period is calculated according to the general rule for counting time in federal

courts, Rule 6(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; this is referred to as the

“anniversary method” because, absent any tolling, the expiration date of the limitation

period will be the same date as the triggering event but in the following year). 

Petitioner has provided a copy of the letter from counsel dated August 12,

2000, which was within the one-year limitations period, which he contends misled him

into thinking counsel was going to file a habeas petition. The letter does not, in fact,

say that counsel will file a habeas petition, and could not reasonably be read to even

imply that. Pet’r opp’n. at ex. D, pp. 5-6. Petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling

on this ground; as a result, his only ground for equitable tolling that occurred within

the limitations period is without merit, and he has failed to show that it was impossible

for him to file a federal petition by June 13, 2001. The motion to dismiss will be

granted for this reason.

Alternatively, even if it is assumed that petitioner is entitled to equitable tolling

for both of the eleven-month periods he claims, he still has not shown that it was

impossible to file the petition any earlier. The time periods at issue took up only

twenty-two of the forty-two months it took petitioner to file the petition. The time it

took him to get the petition on file, disregarding the twenty-two months which he

claims to be equitably tolled, shows that it was not the two grounds for equitable

tolling which caused him to be late. See Spitsyn, 345 F.3d at 799 (petitioner claiming

equitable tolling must show causation). 

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The equitable tolling claim is without merit. 

Petitioner also contends that he is “actually innocent.” The actual innocence

gateway established in Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995), may be available to a

petitioner whose petition is otherwise barred by AEDPA’s limitations period. See

Majoy v. Roe, 296 F.3d 770, 776-77 (9th Cir. 2002) (implying that unavailability of

actual innocence gateway would raise serious constitutional concerns and remanding

to district court for a determination of whether actual innocence claim was

established before deciding whether gateway is available under AEDPA). Although

the court in Majoy did not hold that the actual innocence gateway is an exception to

the statute of limitations, that clearly was the inclination of the court. Id. at 778

(noting the Supreme Court’s recognition of the “interplay between statutory language

and judicially managed equitable considerations” in habeas, Schlup at 319 n. 35, and

citing cases for the propositions that dismissal of a first habeas petition is particularly

serious and that the purpose of the writ is to remedy conviction of an innocent

person). For purposes of this order this court will assume that actual innocence, if

established according to the Schlup standard, would avoid the statute of limitations

bar. 

The “actual innocence” or “miscarriage of justice” exception arose in the

context of procedural bars: If a state prisoner cannot meet the cause and prejudice

standard to escape a procedural bar, a federal court may still hear the merits of the

successive, abusive or procedurally defaulted claims if failure to hear the claims

would constitute a "miscarriage of justice." See Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333,

339-340 (1992) (citations omitted); see also Majoy, 296 F.3d at 776-77. In the

traditional understanding of habeas corpus, a "miscarriage of justice" occurs

whenever a conviction or sentence is secured in violation of a constitutional right. 

See Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. at 543-44. However, the Supreme Court limits the

"miscarriage of justice" exception to habeas petitioners who can show that "a

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constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually

innocent." Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 327 (1995) (citing Murray v. Carrier, 477

U.S. at 496); see, e.g., Wildman v. Johnson, 261 F.3d 832, 842-43 (9th Cir. 2001)

(petitioner must establish factual innocence in order to show that a fundamental

miscarriage of justice would result from application of procedural default). Under this

exception, a petitioner may establish a procedural "gateway" permitting review of

defaulted claims if he or she demonstrates "actual innocence." Schlup, 513 U.S. at

316 & n.32. Thus,

[i]f a petitioner . . . presents evidence of innocence so strong that a

court cannot have confidence in the outcome of the trial unless the

court is also satisfied that the trial was free of non-harmless

constitutional error, the petitioner should be allowed to pass through the

gateway and argue the merits of his underlying claim. 

Id. at 316. 

"To be credible, such an actual innocence claim requires petitioner to support

his allegations of constitutional error with new reliable evidence--whether it be

exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical

evidence--that was not presented at trial." Schlup, 513 U.S. at 324. The "new"

evidence need not be newly available, just newly presented -- that is, evidence that

was not presented at trial. Griffin v. Johnson, 350 F.3d 956, 961 (9th Cir. 2003). 

It is not enough that the new evidence show the existence of reasonable

doubt; rather, petitioner must show "that it is more likely than not that no ‘reasonable

juror’ would have convicted him." Schlup, 513 U.S. at 329. As the Ninth Circuit has

stated, "the test is whether, with the new evidence, it is more likely than not that no

reasonable juror would have found [p]etitioner guilty." Van Buskirk v. Baldwin, 265

F.3d 1080, 1084 (9th Cir. 2001). Thus, "actual innocence" means factual innocence,

not merely legal insufficiency. Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 623-24 (1998)

(citing Sawyer, 505 U.S. at 339). 

In this case petitioner argues that errors of constitutional dimension occurred: 

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“IAC claims, Denial of the right to jury trial, Denial of the right to Constitutional

Discloser, Insufficient Evidence, etc. ” Pet’r Opp’n at 5. He says that he will be able

to prove these if given an evidentiary hearing. These assertions, however, are

conclusory; he does not say what facts he would show that would establish his actual

innocence, and indeed most of his claims are technical legal claims, not claims of

actual innocence. That is, his allegations in support of his actual innocence claim are

of legal insufficiency, not factual innocence. He thus has failed to allege that there

exist facts which would suffice to prove his actual innocence. See Bousley, 523 U.S.

at 623-24. For that reason he is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing or the benefit

of the actual innocence exception, assuming there is one. 

The motion to dismiss will be granted.

CONCLUSION

1. Petitioner’s motion for an order to show cause (doc 2) is DENIED as moot. 

His motions to supplement the petition (doc 3) and to amend it (doc 13) are DENIED

for the reasons set out above. Petitioner’s motion for judicial notice (doc 15), which

goes to the merits of his petition, is DENIED as moot.

2. Petitioner’s motion for an evidentiary hearing on his equitable tolling and

actual innocence claims (doc 11) is DENIED. Respondent’s motion to dismiss (doc

9) is GRANTED. The petition is DISMISSED. The clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: February 7, 2006.

 

 PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

G:\PRO-SE\PJH\HC.05\CHANDLER735.DSM 

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