Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02497/USCOURTS-ca8-05-02497-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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1

The Honorable Harold D. Vietor, United States District Judge for the Southern

District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-2497

___________

Roger Scott Sellers, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal From the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Southern District of Iowa.

Jerry Burt, Warden, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

 Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: February 15, 2006

Filed: February 22, 2006

___________

Before RILEY, HEANEY, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Roger Scott Sellers filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 2254, challenging his Iowa state-court conviction for first-degree murder.

The district court1

 denied the petition as untimely. Sellers appeals, arguing that the

district court erred by failing to equitably toll his filing deadline such that his petition

would be considered timely, and by failing to grant a continuance so that his

appointed counsel had more time to review the discovery provided by the state. We

affirm.

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BACKGROUND

On May 12, 1997, Sellers was convicted of first-degree murder in Iowa state

court. Sellers’s conviction was affirmed by the Iowa Court of Appeals on

February 24, 1999, and the Iowa Supreme Court denied review on May 14, 1999. On

January 27, 2000, Sellers petitioned for post-conviction relief in state court. His

petition was dismissed, and Sellers appealed. The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed on

February 28, 2003, and review was denied by the Iowa Supreme Court on May 23,

2003. 

On January 27, 2004, Sellers filed a pro se petition for habeas relief in district

court. The state responded by filing a motion to dismiss, noting that Sellers’s petition

was filed outside the one-year statute of limitations. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).

According to the state, excluding the time during which Sellers’s direct and postconviction proceedings were pending, Sellers’s petition was filed 411 days after his

conviction became final.

Sellers did not dispute the state’s calculations, but instead asked the district

court to equitably toll his petition. Sellers asserted that he diligently pursued

documents in support of his habeas petition from his post-conviction counsel, but that

she failed to provide him with the information he requested. Sellers also sought a

continuance from the district court so that his appointed counsel would have an

opportunity to review 1,150 pages of documents recently provided by the state.

The district court accepted Sellers’s claims that his post-conviction counsel

failed to respond to him or provide him any documents as true, but nonetheless

dismissed the petition as untimely. According to the district court, no extraordinary

circumstances beyond Sellers’s control kept him from timely filing his petition. The

dismissal of Sellers’s petition as untimely effectively mooted his request for additional

time to review the state’s discovery. This appeal followed.

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ANALYSIS

Both parties agree that Sellers filed his § 2254 petition outside of the one-year

limitations period, and thus it will be considered time-barred unless the statute of

limitations is equitably tolled. In our circuit, equitable tolling is available for habeas

petitions where “extraordinary circumstances beyond a prisoner’s control make it

impossible to file a petition on time.” Kreutzer v. Bowersox, 231 F.3d 460, 463 (8th

Cir. 2000). Where, as here, the district court grants or denies equitable tolling based

on accepted or undisputed facts, we review that decision de novo. United States v.

Martin, 408 F.3d 1089, 1093 (8th Cir. 2005); Jihad v. Hvass, 267 F.3d 803, 806 n.3

(8th Cir. 2001). 

Sellers asserts that he could not timely file a habeas petition because his state

post-conviction attorney failed to communicate with him and did not send his case

file. We have held that “[i]neffective assistance of counsel generally does not warrant

equitable tolling.” Beery v. Ault, 312 F.3d 948, 951 (8th Cir. 2002); accord Martin,

408 F.3d at 1093 (“Ineffective assistance of counsel, where it is due to an attorney’s

negligence or mistake, has not generally been considered an extraordinary

circumstance in this regard.”). Having carefully reviewed the record of this case, we

find nothing that would permit us to depart from our general rule here.

Sellers seems to accept that he cannot prevail under our circuit’s “extraordinary

circumstances” approach to determining whether equitable tolling ought to apply to

a habeas petitioner. (See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. at 10 (“The equitable tolling law in the

Eighth Circuit . . . is not cited here.”).) Rather, he urges us to abandon our precedent

and instead adopt the Sixth Circuit’s framework. See, e.g., Dunlap v. United States,

250 F.3d 1001, 1008 (6th Cir. 2001) (considering five factors in order to determine

whether a petitioner is entitled to equitable tolling). We decline to accept Sellers’s

invitation to adopt the Sixth Circuit position. It is axiomatic that one panel of the

circuit is not at liberty to overrule another, see, e.g., Singleton v. Norris, 108 F.3d 872,

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873 (8th Cir. 1997), and that is precisely what we would have to do by substituting the

Sixth Circuit’s five-factor analysis for our “extraordinary circumstances” approach.

Sellers asserts that the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Rhines v. Weber, 125

S. Ct. 1528 (2005), effectively rejects the “extraordinary circumstances” approach to

equitable tolling. We disagree. Rhines did not involve equitable tolling; it concerned

what federal courts should do when presented with habeas petitions that contain both

exhausted and unexhausted claims. 125 S. Ct. at 1531. Justice O’Connor, writing for

the Court, recognized that given the one-year statute of limitations for federal filings,

a habeas petitioner who presents a mixed petition is put in a quandary: if the federal

court dismisses the petition so that the person can litigate the unexhausted claims in

state court, the clock will tick on those claims that are already ripe for federal action;

but if the court considers only the exhausted claims, the petitioner might be losing a

chance for relief on meritorious (but unexhausted) claims. Id. at 1533. Thus, the

Court instituted a “stay and abeyance” procedure, where, if the petitioner can show

good cause for failing to exhaust the unripe claims, the federal district court is

permitted to stay the federal habeas proceeding (which stops the statute of limitations

clock) and let the petitioner litigate the unexhausted claims in state court. Id. at 1535.

Rhines does not overrule, either explicitly or implicitly, our “extraordinary

circumstances” approach to equitable tolling. It is about exhaustion of habeas claims

and how district courts should handle those issues. There is no argument in Sellers’s

case that he was late in filing because he was attempting to exhaust his state-court

claims. We adhere to our prior decisions on equitable tolling, and accordingly affirm

the district court’s holding that Sellers’s petition was untimely.

Sellers also argues the district court erred in denying his request for a

continuance to review the state’s discovery. District courts possess “broad discretion”

in determining whether to grant a continuance, Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 11

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(1983), and we review the denial of a motion to continue for an abuse of that

discretion, United States v. Yockel, 320 F.3d 818, 827 (8th Cir. 2003). In considering

whether a continuance is warranted, the court must consider: (1) the nature of the case

and whether the parties have had adequate time to prepare, (2) diligence of the moving

party, (3) whether the opposing party’s actions have contributed to the need for a

continuance, (4) whether the delay will seriously affect the case, and (5) the reason

given for the need to continue matters. Yockel, 320 F.3d at 827.

The specific reason given by Sellers for his continuance request disposes of this

claim of error. He asserted that he needed additional time to review the state’s

discovery so that he could find more support for his equitable tolling argument. The

district court, however, accepted his assertions in support of equitable tolling that his

previous lawyer failed to communicate or grant him access to case files. Since the

district court assumed all of the facts in Sellers’s favor, he was not prejudiced by the

failure to grant a continuance that he requested solely to find support for his claims.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the district court.

______________________________

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