Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-56949/USCOURTS-ca9-11-56949-0/pdf.json

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

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

FREDDY CURIEL,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

AMY MILLER, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 11-56949

D.C. No.

8:10-cv-00301-DDP-FMO

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Dean D. Pregerson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

August 28, 2014—Pasadena, California

Filed March 19, 2015

Before: Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Johnnie B. Rawlinson,

and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge O’Scannlain

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2 CURIEL V. MILLER

SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the district court’s order dismissing as

untimely California state prisoner Freddy Curiel’s habeas

corpus petition brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

The panel held that Curiel is not entitled to statutory

tolling of AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations during the

time in which his state post-conviction petition was pending. 

The panel explained that the California Supreme Court’s

citations to In re Swain and People v. Duvall, in its two-line

denial of Curiel’s petition, do not overcome the presumption

that the California Supreme Court did not silently disregard

the lower court’s determination that the petition was

untimely.

The panel rejected Curiel’s contention that he is entitled

to equitable tolling due to the actions of his former trial

counsel. The panel explained that even if it is true that Curiel

could not file his habeas petition until his trial counsel

provided him with the trial files, Curiel had ample time to file

a protective federal petition. The panel wrote that Curiel’s

pro se status does not change the result.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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CURIEL V. MILLER 3

COUNSEL

Jan B. Norman, Davis, California, argued the cause and filed

the briefs for the petitioner.

Kevin Vienna, Supervising Deputy Attorney General for the

State of California, San Diego, California, argued the cause

for respondent. Angela M. Borzachillo, Deputy Attorney

General for the State of California, San Diego California,

filed the briefs for the petitioner.

OPINION

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

We must decide whether a California prisoner’s state

habeas petition was timely filed under the Antiterrorism and

Effective Death Penalty Act.

I

In 2006, Freddy Curiel was convicted by a California

Superior Court jury of first-degree murder and street

terrorism. He was sentenced to life in prison without the

possibility of parole, plus twenty-five years.1 Id.

Curiel appealed his conviction to the California Court of

Appeal and, thereafter, to the California Supreme Court,

which denied his petition for review on June 11, 2008. On

May 12, 2009, Curiel filed a petition for a writ of habeas

1 As Curiel notes, because the issue on appeal is timeliness, “a summary

of the state trial facts is not relevant.”

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4 CURIEL V. MILLER

corpus with the Orange County Superior Court, which was

denied on the “separate and independent grounds” that it was

untimely and unmeritorious. Curiel filed a further petition

with the California Court of Appeal on July 7, 2009, but that

court summarily denied it without comment or citation to

authority. On September 7, 2009, Curiel filed a third petition,

this time with the California Supreme Court, which was

denied in a two-line decision.

Six months later, on March 8, 2010, Curiel filed his

federal habeas petition in district court, which dismissed it

with prejudice on the ground that it was untimely, and denied

Curiel’s motion for a certificate of appealability (COA). We

issued a COA on the following question:

[W]hether the district court erred in

dismissing appellant’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254

petition as untimely filed, including whether

appellant was entitled to statutory tolling

during the pendency of his state habeas

petitions filed in the trial court and the

California Court of Appeal, and whether

appellant was entitled to equitable tolling

based on counsel’s delay in sending appellant

his legal file.

II

The only issue on appeal is whether the district court

erred in determining that Curiel’s federal habeas petition was

untimely filed.

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

(AEDPA), after judgment becomes final on direct review, a

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CURIEL V. MILLER 5

state prisoner has one year to file a petition for a writ of

habeas corpus in federal court. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). 

Curiel acknowledges that the judgment on direct review

became final on September 9, 2008. Thus, he had until

September 9, 2009 to file his federal habeas petition, but he

did not file it until March 8, 2010, well past the statute of

limitations deadline. As Curiel concedes, unless he is entitled

to statutory or equitable tolling, his petition was untimely,

and the district court should be affirmed.

We review the district court’s order dismissing Curiel’s

habeas petition de novo. Espinoza-Matthews v. California,

432 F.3d 1021, 1025 (9th Cir. 2005). We also review de novo

whether the statute of limitations should be tolled on statutory

or equitable grounds. Id.

III

Curiel first argues that his petition was statutorily tolled

during the pendency of his state court petitions.

A

The AEDPA one-year statute of limitations is subject to

tolling during the time in which “a properly filed application

for State post-conviction or other collateral review with

respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending.” 

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) (emphasis added).

We look to state law to determine whether an application

is “properly filed” under § 2244(d)(2). As the Supreme Court

has explained, “[w]hen a postconviction petition is untimely

under state law, that [is] the end of the matter for purposes of

§ 2244(d)(2).” Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 414

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6 CURIEL V. MILLER

(2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). The question,

then, is whether Curiel’s state petition was untimely under

California law.

Such question is resolved by looking to whether the

highest state court to render a decision on the petition, here

the California Supreme Court, found it timely. Campbell v.

Henry, 614 F.3d 1056, 1061 (9th Cir. 2010) (“[I]f the highest

court to render a decision determines that the claim is timely,

then that claim was timely when it was before the lower

court.”).

1

To understand what the California Supreme Court

determined here, we must parse the meaning of its two-line

denial of Curiel’s petition. The denial reads in full:

The petition for writ of habeas corpus is

denied. (See In re Swain (1949) 34 Cal.2d

300, 304; People v. Duvall (1995) 9 Cal.4th

464, 474.)

In interpreting this laconic statement, we are guided by

the Supreme Court’s declaration that, when “the last reasoned

opinion on the claim explicitly imposes a procedural default,

we will presume that a later decision rejecting the claim did

not silently disregard that bar and consider the merits.” Ylst

v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803 (1991). We presume that

the California Supreme Court agreed with the lower court

determination that the petition was untimely, unless “strong

evidence” rebuts such a presumption. See id. at 804; Bonner

v. Carey, 425 F.3d 1145, 1148 n.13 (9th Cir. 2005), amended

by 439 F.3d 993, 994 (9th Cir. 2006).

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CURIEL V. MILLER 7

While their import is far from clear, the citations—to

pages in Swain and Duvall that recite basic habeas procedural

requirements2—do not constitute the requisite “strong

evidence” to overcome the presumption that the California

Supreme Court did not “silently disregard” the lower court’s

reasoning. See Ylst, 501 U.S. at 803–04. As explained by the

Supreme Court, even when a state supreme court’s otherwise

 

2

 In Swain, the California Supreme Court denied the habeas petition of

Cecil Swain on insufficient pleading grounds. In re Swain, 34 Cal.2d 300,

301–04 (1949); see also Ylst, 501 U.S. at 805 (describing Swain as

“hold[ing] that facts relied upon in a habeas petition must be alleged with

particularity”). On the page cited in the denial of Curiel’s petition, the

Swain court noted that its conclusions did not amount to “a ruling on the

merits” and that it was only enforcing its rule that a habeas petitioner

“allege with particularity the facts upon which he would have a final

judgment overturned and that he fully disclose his reasons for delaying in

the presentation of those facts.” Swain, 34 Cal.2d at 304.

Inasmuch as it indicates anything, the “See” citation to this page of

Swain indicates that the California Supreme Court found Curiel’s

pleadings insufficient. In other words, the citation does not indicate

affirmative agreement or disagreement with the Superior Court’s

timeliness determination.

The pin-cite of Duvall is also of little help here. On the cited page the

California Supreme Court set out to “summariz[e] the applicable

procedural requirements” for habeas corpus petitions. Duvall, 9 Cal.4th

at 474. Such summary includes an emphasis on the petitioner’s “heavy

burden initially to plead sufficient grounds for relief, and then later to

prove them,” and an explanation that the petition must “state fully and

with particularity the facts on which relief is sought” and consist of more

than only “[c]onclusory allegations.” Id.

Taken together, the citations to Swain and Duvall appear to involve

only broad discussions of the pleading required in habeas petitions. To

conclude from such citations that the California Supreme Court

affirmatively disagreed with the Orange County Superior Court would be

unwarranted.

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8 CURIEL V. MILLER

unexplained denial of a habeas petition includes citations, the

state court’s failure to elaborate on its reasoning renders its

order uninformative as to whether it concluded the petition

was timely. Id. at 805.

Indeed, even if we were to take the ambiguous citations

to Swain and Duvall as the equivalent of the California

Supreme Court declaring it resolved Curiel’s petition “on the

merits,” we still would not be compelled to conclude Curiel’s

petition was timely. Even “a California Supreme Court order

denying a petition ‘on the merits’ does not automatically

indicate that the petition was timely filed.” Evans v. Chavis,

546 U.S. 189, 197 (2006) (citing Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S.

214 (2002)).

As the Supreme Court has instructed us:

[T]he Ninth Circuit must not take “such

words” (i.e., the words “on the merits”) as “an

absolute bellwether” on the timeliness

question. We pointed out that the Circuit’s

contrary approach (i.e., an approach that

presumed that an order denying a petition “on

the merits” meant that the petition was timely)

would lead to the tolling of AEDPA’s

limitations period in circumstances where the

law does not permit tolling.

Id. at 194–95 (citations omitted) (emphasis omitted). Further,

we must take heed of the Supreme Court’s direction that

“where a California Supreme Court order simply states,

‘Petition for writ of habeas corpus . . . is DENIED,’ and does

not contain the words ‘on the merits,’ it is even less likely the

California Supreme Court had considered the petition timely

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CURIEL V. MILLER 9

on the merits.” Trigueros v. Adams, 658 F.3d 983, 990 (9th

Cir. 2011) (quoting Evans, 546 U.S. at 195, 197).

Admittedly, here the California Supreme Court did

slightly more than state that Curiel’s petition was denied: it

also gave a “See” citation to Swain and Duvall. See Bonner,

425 F.3d at 1148 n.13 (describing a summary denial as one

made “without citation to any authority”). But see Bailey v.

Rae, 339 F.3d 1107, 1112–13 (9th Cir. 2003) (describing the

look-through doctrine as applying to un-explained but also

ambiguous state court decisions).

But such a cryptic citation hardly indicates that the

California Supreme Court intended to override the reasoned

opinion of the Superior Court of California. To conclude

otherwise would be to assert that by two ambiguous “See”

citations in a two-line denial, the California Supreme Court

intended to override the reasoning of the Superior Court and

conclude that Curiel’s nearly three-year delay did not render

his petition untimely. Such an assertion strains credulity.

As Curiel has failed to provide “strong evidence” to

overcome the presumption that the California Supreme Court

“did not silently disregard” the timeliness decision of the

lower state court, we must conclude that the state supreme

court decided that his state petitions were not timely filed. 

See Ylst, 501 U.S. at 803, 805. Curiel is thus not entitled to

statutory tolling of AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations.

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10 CURIEL V. MILLER

B

1

Curiel also argues that the one-year limitations period

should be tolled for equitable reasons. In order to receive

equitable tolling, a habeas petitioner must show “(1) that he

has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some

extraordinary circumstance stood in his way and prevented

timely filing.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010)

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Under

[Ninth Circuit] cases, equitable tolling is available . . . only

when extraordinary circumstances beyond a prisoner’s

control make it impossible to file a petition on time and the

extraordinary circumstances were the cause of [the

prisoner’s] untimeliness.” Bills v. Clark, 628 F.3d 1092,

1097 (9th Cir. 2010) (second alteration in original) (citation

and internal quotation marks omitted). This is a “very high

threshold.” Lee v. Lampert, 653 F.3d 929, 937 (9th Cir.

2011) (en banc) (citation and internal quotation marks

omitted).

2

Curiel alleges that his delay in filing his federal habeas

petition was due to the actions of his former trial counsel. 

According to Curiel, he could not file his federal habeas

petition until his trial counsel provided him with the trial

files.

Even assuming that Curiel’s allegations are true, Curiel

received his trial files in March 2009, which left him several

months before the September 2009 deadline to file his federal

habeas petition. He could easily have met the deadline by,

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CURIEL V. MILLER 11

for instance, “filing a ‘protective’ petition in federal court and

asking the federal court to stay and abey the federal habeas

proceedings until state remedies [were] exhausted,” as the

Supreme Court has suggested doing when state habeas

proceedings might run up against the AEDPA filing deadline. 

Pace, 544 U.S. at 416. Curiel responds that he “reasonably

believed that the statute of limitations was tolled as of the

time he filed his first state habeas petition.” But the Superior

Court denied his petition as untimely on June 10, 2009, and

the Court of Appeal did the same on August 6, 2009. Thus,

with more than a month remaining before the statute of

limitations ran out, two state courts had informed Curiel that

his state petition was untimely, giving Curiel ample time to

file a protective federal petition.

Perhaps Curiel’s pro se status explains his lack of

understanding of the subtleties of habeas practice. Regardless

of whether that is true, this Court has held that “a pro se

petitioner’s lack of legal sophistication is not, by itself, an

extraordinary circumstance warranting equitable tolling.” 

Rasberry v. Garcia, 448 F.3d 1150, 1154 (9th Cir. 2006). 

Therefore Curiel’s pro se status does not change the result.

Because Curiel cannot show that his trial counsel’s

actions made it “impossible” for him to meet the AEDPA

deadline and that such actions were “the cause” of his failure

to do so, he is not entitled to equitable tolling. Bills, 628 F.3d

at 1097 (emphasis omitted).

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12 CURIEL V. MILLER

III

The district court’s dismissal of Curiel’s federal habeas

petition as untimely is

AFFIRMED.

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