Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_07-cv-01482/USCOURTS-cand-3_07-cv-01482-1/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

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

BENNY WIGGINS,

Petitioner,

v.

L. BANKS, warden,

Respondent. /

No. C 07-1482 MHP (pr)

ORDER OF DISMISSAL

INTRODUCTION

Benny Wiggins, a prisoner currently in custody at the California Men's Colony in San

Luis Obispo, filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. 

Now before the court for consideration is respondent's motion to dismiss the petition as

untimely and plaintiff's opposition thereto. The court finds that the petition was not timely

filed and dismisses it.

BACKGROUND

Wiggins was convicted in Alameda County Superior Court in 1992 of second degree

murder with use of a knife and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. His conviction

was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal on August 25, 1993. He did not file a

petition for review in the California Supreme Court. 

Wiggins filed state habeas petitions. His first state habeas petition was filed in the

Alameda County Superior Court on January 31, 2006 and was denied on February 1, 2006,

as untimely and for failure to make a prima facie case for relief. The court stated that

Wiggins "fails to demonstrate good cause of a delay of over ten years in raising the issues

presented.

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Nor does [Wiggins] explain why the Petition is exempt from the timeliness requirements." 

Resp. Exh. 3. Wiggins' last state habeas petition was denied by the California Supreme

Court on October 25, 2006. 

Wiggins filed this action in 2007. The signature on his petition is dated February 27,

2007, but the petition does not have a proof of service. The petition came to the court in an

envelope post-marked in San Bernardino on March 11, 2007. The petition was stamped

"Filed" on March 14, 2007. (If this was a close case (e.g., the deadline had only been missed

by a matter of days), the court would require the parties to develop the record on the filing

date; however, Wiggins missed the deadline by many years so it is not necessary for the

parties or the court to pin down the exact date of filing. The court will treat the petition as

having been filed on March 14, 2007. The court does not apply the prisoner mailbox rule

because there is no evidence Wiggins gave the petition to prison officials to mail it to the

court and the envelope has a San Bernardino postmark, which indicates that the petition was

sent by Wiggins from his prison residence in San Luis Obispo to a third party to mail it to the

court for filing. The prisoner mailbox rule only applies when the prisoner has given the

document to prison officials to mail to the court. Cf. Saffold v. Newland, 250 F.3d 1262,

1268 (9th Cir. 2001) (pro se prisoner's federal habeas petition is deemed filed when prisoner

delivers petition to prison authorities for mailing), vacated and remanded on other grounds,

Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214 (2002). 

DISCUSSION

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). 

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For cases in which the convictions became final before the April 24, 1996 enactment of the

Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), the petitioners had a one-year

grace period so that their petitions were due by April 24, 1997. See Patterson v. Stewart, 251

F.3d 1243, 1245-46 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 978 (2001). 

Wiggins receives the benefit of the one-year grace period because his conviction

became final in 1993, before the AEDPA was enacted. The presumptive deadline for

Wiggins to file his federal petition therefore was April 24, 1997. He missed that deadline by

almost ten years, so unless he is entitled to significant tolling, his petition was very untimely. 

The one-year limitations period will be tolled for 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." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). By the time Wiggins' first

state petition was filed in 2006, the limitations period had already ended so he receives no

statutory tolling for the state habeas petitions. See Ferguson v. Palmateer, 321 F.3d 820, 823

(9th Cir. 2003) (“[S]ection 2244(d) does not permit the reinitiation of the limitations period

that has ended before the state petition was filed”).

The limitations period also may be equitably tolled when extraordinary circumstances

beyond a petitioner's control have prevented him from timely filing the petition. See

Calderon v. United States District Court (Beeler), 128 F.3d 1283, 1288 (9th Cir. 1997)

(equitable tolling will not be available in most cases because extensions of time should only

be granted if extraordinary circumstances beyond prisoner's control make it impossible for

him to file petition on time), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1061, 1099 (1998), overruled in part on

other grounds by Calderon v. United States District Court (Kelly), 163 F.3d 530 (9th Cir.

1998) (en banc), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1060 (1999). Wiggins offers no evidence or

argument in favor of equitable tolling in his case. The procedural default argument he makes

in his opposition to the motion has no applicability to the statute of limitations question. 

The limitations period expired on April 24, 1997. Wiggins' federal petition was not

filed until March 2007, and he missed the deadline for filing his federal petition by almost

ten years. His petition must be dismissed as time-barred.

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CONCLUSION

Respondent's motion to dismiss is GRANTED. (Docket # 4.) The petition is

dismissed because it was not timely filed. The clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: January 2, 2008 

Marilyn Hall Patel

United States District Judge

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