Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_10-cv-08221/USCOURTS-azd-3_10-cv-08221-6/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ivan Ray Begay
Petitioner
United States of America
Respondent

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

United States of America,

 Plaintiff,

vs.

Ivan Ray Begay,

 Defendant/Movant.

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No. CV-10-08221-PCT-PGR 

No. CR-00-01222-PCT-PGR

 

 

 ORDER

Pending before the Court’s is defendant Begay’s Motion to Reinstate Habeas

Corpus Proceedings (Doc. 39), filed on July 23, 2015. The Court’s Judgment and

Commitment order in Begay’s underlying criminal action, which stemmed from

Begay’s plea of guilty to eight counts of aggravated sexual abuse, was entered on

September 17, 2001 and Begay, through counsel, appealed his 302 month sentence

to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on September 18, 2001. The Ninth Circuit’s

mandate affirming Begay’s sentence was entered on this Court’s docket on

September 20, 2002. Begay’s copy of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which was

apparently mailed to him by the Clerk of this Court, was returned as undeliverable

on October 7, 2002. Begay’s § 2255 action, which was not filed until November 15,

2010, was dismissed by this Court as time-barred on March 7, 2011, and the Ninth

Case 3:10-cv-08221-JAT Document 41 Filed 08/04/15 Page 1 of 4
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Circuit dismissed his appeal of the judgment of dismissal on August 27, 2012 when

it denied the issuance of a certificate of appealability. Having reviewed Begay’s

latest post-judgment motion in light of the relevant record, the Court finds that it

should be denied.

Begay states that his motion is filed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 6)(b)(6),

which permits relief from a final judgment for “any ... reason that justifies relief” other

than the more specific reasons set out in Rule 60(b)(1)-(5). Wood v. Ryan, 759 F.3d

1117, 1119-20 (9th Cir.2014). In order to be entitled to relief under this rule, Begay

must show the existence of “extraordinary circumstances” justifying the reopening

of the final judgment in his § 2255 action, and the Supreme Court has made it clear

that such circumstances “rarely occur in the habeas context.” Gonzalez v. Crosby,

545 U.S. 524, 535 (2005). Even assuming that Begay’s motion is a legitimate Rule

60(b)(6) motion and is sufficient to meet the rule’s extraordinary circumstances

requirement, Begay is not entitled to equitable tolling unless he also meets his heavy

burden of establishing (1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that

some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way. Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S.

408, 418 (2005). He has also show a causal link between the extraordinary

circumstance and the untimeliness of his § 2255 action.

Begay, who has previously argued to the Court that he neither knew that the

direct appeal had been filed on his behalf nor that the Ninth Circuit had denied it,

argues that the required extraordinary circumstance in this case is the failure of the

Clerk of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to comply with the Ninth Circuit’s general

order requiring that the Clerk forward all returned mail sent to a prisoner in a federal

institution to the appropriate United States Attorney with an instructional letter

requiring that office to use all reasonable means to effect delivery to the prisoner and

Case 3:10-cv-08221-JAT Document 41 Filed 08/04/15 Page 2 of 4
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The Government’s response stated in part: “Defendant’s counsel filed

a notice of appeal on September 18, 2001. ... Defendant argued on appeal that the

sentencing court erred by imposing a 2-level enhancement for restraining the

victims. The enhancement was upheld by the Ninth Circuit on July 22, 2002. The

Mandate issued September 20, 2002.”

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to submit proof of such efforts and the results of that effort to the Clerk within

fourteen days. Begay asserts that the Clerk of the Ninth Circuit failed to comply with

this requirement, and that as a result he was deprived of vital information of when

his judgment of conviction became final. Begay’s contention, as the Court

understands it, is that had he timely received a copy of the Ninth Circuit’s decision

denying his direct appeal, he “would have known the 28 U.S.C. § 2255 time limit

began Oct. 21, 2002, and expired on Oct. 23, 2003.” Apparently Begay would have

the Court reopen his § 2255 action so that he can argue that the statute of limitations

should be equitably tolled due to his failure to receive notice of the denial of his

appeal. The Court concludes that Begay has not established his right to equitable

tolling as to this new ground.

First, Begay has not been reasonably diligent about raising this ground.

Begay never states when he first learned that his direct appeal had been denied. But

even assuming that he did not in fact contemporaneously know about the existence

of the appeal or its denial, Begay clearly learned about them from the Government’s

response (Doc. 4) to his § 2255 motion, which the Government filed on January 28,

2011.1

 Begay did not thereafter raise an equitable tolling issue based on his lack of

knowledge of the denial of the appeal in his reply (Doc. 5) in support of his § 2255

motion or in his objections (Doc. 7) to the Report and Recommendation. Nor did he

raise the issue in any of his subsequent post-judgment motions, i.e., Docs. 13, 14,

15, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, and 36. Begay first raised this issue in the

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pending motion, which he filed some 41⁄2 years after he clearly knew about the denial

of his direct appeal.

Second, Begay has not shown that his lack of knowledge of the denial of his

direct appeal constitutes an extraordinary circumstance that prevented him from

timely filing a § 2255 action. If Begay in fact did not know of the existence of his

direct appeal until years after it was filed, as he has repeatedly stated, then his delay

in filing had nothing to do with him waiting until this appeal was resolved. Rather,

as Begay has made clear in his § 2255 motion and in various of his subsequent

motions prior to the pending motion, the actual cause of his failure to timely file his

§ 2255 action was his belief that his federal public defender told him not to appeal

until eight years after his sentencing, which is a contention that the Court has

already rejected as not credible, and his claimed lack of any knowledge of the

existence of § 2255 and its time limits. Therefore,

IT IS ORDERED that defendant Begay’s Motion to Reinstate Habeas Corpus

Proceedings (Doc. 39), filed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(6), is denied.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a certificate of appealability shall not issue

and that defendant Begay shall not be allowed to appeal in forma pauperis because

jurists of reason would not find it debatable whether the Court abused its discretion

in denying Begay’s Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) motion, and jurists of reason would not find

it debatable whether Begay’s underlying § 2255 motion stated a valid claim of the

denial of a constitutional right.

DATED this 4th day of August, 2015.

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