Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-13-03584/USCOURTS-ca8-13-03584-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Manuel Enrique Camacho
Appellant
Ray Hobbs
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 13-3584

___________________________

Manuel Enrique Camacho

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Ray Hobbs, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Arkansas - Fayetteville

____________

 Submitted: December 12, 2014

 Filed: January 21, 2015

____________

Before WOLLMAN, COLLOTON, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

____________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge. 

On July 11, 2008, Manuel Enrique Camacho pleaded guilty to capital murder

in Arkansas state court, and a written judgment and commitment order was entered

on July 22, 2008. He did not file a direct appeal. After state postconviction relief

was denied, Camacho filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition in the Western District

of Arkansas. The State responded by asserting that the petition was untimely under

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the Antiterrorismand Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). 

The magistrate judge recommended denying relief, reasoning that because Arkansas

law generally does not permit an appeal from a guilty plea, AEDPA’s one-year

limitations period began to run when the judgment of conviction was entered, not

thirty days later when the time for filing a direct appeal from that judgment expired. 

The district court adopted the recommendation of the magistrate judge and dismissed

Camacho’s § 2254 petition as untimely, concluding thatCamacho’s petition wasfiled

eighteen days past the deadline. The district court granted a certificate of 1

appealability on whether Camacho’s habeas petition was timely filed under

§ 2244(d)(1) and, if not, whether he was entitled to equitable tolling under Holland

v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631 (2010). 

Camacho argues that the limitations period did not begin to run until the

expiration of the thirty-day period for filing a direct appeal from the state-court

judgment and that his § 2254 petition wastherefore timely. After de novo review, we

hold that Camacho’s § 2254 petition was timely filed and that the district court erred

in dismissing the petition as time-barred. See Wright v. Norris, 299 F.3d 926, 927

(8th Cir. 2002) (standard of review). 

Under AEDPA, federal and state prisoners generally have one year in which

to file federal habeas petitions. For federal prisoners, the limitations period generally

runs from “the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes final.” 28 U.S.C.

§ 2255(f)(1). For state prisoners, the limitations period runs from “the date on which

the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the

time for seeking such review.” Id. § 2244(d)(1)(A). 

The parties do not dispute that AEDPA’s limitations period was tolled while 1

Camacho’s state postconviction proceedings were pending. 

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In Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 522, 527 (2003), the Supreme Court noted

that for federal prisoners seeking habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a federal

judgment becomesfinal “when this Court affirms a conviction on the merits on direct

review or denies a petition for a writ of certiorari.” If a federal prisoner does not file

a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court on direct review, “§ 2255’s one-year

limitation period starts to run when the time for seeking such review expires.” Id. at

532. In reaching this conclusion, the Clay Court rejected the argument that because

Clay had elected not to seek certiorari, the limitations period began to run on the date

the court of appeals issued its mandate. Id. at 529-30. In Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555

U.S. 113, 119-20 (2009), the Supreme Court extended its reasoning in Clay to “the

similar language of § 2244(d)(1)(A),” holding that AEDPA’s limitations period was

“reset” when a state petitioner was granted leave to file an out-of-time direct appeal. 

The judgment in those circumstances became final only at “the conclusion of the outof-time direct appeal, or the expiration of the time for seeking review of that [out-oftime direct] appeal.” Jimenez, 555 U.S. at 121. The Court noted that “the plain

language of § 2244(d)(1) . . . pinpoints the uniform date of finality set by Congress”

as the “conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such

review.” Id. Thus, both Clay and Jimenez “suggested that the direct review process

either ‘concludes’ or ‘expires,’ depending on whether the petitioner pursues or

forgoes direct appeal to this Court.” Gonzalez v. Thaler, 132 S. Ct. 641, 653 (2012).

In Gonzalez v. Thaler, the Supreme Court considered when a judgment

becomes final under § 2244(d)(1)(A) “if a petitioner does not appeal to a State’s

highest court.” Id. at 653. The Court held that “for a state prisoner who does not

seek review in a State’s highest court, the judgment becomes ‘final’ on the date that

the time for seeking review expires.” Id. at 646. The Court clarified what it had

suggested in Clay and Jimenez: the “two prongs” of § 2244(d)(1)(A)’s finality

determination—either (1) the conclusion of direct review or (2) the expiration of the

time for seeking such review—apply to distinct categories of petitioners. Id. at 653.

For petitioners who pursue direct review to the U.S. Supreme Court under the first

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prong, judgment becomes final at the conclusion of direct review, i.e., when the

Supreme Court “affirms a conviction on the merits or denies a petition for certiorari.” 

Id. at 653. “For all other petitioners, the judgment becomes final [under the second

prong] at the ‘expiration of the time for seeking such review’—when the time for

pursuing direct review in this Court, or in state court, expires.” Id. at 653-54. 

In Gonzalez, the petitioner allowed the time for seeking review of a Texas

appellate court’s decision to lapse, and the court issued its mandate six weeks later. 

The petitioner filed a § 2254 petition, which was dismissed as untimely because it

was not filed within one year of the time for seeking review with the State’s highest

court. The petitioner argued that the time should have been calculated from the date

the appellate court issued its mandate, because “whenever a petitioner does not seek

certiorari, the ‘conclusion of direct review’ is the date on which state law marks

finality—in Texas, the date on which the mandate issues.” Id. at 654. The Supreme

Court rejected this approach, noting that determining “finality” under each State’s law

would require the Court “to scour each State’s laws and cases to determine how it

defines finality for every petitioner who forgoes a state-court appeal.” Id. at 655. 

Such an approach “would usher in state-by-state definitions of the conclusion of

direct review” and “would be at odds with the uniform definition” adopted in Clay

and Jimenez, i.e., that the trigger for the AEDPA limitations period when the

petitioner does not pursue a direct review is the expiration of the time for seeking

direct review. Id. The Court acknowledged that its holding necessarily involved

some limited consideration of state law: 

[J]ust as we determine the “expiration of the time for seeking [direct]

review” from this Court’s filing deadlines when petitioners forgo

certiorari, we look to state-court filing deadlines when petitioners forgo

state-court appeals. Referring to state-law procedures in that context

makessense because such deadlines are inherently court specific. There

is no risk of relying on “state-law rules that may differ from the general

federal rule.” 

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Id. at 655 (quoting Clay, 537 U.S. at 531); see also King v. Hobbs, 666 F.3d 1132,

1135 n.2 (8th Cir. 2012) (noting that the Supreme Court in Gonzalez “instructed us

that when a petitioner decides to forgo state-court appeals, we must ‘look to statecourt filing deadlines’ to determine the ‘expiration of the time for seeking [direct]

review’”). 

In Arkansas, a criminal defendant generally has thirty days from “the date of

entry of a judgment” in which to file an appeal, Ark. R. App. P.-Crim. 2(a)(1), but a

criminal defendant has no right to appeal froma guilty plea, except for an appeal from

a conditional guilty plea based on the denial of a suppression motion, see Ark. R.

App. P.-Crim. 1(a) (“Except as provided by [Rule 24.3(b) for conditional guilty

pleas,] there shall be no appeal from a plea of guilty or nolo contendere.”). The

Arkansas Supreme Court has recognized two additional exceptions to the general

rule: “(1) when there is a challenge to testimony or evidence presented before a jury

in a sentencing hearing separate from the plea itself; and (2) when the appeal is an

appeal of a posttrial motion challenging the validity and legality of the sentence

itself.” Hewitt v. State, 208 S.W.3d 185, 186 (Ark. 2005) (per curiam). 

Citing the appeal prohibition set forth in Rule 1(a), the State argues that when

a criminal defendant enters an unconditional guilty plea in state court, AEDPA’s oneyear limitations period begins to run from the date on which the state judgment and

commitment order are entered—not from the date on which the thirty-day period in

which to file an appeal expires. See, e.g., Calianno v. Hobbs, No. 12-5028, 2013 WL

628595 (W.D. Ark. Jan. 28, 2013), adopted by 2013 WL 655184 (W.D. Ark. Feb. 22,

2013). 

In Clay, Jimenez, and Gonzalez, the Supreme Court emphasized Congress’s

intent under AEDPA to define “finality . . . by reference to a uniform federal rule”

and not “by reference to state-law rules that may differ from the general federal rule

and vary from State to State.” Clay, 537 U.S. at 531. As noted by the Supreme

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Court, the uniform federal rule of finality for petitioners who forgo state-court

appeals is determined by reference to “state-court filing deadlines” for those appeals. 

Gonzalez, 132 S. Ct. at 655. Determining whether an Arkansas petitioner has pled

guilty conditionally or unconditionally or whether his appeal falls within one of the

other exceptions to the general prohibition on appeals from guilty pleas is the sort of

state-specific inquiry that the Supreme Court has cautioned would undermine the

“general federal rule” that “state-court filing deadlines” determine the limitations

period when petitioners do not pursue state-court appeals. The Supreme Court has

specifically instructed that the expiration of the deadline for filing an appeal is the

critical trigger for AEDPA’s limitations period. Thus, for Camacho, “a state prisoner

who d[id] not seek review in [the] State’s highest court, the judgment [became]‘final’

on the date that the time for seeking such review expire[d].” See id. at 646. 

The district court emphasized the following language from Gonzalez in

rejecting Camacho’s petition: “[W]e determine the ‘expiration ofthe time for seeking

[direct] review’ from this Court’s filing deadlines when petitioners forgo certiorari,

[and] we look to state-court filing deadlines when petitioners forgo state-court

appeals.” Id. at 655. The district court concluded that Camacho “did not ‘forgo’ a

state-court appeal, he was precluded from filing such an appeal because he pled

guilty.” The Supreme Court’s holding in Gonzalez was not so limited. The holding

in Gonzalez extends to “state prisoner[s] who do[] not seek review in a State’s highest

court”; it does not exclude state prisoners who do not seek review because such

review is prohibited by state law or by a plea agreement. Id. at 655; see also Latham

v. United States, 527 F.3d 651, 653 (7th Cir. 2008) (noting that a “defendant who

forswears appellate review as part of a plea bargain remains entitled to file a notice

of appeal” even if “that appeal is doomed unless the guilty plea is involuntary”);

Mark v. Thaler, 646 F.3d 191, 194 (5th Cir. 2011) (“The relevant question is whether

Mark was entitled to file a petition, not whether a hypothetical petition would have

been successful.”); cf. Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 9 (2000) (noting that in context

of AEDPA’s tolling provision for a properly filed application for state postconviction

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relief, “the question whether an application has been ‘properly filed’ is quite separate

from the question whether the claims contained in the application are meritorious”). 

Our reading of the Supreme Court’s several holdings leads us to conclude that the

critical date for finality of the state-court conviction is the expiration of the state’s

filing deadline.

We therefore vacate the district court’s order dismissing Camacho’s § 2254

petition as untimely, and we remand the case to the district court for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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