Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_05-cv-01316/USCOURTS-caed-1_05-cv-01316-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alejandro Prado
Plaintiff
Jeanne Woodford
Defendant

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 The January 19, 2006, response is not signed by Petitioner, and is accompanied by a declaration by

Petitioner’s state habeas corpus attorney. The January 27, 2006, response, although signed by Petitioner, is not

accompanied with the declaration signed by Petitioner’s state habeas corpus attorney. The Court in formulating this

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ALEJANDRO PRADO,

Petitioner,

v.

JEANNE WOODFORD,

Respondent.

 /

CV F 05-1316 AWI SMS HC

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDING MOTION FOR STAY BE

DENIED, AND RECOMMENDING THAT

ACTION BE DISMISSED, WITHOUT

PREJUDICE, FOR FAILURE TO EXHAUST

STATE COURT REMEDIES

[Doc. 1]

Petitioner is a state prisoner proceeding pro se with a petition for writ of habeas corpus

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. 

Petitioner filed the instant petition for writ of habeas corpus on October 19, 2005. 

Petitioner raises the following three claims for relief: (1) ineffective assistance of trial counsel;

(2) due process violation by the prosecution’s intimidation of a defense witness resulting in her

unavailability; and (3) use of false evidence. 

Petitioner indicates that on October 19, 2005, he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus

in the Tulare County Superior Court. Petitioner requests that this Court stay the instant petition

and hold it in abeyance while he exhausts the state court remedies. On December 19, 2005, the

Court issued an order to show cause why the stay should be granted. 

On January 19, 2006 and January 27, 2006, Petitioner filed a response.1 

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order will consider both the filings presented by Petitioner. 

2AEDPA refers to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

2

A petitioner who is in state custody and wishes to collaterally challenge his conviction by

a petition for writ of habeas corpus must exhaust state judicial remedies. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). 

The exhaustion doctrine is based on comity to the state court and gives the state court the initial

opportunity to correct the state's alleged constitutional deprivations. Coleman v. Thompson, 501

U.S. 722, 731, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 2554-55 (1991); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 518, 102 S.Ct.

1198, 1203 (1982); Buffalo v. Sunn, 854 F.2d 1158, 1163 (9th Cir. 1988). 

A petitioner can satisfy the exhaustion requirement by providing the highest state court

with a full and fair opportunity to consider each claim before presenting it to the federal court. 

Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 276, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512 (1971); Johnson v. Zenon, 88 F.3d 828,

829 (9th Cir. 1996). A federal court will find that the highest state court was given a full and fair

opportunity to hear a claim if the petitioner has presented the highest state court with the claim's

factual and legal basis. Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365 (1995) (legal basis); Kenney v.

Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1 (1992) (factual basis).

In Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 125 S.Ct. 1528 (2005), the Supreme Court held that a

district court has discretion to stay a mixed petition to allow a petitioner to present his

unexhausted claims to the state court in the first instance and then to return to federal court for

review of his perfected petition. 

Nevertheless, stay and abeyance is available only in limited circumstances, because the

procedure frustrates AEDPA’s2 objective of encouraging finality by allowing a petitioner to delay

the resolution of federal proceedings and undermines AEDPA’s goal of streamlining federal

habeas proceedings by decreasing a petitioner’s incentive to exhaust all his claims in state court

prior to filing his federal petition. Id. at 1535. The Supreme Court held that a stay and abeyance

is “only appropriate when the district court determines there was good cause for the petitioner’s

failure to exhaust his claims first in state court.” Id. 

In his response, Petitioner indicates that “good cause” exists for the stay and abeyance of

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the instant petition because he filed a state habeas corpus petition in the Tulare County Superior

Court on the same day he filed the instant petition. Petitioner indicates that he

had an ongoing investigation in several areas of case investigation, including

obtaining a declaration from his co-defendant attesting that petitioner was not

present and was not involved in the crime in question, drive-by shooting on

Highway 65 in Porterville, California. In this declaration, petitioner’s codefendant, Marcos Chavez, declared that the person involved was a young man

named “Danny” who was mistaken for the petition. Petitioner’s state habeas

attorney was pursuing investigation into the identity of this “Danny.” 

Additionally, there was an ongoing case investigation into discovering the

whereabouts of various witnesses who were teenagers at the time the crime was

committed. This was a daunting task in that these witnesses had moved away

from Porterville and their families were unwilling to divulge their whereabouts. 

This investigation was further hampered due to the petitioner’s parents’ ability to

provide adequate funds for a private investigator. These teenage witnesses were

important in that at least one of them was present when the actual shooters left in

the car to go on their fatal cruise while the petition remained at home. . . . 

Additionally, petitioner’s position in his state habeas petition as well as

this federal petition is that he is actually innocent of the crimes committed, that is

first-degree murder, attempted murder, etc., in that he was not in the shooter’s car

at that time but was home talking to various girl friends on his cordless phone. . . . 

 Due to the ongoing investigation into the identity of “Danny” the actual

co-perpetrator of these crimes, as attested by petitioner’s co-defendant, Marcos

Chavez, and the ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of various teenage

witnesses, petitioner did not file his state habeas petition until the final day of the

one-year federal statute of limitations in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death

Penalty Act of 1996, October 19, 2005. 

(Motion, at 2-3.)

Unlike the petitioner in Rhines, Petitioner has presented a completely unexhausted

petition, rather than a mixed petition. In seeking a stay of the instant petition, Petitioner relies

primarily on dicta in Pace v. DiGuglielmno, 125 S.Ct. 1807 (2005), discussing the predicament a

prisoner could face if he litigated in the state court for years only to find out that the petition was

not “properly filed” and therefore not entitled to tolling; the Court stated a “prisoner seeking state

postconviction relief might avoid this predicament, however, by filing a ‘protective’ petition in

federal court and asking the federal court to stay and abey the federal habeas proceedings until

state remedies are exhausted.” Pace, at 1813 (citing Rhines, at 1531.) However, the Court in

Pace went on to state that “[a] petitioner’s reasonable confusion about whether a state filing

would be timely will ordinarily constitute ‘good cause’ for him to file in federal court. Ibid. 

(“[I]f the petitioner had good cause for his failure to exhaust, his unexhausted claims are

potentially meritorious, and there is no indication that the petitioner engaged in intentionally

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dilatory tactics,” then the district court likely “should stay, rather than dismiss, the mixed

petition”) (emphasis added). 

The protective stays referred to by the Court in Rhines involved a “mixed” petition,

meaning that the petition included both exhausted and unexhausted claims. The Court discussed

the merits of granting a stay to allow petitioner to return to state court to exhaust those claims

that remained unexhausted rather than denying without prejudice a petition which included

exhausted claims. Rhines v. Weber, 125 S.Ct. at 1531; Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 125 S.Ct. at 1813. 

The basis of that Court’s ruling was premised on the fact that the petition was “mixed”, not

completely unexhausted. 

Here, the Court is not presented with a “mixed” petition. Petitioner has not exhausted

any of the claims now raised in this petition and they are all now pending in the state court. 

Unlike the situation when the Court is presented with a mixed petition having jurisdiction over

the exhausted claims, the Court must dismiss without prejudice a petition that contains only

unexhausted claims. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. at 521-22. Therefore, it

appears that this is not a situation covered by the “protective stay and abeyance” referenced in

Rhines. The Court declines to extend the grant of a protective stay and abeyance to a case such

as this where the petition contains only unexhausted claims, over which the Court has no

jurisdiction. Accordingly, the Court recommends that the instant petition for writ of habeas

corpus be DISMISSED, without prejudice to refiling after Petitioner has exhausted the state court

remedies.

Although the Court expresses no opinion as to the timeliness of any future petition, the

Court notes that AEDPA imposes a one year period of limitation on petitioners seeking to file a

federal petition for writ of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). As amended, Section 2244,

subdivision (d) reads: 

(1) A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a

writ habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State

court. The limitation period shall run from the latest of –

(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of

direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review;

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(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an application created by

State action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is

removed, if the applicant was prevented from filing by such State action;

(C) the date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially

recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the

Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or

(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims

presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence. 

(2) 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 shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this

subsection. 

Title 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) states that 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 shall not be counted toward” the one year

limitation period. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). In Carey v. Saffold, the Supreme Court held

the statute of limitations is tolled where a petitioner is properly pursuing post-conviction

relief, and the period is tolled during the intervals between one state court's disposition of

a habeas petition and the filing of a habeas petition at the next level of the state court

system. 536 U.S. 214, 214-15, 122 S.Ct. 2134 (2002); see also Nino v. Galaza, 183 F.3d

1003, 1006 (9th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 1846 (2000).

Based on the foregoing, the Court hereby RECOMMENDS that:

1. Petitioner’s motion to stay be DENIED; and

2. The instant petition for writ of habeas corpus be DISMISSED, without

prejudice, for failure to exhaust the state court remedies.

These Findings and Recommendations are submitted to the assigned United States

District Court Judge, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. section 636 (b)(1)(B) and

Rule 72-304 of the Local Rules of Practice for the United States District Court, Eastern

District of California. Within thirty (30) days after being served with a copy, any party

may file written objections with the court and serve a copy on all parties. Such a

document should be captioned “Objections to Magistrate Judge’s Findings and

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Recommendations.” Replies to the objections shall be served and filed within ten (10)

court days (plus three days if served by mail) after service of the objections. The Court

will then review the Magistrate Judge’s ruling pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636 (b)(1)(C). 

The parties are advised that failure to file objections within the specified time may waive

the right to appeal the District Court’s order. Martinez v. Ylst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir.

1991).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: February 7, 2006 /s/ Sandra M. Snyder 

icido3 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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