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Parties Involved:
Lorie Davis, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division
Appellee
James Christopher North
Appellant

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-10306

JAMES CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 

 Petitioner - Appellant

v.

LORIE DAVIS, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL 

JUSTICE, CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS DIVISION, 

 Respondent - Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

USDC No. 1:16-CV-189

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, JONES, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Appellant James North, a Texas state prisoner convicted of murder, 

seeks federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court dismissed 

North’s habeas application on the merits without deciding whether it was 

barred by the statute of limitations. We granted a Certificate of Appealability 

on one of North’s four claims. We now hold that North’s application was time-

 * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

January 22, 2020

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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barred and that he is not entitled to equitable tolling. The district court’s 

judgment is affirmed.

I.

A jury convicted Appellant James North of murder in 2011 after he shot 

and killed a man during a road-rage incident in Abilene, Texas.1 North’s 

conviction became final on December 16, 2014. On November 6, 2015, North 

filed a habeas corpus petition in state court raising four claims of ineffective 

assistance of counsel. On January 6, 2016, the Texas Court of Criminal 

Appeals (“TCCA”) dismissed North’s petition for failure to comply with Texas 

Rule of Appellate Procedure 73.1(f), which requires applicants to “include a 

certificate . . . stating the number of words in” their supporting memoranda.2

On January 14, North filed a motion for reconsideration, which the TCCA 

denied on January 29. Meanwhile, on January 28, 2016, North filed a new state 

habeas petition raising the same arguments as the first. On September 21, 

2016, the TCCA denied the second petition without written order. 

Following the completion of state-court proceedings, North filed a 

counseled § 2254 petition in the federal district court on October 26, 2016. The 

district court denied the petition on the merits on March 2, 2018 without 

deciding whether it was timely filed. North appealed and moved for a 

Certificate of Appealability (“COA”) on two of his four ineffective-assistance 

claims. This Court granted a COA on the sole issue of whether North was 

prejudiced by his trial attorneys’ failure to object to an alternate juror’s 

presence in the jury room during deliberations.

 1 See North v. State, No. 11-11-00338-CR, 2014 WL 272455, *1–2 (Tex. App.—Eastland 

Jan. 24, 2014, pet. ref’d) (unpublished). 

2 TEX. R. APP. P. 73.1(f).

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II.

On appeal from the dismissal of a § 2254 petition, we review the district 

court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo, 

“applying the same standard of review to the state court’s decision as the 

district court.”3 Pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act 

(“AEDPA”), a federal court may not grant habeas relief unless the state-court 

judgment rejecting the petitioner’s claims (1) “was contrary to, or involved an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by 

the Supreme Court of the United States,” or (2) “was based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court 

proceeding.”4

AEDPA imposes a one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal 

habeas petition, starting from the date a petitioner’s conviction becomes final.5 

This one-year period is tolled for “[t]he 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.”6 In addition, the limitations 

period may be equitably tolled if the petitioner shows “(1) that he had been 

pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance 

stood in his way and prevented timely filing.”7

III.

The State contends that North’s § 2254 application is time-barred 

because it was filed more than one year after his conviction became final and 

does not meet the requirements for statutory or equitable tolling. In the State’s 

 3 Martinez v. Johnson, 255 F.3d 229, 237 (5th Cir. 2001).

4 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2).

5 Id. § 2244(d)(1).

6 Id. § 2244(d)(2); see Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214, 219–20 (2002) (A state postconviction application remains “pending . . . until the application has achieved final 

resolution through the State’s post-conviction procedure.”).

7 Mathis v. Thaler, 616 F.3d 461, 474 (5th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and 

alterations omitted) (quoting Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010)). 

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view, North’s first state-court habeas petition did not toll AEDPA’s limitations 

period because it was not properly filed. Further, North is not entitled to 

equitable tolling because he failed to pursue his rights diligently and identifies 

no extraordinary circumstance that prevented him from timely filing. 

North counters that his initial state habeas application was properly 

filed on November 6, 2015, and remained pending until September 21, 2016, 

thus tolling the limitations period for 320 days and making his federal 

application timely with five days to spare. North further argues that even if 

statutory tolling does not apply, he is entitled to equitable tolling because the 

state courts misled him into believing his application would be considered on 

the merits. Alternatively, North argues that equitable tolling should apply 

because his state habeas counsel was ineffective for failing to include the 

certificate of compliance required by Rule 73.1(f). 

We agree with the State. It is uncontested that AEDPA’s one-year 

statute of limitations began to run when North’s conviction became final on 

December 16, 2014. North filed his federal petition 680 days later, long after 

the limitations period had expired. True, North’s initial state-court petition 

was filed within the limitations period. However, it was not “properly filed” 

because it failed to comply with Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 73.1’s wordcount requirement.8 Thus, it did not toll the statute of limitations. As the 

Supreme Court has stated, a § 2254 application is properly filed only “when its 

delivery and acceptance are in compliance with the applicable laws and rules 

governing filings,” including precise requirements for “the form of the 

document.”9 Accordingly, this Court has affirmed that “a ‘properly filed 

application’ for § 2244(d)(2) purposes is one that conforms with a state’s 

 8 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) (emphasis added).

9 Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8 (2000).

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applicable procedural filing requirements.”10 Indeed, we have specifically 

recognized that “compliance with the requirements of Rule 73.1 is a 

prerequisite to consideration of the merits of an applicant’s claims.”11 Thus, a 

petition dismissed by the TCCA for noncompliance with Rule 73.1 is not 

properly filed and does not toll AEDPA’s limitations period.12 By the time 

North properly filed his second state habeas petition on January 28, 2016, well 

over a year had passed since his conviction became final. 

North attempts to distinguish our precedents by arguing that his Rule 

73.1 violation only pertained to the memorandum accompanying his 

application, not the habeas application itself. He cites no authority for drawing 

such a distinction. Moreover, by its own terms, Rule 73.1(f) applies to all

“computer-generated memorand[a], including any additional memoranda” 

filed in support of a petition.13 In any event, the Supreme Court has 

indicated—and this Court has held in an unpublished opinion—that even if a 

state court’s grounds for dismissing a habeas petition as improperly filed are 

“debatable,” the dismissal is nonetheless “dispositive.”14

Even if we were to assume that North’s first state application did toll the 

limitations period until it was dismissed on January 6, 2016 and, further, that 

statutory tolling commenced again with North’s motion for reconsideration on 

January 14, 2016, his federal petition would still be three days late.15 North’s 

 10 Mathis, 616 F.3d at 471 (quoting Villegas v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 467, 470 (5th Cir. 

1999)); see Wilson v. Cain, 564 F.3d 702, 704 (5th Cir. 2009).

11 Broussard v. Thaler, 414 F. App’x 686, 688 (5th Cir. 2011) (unpublished) (per 

curiam).

12 Id.; see also Davis v. Quarterman, 342 F. App’x 952, 953 (5th Cir. 2009) 

(unpublished) (per curiam) (holding that an application “not filed in conformity with [Rule] 

73.1 . . . was not a ‘properly filed’ state application” and “did not toll the limitation period”). 

13 TEX. R. APP. P. 73.1(f).

14 Koumjian v. Thaler, 484 F. App’x 966, 968 (5th Cir. 2012) (unpublished) (per curiam) 

(citing Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214, 226 (2002) and Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 417 

(2005)). 

15 North filed his federal application 680 days after his conviction became final. He 

argues that the limitations period was tolled from the filing of his first state habeas 

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attempt to avoid this result with the further assumption that his first state 

application remained “pending” after the January 6 dismissal is unsupported 

by any authority.

Because North’s claim for statutory tolling fails, his only hope is 

equitable tolling. Here, too, his arguments are unavailing. Equitable tolling is 

available only where the petitioner can show “(1) that he had been pursuing 

his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his 

way and prevented timely filing.”16 First, North’s eleven-month delay in filing 

his initial state application weighs against a finding of diligence.17 Second and 

more importantly, North cannot point to any “extraordinary circumstance” 

that prevented timely filing.18

This Court has recognized that “extraordinary circumstances exist 

where a petitioner is misled by an affirmative, but incorrect, representation of 

a district court on which he relies to his detriment.”19 North argues that the 

state trial court and the TCCA misled him to believe “that his state habeas 

application would be considered on the merits”—the trial court by declining to 

decide on timeliness grounds, and the TCCA by its inconsistent application of 

Rule 73.1. Because the TCCA sometimes exercises jurisdiction despite Rule 

73.1 deficiencies, North argues, it “lulled [him] into inaction” by permitting 

 

application on November 6, 2015 to the dismissal of his second state habeas application on 

September 21, 2016, a period of 320 days. This overlooks the period between the dismissal of 

his first application on January 6, 2016 and the filing of his second application on January 

28, 2016, a period of 22 days. That reduces the tolling to 298 days, and 680 – 298 = 382 days 

(17 days late). Reducing the gap from 22 days to 8 days by crediting the motion for 

reconsideration yields 312 days of tolling, and 680 – 312 = 368 (3 days late). 

16 Mathis, 616 F.3d at 474 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). 

17 See, e.g., Stroman v. Thaler, 603 F.3d 299, 302 (5th Cir. 2010) (affirming the denial 

of equitable tolling where, inter alia, the petitioner had waited seven months to file his state 

application).

18 See Mathis, 616 F.3d at 474–75.

19 Cousin v. Lensing, 310 F.3d 843, 848 (5th Cir. 2002) (citing United States v. 

Patterson, 211 F.3d 927, 931–32 (5th Cir. 2000)). 

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him to draw the assumption that a filing error would not result in dismissal.20

Even assuming that incorrect representations of a state habeas court, rather 

than a federal district court, can excuse a habeas petitioner’s late filing, 

North’s claim fails because he identifies no incorrect statement by any court 

on which he might have relied. The trial court was at liberty to decide on the 

merits rather than on limitations grounds,21 and dismissals by the TCCA for 

violations of Rule 73.1, if not universal, are at least routine.22

Essentially, North’s argument is that an improperly filed state habeas 

application tolls the limitations period unless and until the state court notifies 

the petitioner of the filing deficiency. This view would write the “properly filed” 

condition out of the statute and run afoul of Supreme Court precedent stressing 

that petitioners must satisfy both the “pending” and “properly filed” 

requirements.23 Indeed, this Court has held that even “if a state court 

mistakenly accepts and considers the merits of a state habeas application in 

violation of its own procedural filing requirements . . . , that habeas application 

is not ‘properly filed.’”24

 20 See Ex parte Dotson, No. WR–84,802–01, 2016 WL 1719367, at *1 n.1 (Tex. Crim. 

App. Apr. 27, 2016) (unpublished) (per curiam) (“[T]his application does not comply with . . . 

TEX. R. APP. P. 73.1(f). However, because the record in this case is clear, we will exercise our 

jurisdiction and grant relief.”). 

21 Saffold, 536 U.S. at 225–26 (“A court will sometimes address the merits of a claim 

that it believes was presented in an untimely way: for instance, where the merits present no 

difficult issue; where the court wants to give a reviewing court alternative grounds for 

decision; or where the court wishes to show a prisoner (who may not have a lawyer) that it 

was not merely a procedural technicality that precluded him from obtaining relief.”).

22 See, e.g., Ex parte Blacklock, 191 S.W.3d 718, 719 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (dismissing 

a habeas application because “the form was not filled out as required by the appellate rules,” 

specifically Rule 73.1(c)); see also Dittman v. Davis, No. 3:16-cv-2339-C-BN, 2017 WL 

4535286, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Sept. 21, 2017) (quoting Broussard, 414 F. App’x at 688) (“Even if 

the state trial court (or the convicting court) considers the merits of the state-habeas petition, 

the CCA may still dismiss that petition under Rule 73.1 . . . , as the CCA ‘makes the final 

decision whether the application complies with all filing requirements and whether to grant 

or deny the application.’”). 

23 See Artuz, 531 U.S. at 9.

24 Larry v. Dretke, 361 F.3d 890, 895 (5th Cir. 2004).

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Nor is North entitled to equitable tolling on the ground that his state 

habeas counsel was ineffective for failing to include the certificate of 

compliance required by Rule 73.1(f). As the Supreme Court has explained, only 

“abandonment” by counsel, not mere “attorney negligence” or “attorney error,” 

can support equitable tolling.25 North’s allegation is but a “‘garden variety 

claim of excusable neglect’ [that] does not warrant equitable tolling.”26

IV.

In sum, North’s federal habeas application is time-barred. Whereas the 

district court dismissed North’s application on its merits without considering 

timeliness, we reach the same conclusion on timeliness grounds without 

addressing the merits. The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

 25 Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266, 282 (2012).

26 Holland, 560 U.S. at 651–52 (quoting Irwin v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 

96 (1990)). 

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