Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_18-cv-04203/USCOURTS-cand-4_18-cv-04203-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Frauenheim
Respondent
Jose Sanchez
Petitioner

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United States District Court 

Northern District of Californi

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

JOSE SANCHEZ, 

Petitioner, 

vs. 

SCOTT FRAUENHEIM, 

Respondent.

CASE NO. 18-cv-04203-YGR 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS 

PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS 

AS UNTIMELY; SETTING BRIEFING 

SCHEDULE

Re: Dkt. No. 9 

On July 13, 2018, petitioner Jose Sanchez, through counsel, filed a petition for writ of 

habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 2254. (Dkt. No. 1 (“Petition”).) On September 18, 

2018, respondent Scott Frauenheim filed a motion to dismiss the petition with prejudice as 

untimely. (Dkt. No. 9 (“MTD”).) Having carefully considered the papers submitted, and for the 

reasons set forth below, respondent’s motion is DENIED. 

I. BACKGROUND

On May 20, 2014, petitioner was found guilty after a jury trial in the Santa Clara County 

Superior Court of two counts of lewd or lascivious conduct on a child under the age of 14 years 

(Cal. Penal Code § 288(a)), five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 

years (id. § 269), six counts of forcible lewd or lascivious conduct on a child under the age of 14 

years (id. § 288(b)(1)), and one count of sexual penetration by force, fear, or threats (id. § 

289(a)(2)). (Exh.1 to MTD at ECF p. 15, Dkt. No. 9-1.) Petitioner was subsequently sentenced to 

an aggregate term of 165 years to life in prison. (Id.) 

Petitioner appealed to the California Court of Appeal. On February 1, 2017, the Court of 

Appeal affirmed the judgment. (Id. at ECF p. 25.) 

Petitioner then filed a petition for review in the California Supreme Court. On April 12, 

2017, the Supreme Court denied the petition for review. (Exh. 2 to MTD, Dkt. No. 9-1.) 

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Respondent contends that the petition for writ of habeas corpus was filed outside the oneyear limitation period prescribed by 28 U.S.C. section 2244(d)(1) and thus this action is timebarred. For the reasons stated below, the Court disagrees. 

II. DISCUSSION

A. One-Year Statute of Limitation 

The current Petition is subject to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 

1996 (“AEDPA”) one-year statute of limitations period, as set forth under 28 U.S.C. section 

2244(d). See Lawrence v. Florida, 549 U.S. 327, 329 (2007); Laws v. Lamarque, 351 F.3d 919, 

921 (9th Cir. 2003). In most cases, the limitation period begins to run 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.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A); see also Wixom v. Washington, 264 F.3d 894, 897 (9th 

Cir. 2001). 

AEDPA may also allow for statutory tolling or equitable tolling. Jorss v. Gomez, 311 F.3d 

1189, 1192 (9th Cir. 2002). However, “a court must first determine whether a petition was 

untimely under the statute itself before it considers whether equitable [or statutory] tolling should 

be applied.” Id. (emphasis supplied). 

Accordingly, a court should undertake a three-step analysis to evaluate whether a petition 

is timely filed under AEDPA. A court should “begin [its statute of limitation analysis under 

AEDPA] with the relevant timeliness calculations.” Miranda v. Castro, 292 F.3d 1063, 1065 (9th 

Cir. 2002). “[T]he next step is to determine whether the limitations period should be statutorily 

tolled” while “[t]he final step is to determine whether equitable tolling applies.” Shafer v. 

Knowles, No. C03-1165SI(PR), 2003 WL 22127878 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 14, 2003). 

B. Step One: Timeliness Calculation 

Here, respondent contends that the limitation period is the typical one and that it runs from 

the date petitioner’s state judgment became final. (MTD at 3 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A)).) 

Petitioner does not challenge this contention. Moreover, the record is devoid of any evidence to 

suggest that any other later event triggered the limitation period. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(B)–(D). 

Accordingly, the Court will calculate timeliness from the date petitioner’s judgment became final. 

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The California Supreme Court denied the petition for direct review on April 12, 2017. 

Because direct review includes the 90 days during which petitioner could have filed a petition for 

writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court, petitioner’s judgment became final on 

July 11, 2017. Id. § 2244(d)(1)(A) (judgment becomes final either “by the conclusion of direct 

review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review”); Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796, 

798 (9th Cir. 2003), as amended (Nov. 3, 2003) (“The period of ‘direct review’ after which [a] 

state conviction becomes final under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A) includes the 90-day period within 

which a petitioner can file a petition for a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court, 

even if the petitioner does not actually file such a petition.”); Bowen v. Roe, 188 F.3d 1157, 1159 

(9th Cir. 1999) (same). Accordingly, petitioner had until July 11, 2018 to file the current Petition. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). 

 On July 11, 2018, petitioner’s counsel asked a paralegal to file the Petition in person at the 

San Francisco Federal Courthouse and contends that the paralegal was told that the Petition could 

not be accepted and must be filed online. (Petitioner’s Response to Respondent’s MTD 

(“Response”) at ECF p. 3, Dkt. No. 13.)1 According to counsel, “no further assistance was 

provided” to the paralegal. (Id.) Rather, when counsel later contacted the Clerk’s Office for 

further clarification, she was told only “that the filing ha[d] to be done electronically, and that the 

[habeas corpus] local rules were correct in that an original and a copy had to be filed.” (Id.; see 

also Declaration of Counsel in Support of Motion (“Counsel Decl.”) ¶ 7, Dkt. No. 13 at ECF p. 5.) 

Counsel then attempted to file the Petition electronically through the CM/ECF system, but it was 

not until two days later that she “eventually deciphered the CM/ECF Filer system and filed the 

petition correctly, albeit 2 days late.” (Response at ECF p. 3; see also Counsel Decl. ¶ 8.) 

Based on the foregoing, and as petitioner concedes, the Petition was filed two days after 

AEDPA’s one-year limitation period expired. The Petition can thus be timely only if the 

intervening period was tolled under statutory or equitable tolling principles. 

 1

 Petitioner’s “counsel” as used in petitioner’s response to the motion and herein refers to 

Ms. Zsuzsanna Veres, who works under the supervision of Mr. Christopher Morales, counsel of 

record for petitioner. 

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C. Step Two: Statutory Tolling 

Statutory tolling is available under AEDPA during the time “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); see also Patterson v. Stewart, 251 F.3d 1243, 1247 (9th Cir. 

2001). 

As petitioner admits in his Petition, he did not file any state habeas petitions or other 

collateral review following the California Supreme Court’s decision on April 12, 2017. (Petition 

at 3.) Accordingly, he is not entitled to statutory tolling. 

D. Step Three: Equitable Tolling 

The United States Supreme Court has decided that “§ 2244(d) is subject to equitable 

tolling in appropriate cases.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 645 (2010). A petitioner seeking 

equitable tolling bears the burden of establishing two elements: “‘(1) that he has been pursuing his 

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

timely filing.” Id. at 649 (quoting Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 418 (2005)). Equitable 

tolling is “unavailable in most cases.” Miles v. Prunty, 187 F.3d 1104, 1107 (9th Cir. 1999). 

“Indeed, ‘the threshold necessary to trigger equitable tolling [under AEDPA] is very high, lest the 

exceptions swallow the rule.’” Castro, 292 F.3d at 1066 (quoting United States v. Marcello, 212 

F.3d 1005, 1010 (7th Cir. 2000)). 

With regard to the “diligence” prong, petitioner’s counsel argues that because the Petition 

was “completed and ready to be filed on July 11, 2018[,]” petitioner’s “rights were pursued 

diligently[.]” (Response at ECF p. 3.) As for the “extraordinary circumstance” prong, counsel 

argues that this district’s “Habeas Corpus Local Rules provide false information regarding the 

filing of the petition[,] and electronic filing is a relatively new standard that is difficult to 

navigate.” (Id.) 

Attorney conduct compromising the filing of a timely federal habeas petition can constitute 

the requisite “extraordinary circumstance” in some circumstances but not others. Holland held 

that “garden variety claim[s] of excusable neglect,” such as “simple miscalculation” of time limits, 

do not constitute an extraordinary circumstance. Holland, 560 U.S. at 651–52 (internal quotation 

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marks omitted); see also Lawrence, 549 U.S. at 336–37 (“Attorney miscalculation is simply not 

sufficient to warrant equitable tolling, particularly in the postconviction context where prisoners 

have no constitutional right to counsel.”); Frye v. Hickman, 273 F.3d 1144, 1146 (9th Cir. 2001) 

(“[M]iscalculation of the limitations period by [petitioner’s] counsel and his negligence in general 

do not constitute extraordinary circumstances sufficient to warrant equitable tolling.”). However, 

attorney misconduct can be so egregious as to create an “extraordinary circumstance,” justifying 

equitable tolling. Holland, 560 U.S. at 651. In a concurring opinion in Holland, Justice Alito 

explained his understanding of the logic behind this framework, reasoning that, “the principal 

rationale for disallowing equitable tolling based on ordinary attorney miscalculation is that the 

error of an attorney is constructively attributable to the client and thus is not a circumstance 

beyond the litigant’s control.” Id. at 657 (Alito, J., concurring). Thus, equitable tolling is not 

available when counsel might “forget to file the habeas petition on time, mail the petition to the 

wrong address, or fail to do the requisite research to determine the applicable deadline.” Id. 

Moreover, “the shortness of the delay does not by itself relieve Petitioner of the effect of his 

original Petition being filed after the limitation period expired.”2 Bell v. Barnes, No. EDCV 13-

530-CJC (OP), 2013 WL 5548621, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 4, 2013).3

 2

 See, e.g., Marcello, 212 F.3d at 1010 (federal habeas petition submitted one day late was 

properly dismissed as untimely under AEDPA); Lattimore v. Dubois, 311 F.3d 46, 53–54 (1st Cir. 

2002) (reversing district court’s decision to give the petitioner a “grace period” and dismissing a 

habeas petition as untimely when it was submitted one day late); Lookingbill v. Cockrell, 293 F.3d 

256, 265 (5th Cir. 2002) (stating “[w]e consistently have denied tolling even where the petition 

was only a few days late”); Vigil v. Gipson, No. CV 11-10360-RGK (JCG), 2012 WL 1163633, at 

*1 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2012) (“While one could perhaps be sympathetic to a one-day delay, this 

Court is obligated to follow the strict mandate of AEDPA, as many other courts have done in 

similar circumstances for sound reasons.”), report and recommendation adopted, No. CV 11-

10360-RGK (JCG), 2012 WL 1163133 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 9, 2012); Szadziewicz v. Salazar, No. CV 

09-7576-DOC (RC), 2010 WL 2985840, at *5 (C.D. Cal. July 19, 2010), report and 

recommendation adopted, No. CV 09-7576-DOC (RC), 2010 WL 2985842 (C.D. Cal. July 26, 

2010) (dismissing petition where pro se prisoner filed one day late). 

3

 Respondent’s counsel cites to Maples v. Thomas, 565 U.S. 266 (2012) for the 

proposition that under principles of agency, equitable tolling is available only when an attorney 

has “abandoned” his or her client. (Dkt. No. 14 at 3.) It is true that in Maples, the Supreme Court 

drew off of Justice Alito’s concurring opinion in Holland to recognize that abandonment by 

postconviction counsel may constitute an extraordinary circumstance warranting equitable tolling. 

Id. at 283. However, the Ninth Circuit in Luna v. Kernan, 784 F.3d 640 (9th Cir. 2015) stated that 

it was “unclear whether the Court intended to hold in Maples that attorney misconduct falling 

short of abandonment may no longer serve as a basis for equitable tolling.” Id. at 648. The court 

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Here, the “extraordinary circumstance” to be analyzed is the claim that “the Habeas Corpus 

Local Rules provided false information regarding the filing of the petition[,] and electronic filing 

is a relatively new standard that is difficult to navigate.” (Response at 2, 3.) 

First, the Habeas Corpus Local Rules of this district expressly provide that this district’s 

Civil Local Rules apply to habeas cases “except to the extent that they are inconsistent” with the 

Habeas Corpus Local Rules. Habeas L.R. 2254-1. The Habeas Corpus Local Rules were last 

revised in 2012, hardly recently. The Civil Local Rules in turn provide that “[e]xcept for cases 

filed by a pro se party who is not a registered e-filer, civil complaints and other case initiating 

documents in civil cases must be filed electronically.” Civ. L.R. 5-1(d)(1) (emphasis supplied). 

To the extent petitioner’s counsel argues that the Habeas Corpus Local Rules expressly require 

manual filing and are thus inconsistent with the Civil Local Rules, such argument is misplaced, as 

the former contain no such explicit requirement. (See generally Habeas L.R. 2254-3.) Moreover, 

the claim is disingenuous as her supervisor, petitioner’s counsel of record, is a registered CM/ECF 

user who has used the CM/ECF system to file pleadings electronically in various habeas and 

criminal cases in this district. See, e.g., Campos v. Holland, Case No. 15-cv-00856-LHK; Deanda 

v. Miller, Case No. 13-cv-02135-BLF; United States v. Federico, 12-cr-0862-YGR. In sum, 

counsel’s late filing despite being supervised by an experienced CM/ECF user is precisely the type 

of “garden variety” mistake for which equitable tolling is not warranted. Holland, 560 U.S. at 

651. 

That said, the Court is concerned that the Clerk’s Office refused a manual filing and 

instructed petitioner’s counsel to file electronically, contributing to the missed deadline. (See 

Response at ECF p. 3.) The Court concurs that such requirement appears to be inconsistent with 

the Habeas Local Rule requiring the filing of an “original and one copy” of the petition, which can 

only be done manually. See Habeas L.R. 2254-3(g). Accordingly, given the Clerk’s role in the 

 

noted that prior cases from its circuit that had held that egregious attorney misconduct of all 

stripes may serve as a basis for equitable tolling remained good law. Id. at 649. It held that 

because Maples did not explicitly overrule Holland, and because as a three-judge panel it lacked 

the authority to overrule circuit precedent and rule that Maples implicitly overruled Holland, attorney misconduct falling short of abandonment could serve as a basis for equitable tolling. Id. 

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delay, and that the circumstances were beyond petitioner’s control, the Court finds an 

extraordinary circumstance warranting equitable tolling. See Menominee Indian Tribe of Wis. v. 

U.S., 136 S. Ct. 750, 756 (2016) (the diligence prong “covers those affairs within the litigant’s 

control”) (emphasis supplied); see also James v. Pliler, 269 F.3d 1124, 1126 (9th Cir. 2001) 

(recognizing “the preference for decisions on the merits rather than on procedural grounds”). 

III. CONCLUSION 

Accordingly, respondent’s motion to dismiss the Petition as untimely is DENIED. 

Respondent is directed to SHOW CAUSE why the Petition should not be granted. 

Respondent shall file with this Court and serve upon petitioner, no later than sixty (60) days from 

the date of this Order, an Answer conforming in all respects to Rule 5 of the Rules Governing 

Section 2254 cases, showing cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not be issued. Respondent 

shall file with the Answer a copy of all portions of the underlying state criminal record that were 

previously transcribed and that are relevant to a determination of the issues presented by the 

Petition. 

If petitioner wishes to respond to the Answer, he shall do so by filing a Traverse with the 

Court and serving it on respondent no later than twenty-eight (28) days of his receipt of the 

Answer. Should petitioner fail to do so, the petition will be deemed submitted and ready for 

decision twenty-eight (28) days after the date petitioner is served with respondent’s Answer. 

This Order terminates Docket Number 9. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: January 31, 2019 

 YVONNE GONZALEZ ROGERS

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

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