Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05171/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05171-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James M. Head
Appellant
Eric D. Wilson
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 5, 2015 Decided June 26, 2015

No. 13-5171

JAMES M. HEAD,

APPELLANT

v.

ERIC D. WILSON, WARDEN,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-00706)

Rosanna M. Taormina, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, argued the cause for the appellant. A.J. Kramer, 

Federal Public Defender, was with her on brief.

Peter S. Smith, Assistant United States Attorney, argued 

the cause for the appellee. Ronald C. Machen, Jr., United 

States Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Suzanne Grealy Curt

and Thomas S. Rees, Assistant United States Attorneys, were 

with him on brief.

Before: HENDERSON, PILLARD and WILKINS, Circuit 

Judges.

USCA Case #13-5171 Document #1559623 Filed: 06/26/2015 Page 1 of 17
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge 

HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: In 1980, a 

District of Columbia (D.C.) Superior Court jury convicted 

James M. Head of numerous violent crimes, including firstdegree murder. Thirty-two years after his conviction and 

nearly fifteen years after expiration of the one-year statute of 

limitations contained in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death 

Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110

Stat. 1214, Head petitioned the district court for a writ of 

habeas corpus, arguing that his lawyer was ineffective. Head 

contends that AEDPA’s limitations period was tolled until 

2009 because, until our decision in Williams v. Martinez, our 

case law barred him from bringing his ineffective assistance 

of appellate counsel (IAAC) claim in federal court. See 586 

F.3d 995, 1000 (D.C. Cir. 2009). We disagree and we 

therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Head’s petition

and dismissal of the action. 

I. STATUTORY BACKGROUND

This case, although straightforward on the merits, 

involves the interplay among D.C.’s collateral-review statute, 

D.C. Code § 23-110, AEDPA’s one-year statute of 

limitations, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), and the case law 

interpreting both. For that reason, a quick overview of the 

legal landscape is in order.

A. D.C. CODE § 23-110

In 1970, the Congress enacted the D.C. Court Reform 

and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970 (Act), Pub. L. No. 91-

358, 84 Stat. 473, which “created a new local court system” 

and transferred responsibility for resolving D.C.–law claims 

from district court to superior court. Swain v. Pressley, 430 

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U.S. 372, 375 (1977). The Act also included the predecessor 

to section 23-110 of the D.C. Code. See Pub. L. No. 91-358, 

tit. II, § 210(a), 84 Stat. at 608–09. Section 23-110 

establishes the procedure by which a person sentenced by the 

superior court can seek collateral review of his conviction or 

sentence.1 Section 23-110 also gives the superior court 

exclusive jurisdiction of virtually all collateral challenges: 

An application for a writ of habeas corpus in 

behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply 

for relief by motion pursuant to this section 

shall not be entertained . . . by any Federal or 

State court if it appears that the applicant has 

failed to make a motion for relief under this 

section or that the Superior Court has denied 

him relief. 

D.C. Code § 23-110(g); see also Swain, 430 U.S. at 377–78 

(rejecting argument that section 23-110 only mandates 

exhaustion of D.C. remedies and holding instead that it vests 

exclusive jurisdiction in D.C. Superior Court). 

 1

 Section 23-110(a) allows “[a] prisoner in custody under 

sentence of the Superior Court” to “move the court to vacate, set 

aside, or correct the sentence” on the ground that:

(1) the sentence was imposed in violation of the 

Constitution of the United States or the laws of the 

District of Columbia, (2) the court was without 

jurisdiction to impose the sentence, (3) the 

sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized 

by law, [or] (4) the sentence is otherwise subject to 

collateral attack.

D.C. Code § 23-110(a).

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Although section 23-110 largely divests the federal 

courts of habeas jurisdiction, it contains a safety valve to

blunt the risk of a Suspension Clause violation.2 Specifically, 

section 23-110(g) provides that a prisoner sentenced in the 

superior court can seek a federal writ of habeas corpus if it 

“appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or 

ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” D.C. Code

§ 23-110(g). Section 23-110(g), however, left open a 

question that then went unresolved for many years: If a 

prisoner is barred from pursuing a claim under section 23-110 

but can nonetheless pursue the same claim in the D.C. court 

system through a different procedure, does section 23-110’s 

safety valve allow him to file a federal habeas petition or does 

the safety valve apply only if every route to D.C. court review

is foreclosed? 

The answer developed—slowly—through cases 

addressing prisoners who sought to raise IAAC claims on 

collateral review. More than three decades ago, the D.C. 

Court of Appeals held that IAAC claims “are not within the 

purview of [section] 23-110.” Streater v. United States

(Streater I), 429 A.2d 173, 174 (D.C. 1980) (per curiam). It

so held because section 23-110 “provides no basis upon 

which the trial court may review appellate proceedings.” Id.; 

see also Watson v. United States, 536 A.2d 1056, 1060 (D.C. 

1987) (en banc) (noting impropriety of “lower court . . . 

pass[ing] judgment on the efficacy of the appellate review”). 

Years later, the D.C. Court of Appeals clarified that the 

 2

 See U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 2 (“The Privilege of the Writ 

of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of 

Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”). The U.S. 

Supreme Court upheld section 23-110 against a Suspension Clause 

challenge based on the safety-valve provision. Swain, 430 U.S. at

381.

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proper procedural vehicle for raising an IAAC claim is a 

“motion . . . to recall the mandate” filed directly in the D.C. 

Court of Appeals. Watson, 536 A.2d at 1060; see also Long 

v. United States, 83 A.3d 369, 377–78 (D.C. 2013).

It was not until 2009 that we squarely addressed whether

section 23-110(g) gave the district court habeas jurisdiction to 

hear IAAC claims that, as explained, cannot be raised by a 

section 23-110 motion but can nonetheless be raised by a 

motion to recall the mandate. In Williams, we held that the 

terms of section 23-110(g) “make[] clear” that it “only divests 

federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions by 

prisoners who could have raised viable claims pursuant to

section 23-110(a).” 586 F.3d at 998 (emphasis added). In 

other words, even if there is another mechanism in the D.C. 

court system that a prisoner can use to collaterally attack his 

sentence or conviction, section 23-110’s safety valve is 

triggered so long as “the Superior Court lacks authority to 

entertain a section 23-110” motion for that particular claim. 

Id. (emphasis added). In reaching this conclusion, we 

recognized that our case law from the early 1980s 

“anticipated precisely th[is] situation.” Id. at 999 (citing 

Streater v. Jackson (Streater II), 691 F.2d 1026, 1028 (D.C. 

Cir. 1982)). We further observed that our earlier case law

“seemed to have assumed that the [federal] district court 

would have jurisdiction to entertain” an IAAC claim, even 

though it had not affirmatively settled the issue. Id. For this 

reason, we took the next step in Williams and expressly 

“recognize[d] another [exception]” to section 23-110(g)’s 

divestiture of federal-court jurisdiction and allowed the 

petitioner’s IAAC claim to proceed in district court. Id. at 

1000.

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B. AEDPA

Although Williams clarified that section 23-110’s safetyvalve provision authorizes federal habeas jurisdiction of an 

IAAC claim brought by a prisoner sentenced in superior 

court, a would-be federal habeas petitioner must still comply 

with the strictures of AEDPA—the federal court’s “labyrinth” 

collateral review procedure, Maynard v. Boone, 468 F.3d 665, 

669 (10th Cir. 2006). For example, AEDPA contains a oneyear statute of limitations that typically runs from the date a

prisoner’s state-court judgment becomes final,3 either by 

conclusion of direct review (i.e., denial of certiorari by the 

U.S. Supreme Court) or by expiration of the time for seeking 

direct review. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). Prisoners like 

Head, whose convictions became final before AEDPA’s 

effective date (April 24, 1996), were granted “a one-year 

grace period from that date in which to file a [federal habeas] 

motion—yielding a filing deadline of April 24, 1997.” 

United States v. Saro, 252 F.3d 449, 451 (D.C. Cir. 2001).

Because obstacles may prevent a prisoner from filing a 

timely habeas petition, AEDPA expressly contemplates that 

the limitations period may be tolled. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(d)(1)(B)–(D). One provision tolls AEDPA’s 

limitations period until “the date on which [an] impediment to 

filing an application created by State action in violation of the 

Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the 

 3

 AEDPA recognizes that “a court of the District is a state 

court.” See Madley v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 278 F.3d 1306, 1308 

(D.C. Cir. 2002); Garris v. Lindsay, 794 F.2d 722, 724 n.8 (D.C. 

Cir. 1986) (same); see also Milhouse v. Levi, 548 F.2d 357, 360 n.6 

(D.C. Cir. 1976) (“[T]his Court has treated local courts as ‘state’ 

courts for the purposes of exhaustion and federal habeas corpus 

jurisdiction.”).

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applicant was prevented from filing by such State action.” Id. 

§ 2244(d)(1)(B). Neither this Court nor our sister circuits 

have precisely defined “impediment” under section 

2244(d)(1)(B); “[t]he limited case law applying [it] has dealt 

almost entirely with the conduct of state prison officials who 

interfere with inmates’ ability to prepare and to file habeas 

petitions by denying access to legal materials.” Shannon v. 

Newland, 410 F.3d 1083, 1087 (9th Cir. 2005); see, e.g.,

Critchley v. Thaler, 586 F.3d 318, 320 (5th Cir. 2009) (state 

court failure to process timely mailed petition “constitutes a 

state-created impediment”); Egerton v. Cockrell, 334 F.3d 

433, 438–39 (5th Cir. 2003) (prison law library’s failure to 

provide copy of AEDPA “constitutes an impediment”) 

(quotation marks omitted). Writing for a plurality in 

Lackawanna County District Attorney v. Coss, Justice 

O’Connor suggested that section 2244(d)(1)(B) may apply if 

a state court “without justification, refuse[s] to rule on a 

constitutional claim that has been properly presented to it.” 

532 U.S. 394, 405 (2001).

In addition to statutory tolling provisions, AEDPA’s 

statute of limitations, which is not a jurisdictional bar, can be 

equitably tolled. See Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 645 

(2010). That said, equitable tolling is appropriate only if a

petitioner shows “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights 

diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood 

in his way and prevented timely filing.” United States v. 

Baxter, 761 F.3d 17, 30–31 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (quoting 

McQuiggin v. Perkins, 133 S. Ct. 1924, 1931 (2013)). “To 

count as sufficiently ‘extraordinary,’ ” we have held that “the 

circumstances that caused a litigant’s delay must have been 

beyond [his] control”; in other words, the delay “cannot be a 

product of that litigant’s own misunderstanding of the law or 

tactical mistakes in litigation.” Menominee Indian Tribe of 

Wis. v. United States, 764 F.3d 51, 58 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

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Indeed, “[w]hen a deadline is missed as a result of a ‘garden 

variety claim of excusable neglect’ or a ‘simple 

miscalculation,’ equitable tolling is not justified.” Id. 

(quoting Holland, 560 U.S. at 651).

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Head’s case began in 1980, when a D.C. Superior Court 

jury convicted him of two counts of felony murder, two 

counts of first-degree murder, four counts of armed 

kidnapping and two counts of armed robbery. Head v. United 

States (Head I), 451 A.2d 615, 618 (D.C. 1982). “[N]ot

earlier than December 3, 1982,” Head filed what the D.C. 

courts ultimately construed as his first section 23-110 motion. 

Head v. United States (Head II), 489 A.2d 450, 450 n.1 (D.C. 

1985). Between the 1982 filing and 2011, Head filed no 

fewer than five additional collateral attacks under section 23-

110.4

 He first made an IAAC claim via section 23-110 

motion in 1989, see Head III, 626 A.2d at 1383, and he made 

the claim again in a 1991 motion to recall the mandate, id. at 

1384.

On June 6, 2008, Head filed another section 23-110 

motion in D.C. Superior Court. While it was pending, we 

issued our opinion in Williams (on November 13, 2009) and 

denied rehearing en banc (on December 23, 2009). See 

Williams, 586 F.3d 995. The superior court then denied 

Head’s section 23-110 motion on January 25, 2010, and Head 

appealed the denial to the D.C. Court of Appeals. While that

 4

 Head’s efforts have not been entirely for naught; since his 

conviction, his armed kidnapping convictions were vacated for

insufficient evidence, see Head I, 451 A.2d at 618–19, and his 

felony murder convictions were vacated because they merged with

his premeditated murder convictions, see Head v. United States 

(Head III), 626 A.2d 1382, 1383, 1387 n.11 (D.C. 1993). 

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appeal was pending, the United States Supreme Court denied 

certiorari in Williams. See Williams v. Martinez, 559 U.S. 

1042 (2010) (mem.). The D.C. Court of Appeals eventually 

affirmed the Superior Court’s denial of Head’s section 23-110 

motion on June 10, 2011, and the Supreme Court denied 

Head’s subsequent petition for certiorari on January 23, 2012. 

On April 16, 2012—within one year of the Supreme 

Court’s denial of his petition for certiorari—Head filed a 

petition for writ of habeas corpus in district court. In his 

federal habeas petition, Head argued, inter alia, that the 

lawyer representing him on the direct appeal of his 1980 

conviction was constitutionally ineffective. Recognizing that

the passage of thirty-two years since his conviction affected

the timeliness of his petition, Head argued that Williams

created a “new circumstance” and removed an “impediment” 

that had prevented him from filing a timely petition. Pet. for 

Writ of Habeas Corpus 4. Because his section 23-110 motion 

was pending when Williams became final, Head further 

insisted that AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations did not 

start to run until the Supreme Court denied his petition for 

certiorari on January 23, 2012. 

The district court ordered the Government to respond to 

Head’s habeas petition, but eventually denied the petition as 

untimely, reasoning that his “convictions became final before 

the AEDPA” was enacted and, therefore, “it is the effective 

date of the AEDPA, not . . . Williams, which determined the 

start date of the one-year limitations period.”5

 Head v. 

 5

 The district court recognized some confusion existed 

regarding whether Head’s convictions became final in 1987 (when 

his direct appeal concluded) or in 1995 (when his kidnapping 

conviction was vacated). Head IV, 944 F. Supp. 2d at 42 n.1. 

Because both dates predate AEDPA’s effective date, we agree with 

the district court that, for Head’s instant petition, it makes no 

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Wilson (Head IV), 944 F. Supp. 2d 40, 43 (D.D.C. 2013). On 

May 29, 2013, Head filed a timely notice of appeal and a 

motion for certificate of appealability (COA) with this Court.6 

We referred Head’s COA motion to the district court, see 

United States v. Mitchell, 216 F.3d 1126, 1130 (D.C. Cir. 

2000), which denied it. Head renewed his COA motion 

before us,7 which we granted “as to the district court’s 

determination that the habeas petition was untimely.” Order 

Granting Certificate of Appealability (Jan. 13, 2014). Our 

review is de novo. See United States v. Cicero, 214 F.3d 199, 

202 (D.C. Cir. 2000).

 

difference whether his convictions became final in 1995 or 1987. 

See id. 

6

 Under AEDPA, a prisoner cannot appeal a district court’s 

denial of a habeas petition unless he first secures a COA from 

either the district court or the court of appeals. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2253(c); see Gonzalez v. Thaler, 132 S. Ct. 641, 650 n.5 (2012). 

To do so, he must make “a substantial showing of the denial of a 

constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). The showing 

requires a petitioner to demonstrate that “jurists of reason would

find it debatable whether the applicant states a valid claim of the 

denial of a constitutional right.” United States v. Arrington, 763 

F.3d 17, 23 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (brackets omitted). If “a district court 

denies relief in a § 225[4] case on procedural grounds without 

reaching the merits of the claim . . . the applicant must additionally 

show that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the 

district court was correct in its procedural ruling.” Id. (quotation 

marks omitted). The court of appeals has no jurisdiction unless and 

until a court grants a COA. See id. at 22. 

7

 A few days after he renewed his COA motion before us,

Head filed another COA motion in district court. The district court 

denied Head’s motion via minute order on September 23, 2013. 

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III. ANALYSIS

Head admits that, in the absence of tolling, AEDPA’s 

statute of limitations expired nearly fifteen years ago. 

Consequently, we must decide whether our 2009 decision in 

Williams either (1) removed an “impediment” that was 

“created by State action” and violated “the Constitution or 

laws of the United States” under AEDPA, see 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(d)(1)(B); or (2) constituted an “extraordinary

circumstance” within our equitable tolling jurisprudence, 

Menominee Indian Tribe, 764 F.3d at 58.8 Under either 

theory, Head cannot succeed unless our pre–Williams case 

law prevented him from filing a timely federal habeas 

petition. 

A. THE EFFECT OF WILLIAMS

Although they suffer from their own unique deficiencies, 

see infra § III.B, Head’s twin tolling arguments are doomed 

by a common flaw—nothing in our pre–Williams 

jurisprudence prevented Head from pursuing his IAAC claim 

in a timely federal habeas petition. To the contrary, we 

emphasized in Williams that, since the 1980s, our case law 

“seemed to have assumed that the district court would have 

jurisdiction to entertain” IAAC claims, notwithstanding 

section 23-110’s otherwise broad prohibition of federal 

jurisdiction. 586 F.3d at 998–99 (discussing Streater II, 691 

F.2d at 1028); see also Whiteside v. United States, 775 F.3d 

180, 186 (4th Cir. 2014) (en banc) (no tolling if earlier 

 8

 The Government concedes that, if AEDPA’s statute of 

limitations was tolled until our Williams decision became final, the 

pendency of Head’s section 23-110 motion further tolled AEDPA’s 

statute of limitations and, therefore, his habeas petition would be

timely. 

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precedent “strongly foreshadowed” intervening change in 

law). In other words, Williams simply made explicit what had 

already been implicit: when the D.C. Court of Appeals barred

prisoners from raising IAAC claims under section 23-110 in 

the early 1980s, the plain terms of section 23-110(g) opened 

the door to federal habeas review for those claims. See 

Williams, 586 F.3d at 998. Indeed, no case prevented the 

petitioner in Williams from timely raising his IAAC claim in 

his federal habeas petition and, when he raised it, we agreed 

that the district court had jurisdiction to hear it. See id. at 

1000; see also Whiteside, 775 F.3d at 186.

Head raises two counter-arguments, neither of which we 

find persuasive. First, he points to our isolated statement in

Williams that “we have already recognized some exceptions 

under section 23-110(g), and today we recognize another.” 

Williams, 586 F.3d at 1000 (emphasis added). But it does not 

follow that our express “recogni[tion]” in Williams that IAAC 

claims are cognizable in federal court means that they were

categorically foreclosed before. Id. In fact, Williams, read in 

toto, makes plain that we did no more than make explicit our 

earlier “assum[ption]” that a prisoner sentenced in superior 

court can raise an IAAC claim in federal court, 

notwithstanding section 23-110’s broad language barring

federal jurisdiction. Id. at 999 (citing Streater II, 691 F.2d at 

1028).

Second, Head cites Collier v. United States, No. 99-5120, 

1999 WL 1336229 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 15, 1999) (per curiam), as 

evidencing that IAAC claims were barred before Williams. In

Collier, an unpublished order, we denied a pro se petitioner’s 

request for a COA after the district court dismissed his habeas 

petition, which petition contained an IAAC claim. Id. at *1. 

We first observed that the petitioner had “properly pursued a 

motion to recall mandate, which is an appropriate collateral 

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procedure for presenting an ineffective assistance of appellate 

counsel claim.” Id. We then reasoned that the petitioner had 

not “demonstrated that his local remedy was inadequate or 

ineffective” because “[f]ailure to prevail in that court does not 

render his local remedies inadequate or ineffective.” Id. 

Therefore, we concluded that he had failed to make the 

requisite “showing of a denial of a substantial constitutional 

right” for the issuance of a COA. Id.

Head’s reliance on Collier suffers from a trio of defects. 

As a threshold matter, Collier is an unpublished order entered

before January 1, 2002. Accordingly, our rules mandate that 

Collier is “not to be cited as precedent,” see D.C. CIR. R.

32.1(b)(1)(A),

9 and we do not rely on it as such, see D.C. CIR.

R. 36(e)(2) (“[A] panel’s decision to issue an unpublished 

disposition means that the panel sees no precedential value in 

that disposition.”); see also Nat’l Classification Comm. v. 

United States, 765 F.2d 164, 170 (D.C. Cir. 1985)

(“[U]npublished opinion . . . has no precedential effect with 

respect to other parties.”). Next, it appears that the petitioner 

in Collier argued that the “local remedy” provided by the 

D.C. Court of Appeals “was inadequate or ineffective” 

because he “fail[ed] to prevail” on his motion to recall the 

mandate. Collier, 1999 WL 1336229, at *1. Nothing in 

Collier suggests that the petitioner argued that he had no 

adequate local remedy because section 23-110 review was 

unavailable and nothing in Collier suggests that, had he made

 9 Our rules distinguish between unpublished dispositions 

entered before January 1, 2002, which “are not to be cited as 

precedent,” D.C. CIR. R. 32.1(b)(1)(A), and those entered on or 

after January 1, 2002, which “may be cited as precedent,” D.C. CIR.

R. 32.1(b)(1)(B), even though the issuing “panel’s decision to issue 

an unpublished disposition means that the panel sees no 

precedential value in that disposition,” D.C. CIR. R. 36(e)(2). 

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that claim—which we not only addressed and endorsed in 

Williams but also anticipated in Streater II—we would have 

held that federal habeas jurisdiction was lacking. Finally, and 

most importantly, we decided Collier on December 15, 1999, 

more than two years after AEDPA’s statute of limitations 

expired on April 24, 1997. “Needless to say,” Head “could 

not have let the deadline pass in reliance upon an order that 

the court had not yet entered.” Baxter, 761 F.3d at 31.

This sweeping defect controls our disposition of Head’s 

statutory and equitable tolling arguments. Nevertheless, there 

are additional problems with both arguments, which problems 

we briefly discuss.

B. TOLLING

AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations is tolled until 

removal of (1) an “impediment” that was (2) “created by State 

action” and that (3) violated “the Constitution or laws of the 

United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(B). Even if our pre–

Williams jurisprudence rendered doubtful federal court

jurisdiction, Head has failed to satisfy any of these three

statutory requirements. First, we agree with the Fourth 

Circuit that “the term ‘impediment,’ as found in 

§ 2244(d)(1)(B),” and “the term ‘futile’ ” are “far from 

synonymous.” Minter v. Beck, 230 F.3d 663, 666 (4th Cir. 

2000). In other words, “an effort by [the petitioner] to obtain 

habeas relief prior to” a favorable change in law “may have 

been incapable of producing a successful result” but so long 

as “the effort itself was still possible,” no “impediment”

exists. Id. Indeed, the “Supreme Court has recognized in the 

analogous context of proving ‘cause’ for procedural default of 

a habeas claim” that “futility cannot constitute cause if it 

means simply that a claim was unacceptable to that particular 

court at that particular time.” Id. (quoting Bousley v. United

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15

States, 523 U.S. 614, 623 (1998)). Simply put, futility “is not 

a valid justification for filing an untimely § 2254 petition.” 

Id. 

Second, our pre–Williams jurisprudence is plainly not 

“State action.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(B). Even assuming 

that Head was prevented from pursuing his IAAC claim in 

federal court, it was our construction, as a federal court, of 

section 23-110, that allegedly prevented him from doing so. 

Recognizing this problem, Head shifts course in his reply 

brief and argues that we should construe section 23-110 itself 

as the state action that impeded his timely filing. Because we 

generally do not consider arguments made for the first time in 

a reply brief, we find that Head has forfeited it. See Holland 

v. Bibeau Const. Co., 774 F.3d 8, 14 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

Third, even if Head could demonstrate an “impediment” 

that was “created by State action,” he has failed to show that

such an impediment violated “the Constitution or laws of the 

United States.” Id. Indeed, his only attempt to so 

demonstrate is buried in a footnote in his reply brief, where he 

argues that section 23-110(g)’s “bar to federal jurisdiction 

implicates the Suspension Clause.” Pet’r’s Reply Br. 4 n.2 

(citing Swain, 430 U.S. at 381). Even if we were to consider 

an argument Head makes only in a footnote10 in his reply 

brief, he would still have to demonstrate a Suspension Clause 

violation by showing that a motion to recall the mandate was 

not an “adequate substitute” for a federal writ of habeas 

corpus. See INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 305 (2001). He 

makes no attempt to do so.

 10 See Nat’l Oilseed Processors Ass’n v. OSHA, 769 F.3d 

1173, 1184 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“[T]he court generally declines to 

consider an argument if a party buries it in a footnote and raises it 

in only a conclusory fashion.”).

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Head’s equitable tolling argument fares no better. The 

Fourth Circuit has described equitable tolling as appropriate 

only in “rare instances where—due to circumstances external 

to the party’s own conduct—it would be unconscionable to 

enforce the limitation period against the party and gross 

injustice would result.” Whiteside, 775 F.3d at 184. Our case 

law is in accord: “To count as sufficiently ‘extraordinary’ to 

support equitable tolling, the circumstances that caused a 

litigant’s delay must have been beyond its control.” 

Menominee Indian Tribe, 764 F.3d at 58. 

Here again, we find the rationale of our sister circuit 

persuasive. In Whiteside, the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, 

examined whether a federal habeas petitioner was, for the 

purpose of equitable tolling, “prevented from timely filing by 

. . . unfavorable precedent that would have governed his claim 

had he” timely filed. 775 F.3d at 185. Answering in the 

negative, the Whiteside Court held that the equitable tolling 

standard “focuses not on whether unfavorable precedent 

would have rendered a timely claim futile, but on whether a 

factor beyond the defendant’s control prevented him from 

filing within the limitations period at all.” Id. Indeed, “[t]he 

demands of finality oblige a petitioner to raise those claims 

that might possibly have merit even where he thinks the court

will be unsympathetic.” Id. (brackets and quotation marks 

omitted); see also Minter, 230 F.3d at 666–67 (change in law 

not impediment to filing habeas petition and thus insufficient 

to equitably toll AEDPA statute of limitations). 

The Fourth Circuit’s reasoning in Whiteside is consistent 

with cases from other circuits11 and with our own recognition 

 11 See, e.g., Lo v. Endicott, 506 F.3d 572, 575 (7th Cir. 2007) 

(intervening change in law not new factual predicate sufficient to 

reset statute of limitations period under AEDPA); E.J.R.E. v. 

United States, 453 F.3d 1094, 1098 (8th Cir. 2006) (intervening 

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17

that a party is “not excused from timely filing its claim 

because . . . the law might be inhospitable” inasmuch as “the 

only sure way to determine whether a suit can be maintained

is to try it.” Menominee Indian Tribe, 764 F.3d at 61

(brackets omitted). At most, Head’s argument reduces to a 

claim that our pre–Williams jurisprudence—because it was 

arguably unsettled—contributed to his “misunderstanding of 

the law” and prompted a “mistake[n]” belief that, had he filed 

a federal habeas petition before April 24, 1997, the federal 

court would have dismissed it in reliance on section 23-110. 

Id. As we have made plain, that argument is far from enough 

to support equitable tolling. See id. 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s 

judgment. 

So ordered.

 

change in law insufficient to reset statute of limitations period 

under AEDPA and declining to equitably toll statute of limitations); 

Shannon v. Newland, 410 F.3d 1083, 1088–90 (9th Cir. 2005) 

(same).

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