Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-14-55102/USCOURTS-ca9-14-55102-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David A. Long
Appellee
Armando J. Mena
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ARMANDO J. MENA, AKA A. J. Mena,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

DAVID A. LONG,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 14-55102

D.C. No.

5:13-cv-00490-

CJC-RNB

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Cormac J. Carney, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

October 21, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed February 17, 2016

Before: Johnnie B. Rawlinson and Jacqueline H. Nguyen, 

Circuit Judges and Michael A. Ponsor,

* Senior District 

Judge.

Opinion by Judge Nguyen

 * The Honorable Michael A. Ponsor, Senior District Judge for the U.S. 

District Court for Massachusetts, sitting by designation.

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2 MENA V. LONG

SUMMARY**

Habeas Corpus

Reversing the district court’s dismissal of a state 

prisoner’s habeas corpus petition raising only unexhausted 

claims, the panel held that a district court has discretion to 

stay and hold in abeyance fully unexhausted habeas petitions 

under the circumstances set forth in Rhines v. Weber, 544 

U.S. 269 (2005).

Because the district court dismissed the petition on the 

assumption that it lacked authority to grant the petitioner’s 

request for a Rhines stay, the panel remanded for the district 

court to decide in the first instance whether the petitioner is 

entitled to such a stay.

COUNSEL

Michael Parente (argued), Deputy Federal Public Defender; 

Hilary Potashner, Acting Federal Public Defender, Federal 

Public Defender’s Office, Los Angeles, California, for 

Petitioner-Appellant.

Daniel Hilton (argued), Deputy Attorney General; Kevin 

Vienna, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Julie 

Garland, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Kamala D. 

Harris, Attorney General of California, Office of the 

Attorney General, San Diego, California, for RespondentAppellee.

 ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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MENA V. LONG 3

OPINION

NGUYEN, Circuit Judge:

The Supreme Court held in Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 

269 (2005), that a district court has discretion to stay, rather 

than dismiss, a timely-filed “mixed” petition for habeas 

corpus relief—that is, a single petition that includes both 

exhausted and unexhausted claims. Today we join several 

of our sister circuits in holding that the Rhines stay-andabeyance procedure is not limited to mixed petitions, and a 

district court may stay a petition that raises only unexhausted 

claims. Because the district court here held otherwise, we 

reverse and remand.

I.

Petitioner Armando Mena received a 40-year prison 

sentence after pleading guilty to five counts of lewd and 

lascivious acts by use of force for sexually abusing his 

stepdaughters and their cousin. Mena filed a notice of appeal 

and a request for certificate of probable cause challenging 

the validity of his plea, asserting that his counsel had given 

him defective advice concerning his plea and sentence. The 

state trial court granted the request for certificate of probable 

cause.

On direct appeal, Mena’s appointed counsel filed a brief 

under People v. Wende, 600 P.2d 1071 (Cal. 1979), and 

Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), setting forth a 

statement of facts but identifying no potential arguable 

issues. The California Court of Appeal invited Mena to file 

a personal supplemental brief, but Mena failed to do so. The 

California Court of Appeal then conducted an independent 

review of the entire record, found no arguable issues, and 

issued an opinion affirming the judgment of the trial court.

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4 MENA V. LONG

Mena next filed a state habeas petition in the California 

Supreme Court alleging ineffective assistance of trial and 

appellate counsel. The California Supreme Court denied the 

petition in a one-sentence opinion citing People v. Duvall, 

886 P.2d 1252, 1258 (Cal. 1995), and In re Swain, 209 P.2d 

793, 796 (Cal. 1949), indicating that Mena had failed to 

“state fully and with particularity the facts on which relief is 

sought.” Duvall, 886 P.2d at 1258; Swain, 209 P.2d at 796.

Proceeding to federal court, Mena next filed a timely pro 

se petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the Central District of 

California. Noting various deficiencies in the petition, the 

district court issued an order appointing counsel for Mena 

and dismissing the petition without prejudice. The court 

noted that all of Mena’s claims appeared to be unexhausted 

because the California Supreme Court denied his state 

habeas petition without reaching the merits. About eight 

months later, but still within the limitations period, Mena 

filed his First Amended Petition, raising four constitutional 

claims which he conceded were unexhausted, while at the 

same time moving for a stay under Rhines v. Weber so he 

could exhaust those claims in state court.1

The magistrate judge issued a Report and 

Recommendation recommending that the district court deny 

Mena’s request for a Rhines stay and dismiss his petition 

without prejudice. The magistrate judge reasoned that the 

case was “not an appropriate case for invocation of the stayand-abeyance procedure authorized by Rhines because that 

procedure applies only to mixed petitions and petitioner here 

has conceded that the operative [petition] is not a mixed 

petition.” The district court adopted the Report and 

 

 1 Mena does not dispute the district court’s conclusion that his claims 

were unexhausted, and thus we do not review that issue.

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MENA V. LONG 5

Recommendation in full and denied Mena’s request for a 

Rhines stay. 

We granted a certificate of appealability on “whether the 

district court properly denied appellant’s request for a stay, 

including whether the district court has discretion to use the 

stay and abeyance procedure outlined in Rhines v. Weber, 

544 U.S. 269 (2005), and Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408 

(2005), to stay and hold in abeyance a habeas petition 

containing only unexhausted claims.”

II.

Generally, a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 may 

“not be granted unless it appears that . . . the applicant has 

exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State 

. . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). Over thirty years ago, the 

Supreme Court interpreted this provision to require district 

courts to dismiss petitions that contain even one unexhausted 

claim. Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 510 (1982). 

Importantly, however, “Lundy was decided at a time when 

petitioners could return to federal court after exhausting their 

unexhausted claims to ‘present their perfected petitions with 

relative ease,’ as there was no statute of limitations on filing 

federal habeas petitions.” Doe v. Jones, 762 F.3d 1174, 1177 

(10th Cir. 2014) (quoting Rhines, 544 U.S. at 274). Then 

came the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 

1996 (“AEDPA”), which “dramatically altered the 

landscape” by establishing a one-year statute of limitations 

for such petitions. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 274. Because of 

AEDPA’s brief limitations period, petitioners who brought 

unexhausted claims to federal court faced the possibility that 

they would have insufficient time to exhaust those claims in 

state court then return to federal court. The Supreme Court 

confronted this issue in Rhines v. Weber, where it held that 

under certain circumstances district courts may stay and hold 

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6 MENA V. LONG

in abeyance mixed petitions to allow petitioners to exhaust 

their unexhausted claims without losing their place in federal 

court. Id. at 275–77.

We have not addressed in our circuit whether such a stayand-abeyance procedure is available when a petition is fully 

unexhausted, not mixed. But our sister circuits—the Third, 

Seventh, and Tenth—that have done so have all held that 

Rhines applies to a petition that includes solely unexhausted 

claims. See Doe, 762 F.3d at 1174; Heleva v. Brooks, 

581 F.3d 187, 191 (3d Cir. 2009); Dolis v. Chambers, 

454 F.3d 721, 724 (7th Cir. 2006). We agree.

Like the Supreme Court’s analysis in Rhines, our 

analysis begins with the general principle that “[d]istrict 

courts do ordinarily have authority to issue stays where such 

a stay would be a proper exercise of discretion.” Rhines, 

544 U.S. at 276 (citations omitted). As the Court 

recognized, AEDPA does not eliminate district courts’ 

authority to issue stays in habeas proceedings, but rather—

at least in cases of mixed petitions—limits it to when “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 

dilatory litigation tactics.” Id. at 278. Similarly here, we 

find no authority eliminating the district courts’ presumed 

discretion to issue stays in cases of fully unexhausted 

petitions, and we find no reason to adopt limits on that 

discretion different from those set forth in Rhines.

Indeed, this application of Rhines is supported, if not 

required, by statements in other Supreme Court cases 

suggesting that petitioners with fully unexhausted petitions 

can seek stays. Just one month after deciding Rhines, the 

Court considered in Pace v. DiGuglielmo whether AEDPA’s 

one-year statute of limitations is tolled when a petitioner 

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MENA V. LONG 7

files an untimely petition in state court. Holding that the 

statute is not tolled, the Court added:

A prisoner seeking postconviction relief 

might avoid this predicament . . . 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. . . . 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.

Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 416 (2005). Notably, 

the petition in Pace was not mixed, and the Court gave no 

indication that its statement applied only to mixed petitions. 

Heleva, 581 F.3d at 191. It would be odd, to say the least, 

for the Supreme Court to suggest a stay procedure to a 

petitioner who could not have used it, and to “recommend[] 

this course of action without any mention that it could apply 

only to a mixed petition.” Id. We can only conclude that the 

Court expected Rhines to apply to fully unexhausted 

petitions.2 Accord Id.

The state argues that because Rhines concerned a mixed 

petition, the pre-AEDPA rule established in Rose v. Lundy

continues to govern fully unexhausted petitions, and 

mandates dismissal. But the state’s argument not only begs 

 

 2 At least one other Supreme Court case provides similar indications. 

See Gonzalez v. Thaler, 132 S.Ct. 641, 655 (2012) (“To the extent a 

petitioner has had his or her federal filing period severely truncated by a 

delay in the [state appellate court] mandate’s issuance and has 

unexhausted claims that must be raised on state habeas review, such a 

petitioner could file a request for a stay and abeyance from the federal 

district court.”).

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8 MENA V. LONG

the question of whether Rhines was in fact limited to mixed 

petitions, it also ignores the context of Lundy. When Lundy 

was decided, there was no need for the stay procedure set 

forth in Rhines—AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations 

had not yet been enacted. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 274. Not only 

that, the dismissal mandated in Lundy achieved the same 

result as the stay procedure in Rhines—petitioners could 

exhaust their claims in state court then return to federal 

court. Against this backdrop, it is clear that Lundy did not 

address, let alone foreclose, the use of a stay-and-abeyance 

procedure.

Moreover, even setting aside the Supreme Court’s 

statement in Pace, we do not find the distinctions between 

mixed petitions and fully unexhausted petitions sufficiently 

meaningful to warrant different treatment. In both cases, 

petitioners who are denied stays run the risk of forever losing 

federal review of their claims. We find unpersuasive the 

state’s claim that different treatment is nonetheless justified 

because mixed petitions, unlike fully unexhausted ones, 

demonstrate that petitioners at least attempted to pursue state 

remedies. Even accepting the premise as true, the test set 

forth in Rhines better addresses this concern by ensuring that 

a stay is granted only when the petitioner shows, among 

other things, “good cause for his failure to exhaust.” Rhines, 

544 U.S. at 278; see also Doe, 762 F.3d at 1181 (“Whether 

they have mixed or unmixed petitions, petitioners with little 

chance of exhausting their claims in state court and returning 

to federal court before the limitations period runs should not 

be foreclosed from the very mechanism designed to protect 

against such risk if they can satisfy the Rhines standards.”). 

Denying stays to all petitioners with fully unexhausted 

petitions, without regard to good cause excusing a failure to

exhaust, creates a needlessly overbroad rule.

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MENA V. LONG 9

Finally, the state cites Rasberry v. Garcia, 448 F.3d 1150 

(9th Cir. 2006), but that opinion does not dictate a different 

result. In Rasberry, the district court had dismissed the 

petitioner’s first petition because it contained only 

unexhausted claims, then, when the petitioner re-filed his 

petition after exhausting those claims, dismissed the second 

petition as untimely. Id. at 1152–53. On appeal, the 

petitioner argued that the district court erred in denying him 

equitable relief—such as equitable tolling or relation back of 

his filing date—before dismissing his second petition. 

According to the petitioner, he was entitled to such relief 

because the district court failed to inform him before 

dismissing his first petition that he could amend the petition 

to include two exhausted claims he had omitted and then 

seek a stay. Id. at 1151. Rejecting the petitioner’s argument, 

we reasoned that it would be “unworkable” to require the 

district court to intuit that the petitioner had excluded 

exhausted claims from his petition, then to advise him to add 

those claims and seek a stay from the court:

District courts have the discretion to hold a 

mixed petition in abeyance pending 

exhaustion of the unexhausted claims. 

Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 125 S.Ct. 

1528, 1535, 161 L.Ed.2d 440 (2005). We 

decline to extend that rule to the situation 

where the original habeas petition contained 

only unexhausted claims, but the record 

shows that there were exhausted claims that 

could have been included. Such an extension 

would result in a heavy burden on the district 

court to determine whether a petitioner who 

files a petition that on its face is unexhausted 

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10 MENA V. LONG

may have other exhausted claims that could 

have been raised.

Id. at 1154.

As the Tenth Circuit correctly noted, our statement in 

Rasberry, “read in light of the case’s factual context,” 

concerned only the limited question of whether the district 

court must inform petitioners that an amendment-and-stay 

procedure may be available, not the broader question of 

whether Rhines applies to fully unexhausted petitions. See 

Doe, 762 F.3d at 1180. Indeed, the district court proceedings 

were before Rhines was decided, and thus the petitioner 

neither requested a Rhines stay nor argued on appeal that 

Rhines applied to fully unexhausted petitions. Addressing 

only the arguments actually presented, we thus assumed 

without deciding that Rhines was limited to mixed petitions. 

In short, we did not confront the issue presented here. See

Heleva, 581 F.3d at 192 (noting that Rasberry “was focused 

on the issue of mixed petitions”); see also Doe, 762 F.3d at 

1180 (“In light of Rasberry’s request for a notice 

requirement, the Ninth Circuit declined to apply Rhines to 

the petition before it . . . .”). Thus Rasberry does not control 

the present case.3

III.

In sum, we hold that a district court has the discretion to 

stay and hold in abeyance fully unexhausted petitions under 

the circumstances set forth in Rhines. Because the district 

court here dismissed the petition on the assumption that it 

 

 3 To the extent our stray language in Rasberry might be interpreted to 

suggest otherwise, it is nevertheless not binding. See United States v. 

Johnson, 256 F.3d 895, 914 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (noting that a ruling 

becomes the law of the circuit when resolved “after reasoned

consideration”).

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MENA V. LONG 11

lacked authority to grant Mena’s request for a Rhines stay, 

we reverse and remand for it to decide in the first instance 

whether Mena is entitled to such a stay.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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