Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-16523/USCOURTS-ca9-13-16523-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Frank X. Chavez
Appellee
Christopher Joseph Maes
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHRISTOPHER JOSEPH MAES,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

FRANK X. CHAVEZ, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 13-16523

D.C. No.

2:12-cv-01634-

KJM-DAD

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Kimberly J. Mueller, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

April 13, 2015—San Francisco, California

Filed July 7, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski and Susan P. Graber, Circuit

Judges, and Michael A. Ponsor,* Senior District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Ponsor

* The Honorable Michael A. Ponsor, Senior United States District Judge

for the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 1 of 9
2 MAES V. CHAVEZ

SUMMARY**

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the dismissal as untimely of a habeas

corpus petition brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

The time during which the petitioner’s state-court habeas

petition was pending was not counted against the one year

that he had to file his federal petition. The panel held that the

petitioner was not entitled to additional tolling for the time

during which he could have, but did not, file a further petition

for habeas relief in California state court.

COUNSEL

Faye Arfa (argued), Los Angeles, California, for PetitionerAppellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General; Michael P. Farrell,

Senior Assistant Attorney General; Brian G. Smiley and

Michael A. Canzoneri, Supervising Deputy Attorneys

General; Justin Riley (argued), Deputy Attorney General,

Sacramento, California; for Respondent-Appellee.

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

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

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 2 of 9
MAES V. CHAVEZ 3

OPINION

PONSOR, District Judge:

After his state court conviction became final on April 12,

2011, Petitioner Christopher Maes had one year to file any

federal habeas corpus petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). Two

days shy of one year, Maes filed a petition for habeas corpus

in the state superior court. The period during which this

“properly filed” state petition was “pending” was not counted

against the year that Maes had to file his federal petition. Id.

§ 2244(d)(2). This uncounted period ended on May 7, 2012,

when the Superior Court of Shasta County, California, denied

his state habeas petition, leaving Maes two days to file for

federal habeas relief. Because Maes waited until May 15,

2012, to file a federal petition, the district court dismissed it

as untimely. Maes now appeals, arguing that he had at least

sixty days after the denial of his state habeas petition to file

for federal habeas relief. We disagree and affirm the district

court’s decision to dismiss.

I.

The procedural background of this case may be succinctly

summarized. On April 8, 2009, Christopher Maes was

convicted by a jury in Shasta County, California, of failing to

provide notice of a change of address as a registered sex

offender. As a three-time serious felon, Maes was sentenced

to twenty-five years to life in state prison. Cal. Penal Code

§ 1170.12(c)(2)(A).

Maes unsuccessfully sought direct appellate review. On

October 21, 2010, the California Court of Appeal affirmed his

conviction. The California Supreme Court denied his next

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 3 of 9
4 MAES V. CHAVEZ

appeal on January 12, 2011. Maes had ninety days to seek

further direct review via a writ of certiorari to the U.S.

Supreme Court. Maes did not take this step, and it is now

undisputed that, for statute of limitations purposes, the direct

appeal of his conviction became final on April 12, 2011. 

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A).

Pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty

Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), federal habeas petitions are subject

to a one-year statute of limitations. Id. § 2244(d). This oneyear clock began ticking for Maes on April 13, 2011.

As noted above, on April 10, 2012, two days before the

end of the one-year limitations period, Maes filed a petition

for a writ of habeas corpus with the state superior court. On

May 7, 2012, the Shasta County Superior Court denied this

petition. Under California law, Maes had the right to present

a new state habeas petition to the next level of the California

court system. Maes, however, chose not to file any further

petition in state court. Instead, he decided to file a petition

for habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern

District of California on May 15, 2012.

Respondent moved to dismiss the federal petition as timebarred. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s

Report & Recommendation and dismissed the petition,

finding that the statute of limitations had expired. This ruling

is now before us.

II.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. 

We review de novo a dismissal of a petition for writ of habeas

corpus. Spitsyn v. Moore, 345 F.3d 796, 799 (9th Cir. 2003).

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 4 of 9
MAES V. CHAVEZ 5

Under AEDPA, the one-year statute of limitations begins

to run on the date when the state-court conviction becomes

final. Id. § 2244(d)(1)(A). To accommodate any collateral

state court habeas proceeding, however, the statute provides

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 any period of limitation.” Id. § 2244(d)(2).

The California habeas process contains a wrinkle that

somewhat complicates the calculation of this uncounted

period. Unlike other states, California does not have a

statutorily mandated deadline by which a petitioner must file

a notice of appeal to a higher state court of a lower court’s

denial of a habeas petition. Instead, each level in the

California judicial system has original jurisdiction. Cal.

Const. art. VI, § 10. To obtain review of an adverse ruling,

a petitioner must file a new petition to each subsequent court

within a reasonable time of the adverse lower court’s

decision. See Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214, 224 (2002)

(explaining that in California “the only avenue for a prisoner

to challenge the denial of his application in the superior court

is to file a ‘new petition’ in the appellate court”). In light of

this unusual system of collateral review, “AEDPA’s statute

of limitations will be tolled . . . only if the prisoner timely

filed his subsequent petition in a higher state court.” Maxwell

v. Roe, 628 F.3d 486, 495–96 (9th Cir. 2010).

In California, so long as the state prisoner “filed a petition

for appellate review within a ‘reasonable time,’ he could

count as ‘pending’ (and add to the 1-year time limit) the days

between (1) the time the lower state court reached an adverse

decision, and (2) the day he filed a petition in the higher state

court.” Evans v. Chavis, 546 U.S. 189, 193 (2006) (citing

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 5 of 9
6 MAES V. CHAVEZ

Saffold, 536 U.S. at 222–23). In adopting this approach, the

Supreme Court reasoned that, with the exception of the

absence of an explicit deadline to file an appeal, California’s

collateral review process was similar to others states’

systems. See Saffold, 536 U.S. at 222 (“The upshot is that

California’s collateral review process functions very much

like that of other States, but for the fact that its timeliness rule

is indeterminate.”). Further, the Court concluded that, for

subsequent petitions brought to higher California courts

within a reasonable time, applying a retroactive tolling period

would promote the principles of AEDPA’s tolling statute:

comity, finality, and federalism. Id.

Maes now seeks to bend this tolling rule backwards. He

points out, correctly, that if he had filed a further petition for

habeas relief in state court within a reasonable time following

the lower state court’s adverse ruling, then that reasonable

period would have been excluded from the year he had to file

for federal habeas relief. He then argues, in essence, that he

is entitled to have this same reasonable period uncounted in

calculating the year available to file for federal habeas

relief—even where he has not filed anything in state court.

The statute does not work that way. Maes chose not to

exhaust his full cycle of potential state law habeas relief. By

filing his federal petition without pursuing further habeas

petitions before the higher California state courts, he

effectively abandoned any effort to obtain a habeas remedy

before the state court. See Welch v. Carey, 350 F.3d 1079,

1083 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (finding that a California

petitioner who did not seek further review of his superior

court petition abandoned his first full round of review and

later embarked on a new round of review with a subsequent

petition filed four years later). The unavoidable fact,

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 6 of 9
MAES V. CHAVEZ 7

therefore, is that, at the time Maes sought habeas relief

before the federal court, he simply did not have pending “a

properly filed application for State post-conviction or other

collateral review.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Under these

circumstances, he is not entitled to statutory tolling. Pace v.

DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 417 (2005).

This conclusion flows inevitably from a common sense

construction of the word “pending.” § 2244(d)(2). “[A]n

application is pending as long as the ordinary state collateral

review processis ‘in continuance’—i.e., ‘until the completion

of’ that process.” Saffold, 536 U.S. at 219–20 (quoting

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1669 (1993)). 

Maes effectively accepted the decision of the state superior

court, bringing an end to any process by which he sought

state habeas relief. Accordingly, his state process was no

longer “in continuance.”

Adopting Maes’s suggestion that he is entitled to a sixtyday—or perhaps thirty-day, or some other “reasonable”—

period of time to file for federal habeas relief, when no

properly filed state court proceeding is pending not only runs

counter to the plain language of the statute, but it also

disregards the purpose of AEDPA’s tolling provision. The

statute is “designed to protect the principles of comity,

finality, and federalism, by promoting the exhaustion of state

remedies while respecting the interest in the finality of state

court judgments.” Id. at 222 (internal quotation marks

omitted). Recognizing a hypothetical grace period enjoyed

by a would-be federal habeas petitioner while no state court

proceeding is pending does nothing to protect the integrity of

California’s habeas process, because no state process is in

motion to protect.

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 7 of 9
8 MAES V. CHAVEZ

To summarize, Maes’s state law conviction became final

on April 12, 2011. His AEDPA clock began to tick the next

day. On April 10, 2012—363 days into the tolling

period—Maes filed his state habeas petition. On May 7,

2012, the California Superior Court denied his petition. From

April 10, 2012, to May 7, 2012, the limitations period for

filing a federal petition was tolled. On May 15, 2012, when

Maes filed his federal petition, he had had no state petition

pending for more than a week. Because those days were

countable, Maes’s federal petition was filed more than 365

days after the one-year period began. He filed too late, and

the district court’s ruling dismissing his petition as untimely

was perfectly correct.1

III.

We cannot take pleasure in a result that deprives Maes of

the opportunity to argue for federal habeas relief because of

his failure to file his petition a few days earlier. Maes was

sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison based on his

third serious criminal conviction, failure to provide notice of

a change of residence as a registered sex offender. He now

loses any meaningful opportunity for collateral review in the

federal courts because he was unable, proceeding pro se, to

navigate the intersection between California’s convoluted

habeas process and AEDPA. This result is regrettable but

1 Even now, it is possible for Maes to file a petition with the state

appellate court. If that court were to conclude that the petition was filed

within a “reasonable time” under California’s unique standard, Maes may

have an argument for statutory tolling for the time between the superior

court denial and the filing in the state appellate court. We express no

opinion about this scenario, nor do we decide whether, if this scenario

were to come to pass, Maes could seek Rule 60(b) reconsideration of the

denial of his federal petition.

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 8 of 9
MAES V. CHAVEZ 9

cannot justify an unsupported expansion of the one-year

limitations period. All boundaries, including statutes of

limitations, inevitably define positions slightly inside or

slightly outside their limits, and Maes’s petition clearly fell

outside.

We have previously noted the difficulties that courts and

litigants confront because of California’s unique system of

habeas review. See, e.g., Velasquez v. Kirkland, 639 F.3d

964, 967 (9th Cir. 2011); Gaston v. Palmer, 447 F.3d 1165,

1167 (9th Cir. 2006). The Supreme Court has done the same. 

See Evans, 546 U.S. at 199 (“Alternatively, the California

Legislature might itself decide to impose more determinate

time limits, conformingCalifornia law in this respect with the

law of most other States.”). So far California has taken no

steps to simplify its unwieldy habeas process. This creates

work for judges and, more seriously, snares for litigants, as

this case demonstrates.

AFFIRMED.

 Case: 13-16523, 07/07/2015, ID: 9600615, DktEntry: 39-1, Page 9 of 9