Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 887

1040 

OCTOBER TERM, 2009 

November 30, 2009 

558 U. S. 

granted.  Certiorari  granted,  judgment  vacated,  and  case  re­
manded  for  further  consideration  in  light  of  Jimenez  v.  Quarter-
man,  555  U. S.  113  (2009). 

Justice  Scalia,  dissenting. 
Petitioner was convicted and sentenced in Louisiana state court. 
His  motion  for  reconsideration  of  the  sentence  was  denied  on 
April 15, 2003, and he did not appeal.  After initiating postconvic­
tion  relief,  he  ﬁled  in  the  trial  court  a  “motion  to  vacate  sentence 
and  resentence  defendant”  on  the  ground  that  he  had  not  had  a 
lawyer  present  at  the  sentencing.  That  motion  was  granted,  and 
on  June  2,  2004,  petitioner  was  resentenced,  this  time  with  a 
lawyer,  to  the  same  term  of  incarceration. 

After  the  conclusion  of  state  postconviction  relief,  petitioner 
ﬁled a petition in federal court for habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. 
§ 2254.  The  District  Court  thought  that  the  1-year  statute  of 
limitations  provided  by  § 2244(d)(1)(A)  started  to  run  on  May 
15,  2003,  30  days  after  the  Louisiana  trial  court  denied  peti­
tioner’s  motion  for  reconsideration  of  sentence.  Accordingly,  it 
concluded  that  the  statute  had  expired  before  petitioner  ﬁled  his 
federal  habeas  petition.  The  Fifth  Circuit  denied  a  certiﬁcate 
of  appealability. 

Our  recent  decision  in  Jimenez  v.  Quarterman,  555  U. S.  113 
(2009),  held  that  the  statute  of  limitations  of  § 2244(d)(1)(A)  does 
not  begin  to  run  until  the  expiration  of  the  time  allowed  to  seek 
direct  appeal,  even  if  the  state  court  allows  an  out-of-time  appeal 
during  state  collateral  review.  Id.,  at  121.  The  parties  do 
not  agree,  and  it  is  not  clear,  whether  under  Louisiana  law  peti­
tioner’s  motion  to  vacate  would  be  regarded  as  restarting  the 
clock  for  his  direct  appeal.  If  so,  then  the  Jimenez  error  is  obvi­
ous;  if  not,  there  is  no  error.  Today,  without  request  by  (or  even 
warning  to)  the  parties,  the  Court  grants  certiorari,  vacates  the 
Fifth Circuit’s judgment without determination of the merits, and 
remands  for  further  consideration  in  light  of  Jimenez. 

I  certainly  agree  that  we  have  the  power  to  GVR  “where  an 
intervening  factor  has  arisen  that  has  a  legal  bearing  upon  the 
decision.”  Lawrence  v.  Chater,  516  U. S.  163,  191–192  (1996) 
(Scalia,  J.,  dissenting).  The  purpose  of  such  an  “intervening­
factor”  GVR  is  to  give  the  court  to  which  we  remand  the  ﬁrst 
opportunity  to  consider  the  factor—in  this  case  a  new  decision  of 
ours.  Though  we  have  sometimes  GVR’d  in  light  of  decisions