Opinion ID: 804463
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Statute of Limitations

Text: Where, as here, the district court has denied a habeas petition on a procedural ground without taking evidence, we afford de novo review. Wood v. Spencer, 487 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2007). -14-
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), the statute of limitations runs from the latest of several specified dates. One such date is the date on which the factual predicate of the [habeas claim] could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence. Id. § 2244(d)(1)(D). Holmes argues that the factual predicate for his primary ineffective assistance of counsel claim is the fact that the alleged deal with the prosecutor regarding the Rule 29 Motion was precluded as a matter of law. Further, he argues that he could not have discovered this fact through the exercise of due diligence until the summer of 2000. Thus, Holmes argues, the statute of limitations on his habeas claim did not even start to run until he filed his Rule 30 Motion in August of 2000. However, Holmes's argument misconstrues the language of the statute. We have interpreted § 2244(d)(1)(D)'s reference to the phrase factual predicate to mean evidentiary facts or events[,] and not court rulings or legal consequences of the facts. Brackett v. United States, 270 F.3d 60, 69 (1st Cir. 2001), abrogated on other grounds by Johnson v. United States, 544 U.S. 295 (2005). Here, Holmes claims that Graham's strategy to enter a guilty plea and file a Rule 29 motion was constitutionally deficient. The principal facts upon which this claim is predicated -- that Holmes originally intended to go to trial; that his attorney instead convinced him to plead guilty; and that this -15- course of action was influenced by his expectation of a subsequent sentence reduction -- were known, at the latest, by the date of his conviction on May 1, 1998. That this advice may have been flawed, and could potentially form the foundation for an ineffective assistance claim, are the legal consequences of those facts -- matters of law that are beyond the purview of § 2244(d)(1)(D). See Brackett, 270 F.3d at 69; Murphy v. Strack, 9 F. App'x 71, 73 (2d Cir. 2001) (summary order) (The factual predicates of [the petitioner's] claims are that he testified at his trial and that his attorney told him he was required to testify. . . . What [the petitioner] contends he did not know prior to 1999 was not a factual matter but rather a matter of law, i.e., his constitutional right not to testify. The latter is beyond the scope of § 2244(d) (1)(D).); Owens v. Boyd, 235 F.3d 356, 359 (7th Cir. 2000) (Unlike some state systems, which start the [limitation period] only when a party knows (or should recognize) that a legal wrong has been done, [§ 2244(d)(1)(D)] use[s] objective indicators as triggers. [. . .] Time begins when the prisoner knows (or through diligence could discover) the important facts, not when the prisoner recognizes their legal significance.). Thus, in all events, Holmes's discovery that his attorney's advice was allegedly misleading, while unfortunate, is ultimately unavailing under the language of § 2244(d)(1)(D). -16-
As discussed above, we reject Holmes's argument that the one-year clock began to run in August of 2000. The statute of limitations thus began to run on May 1, 1998, the date Holmes's conviction became final. However, under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2), [t]he 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 under [section 2244(d)] (emphasis added). Holmes argues that his Rule 29 Motion, like his Rule 30 Motion, was an application for collateral review, and therefore tolled the limitation period while the Rule 29 motion was pending.4 The threshold issue is whether a Rule 29 motion comes within the scope of AEDPA's tolling provision at all -- in other words, whether it should be characterized as an application for State post-conviction or other collateral review. See id. At the time when the district court dismissed the habeas petition, the 4 Holmes made this argument in the district court in opposition to his original motion to dismiss, but elected not to assert it in reply to the Commonwealth's renewed motion to dismiss. While it could be argued that Holmes forfeited this claim, we do not believe the circumstances warrant a finding of forfeiture here. In response to Holmes's original Rule 29 argument, Respondents cited case law from the District of Massachusetts holding that a Rule 29 motion is not an application for State post-conviction or other collateral review within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2). Those cases were good law at the time. This Court revived the Rule 29 issue when it sua sponte ordered the parties to address the effect of Kholi. -17- prevailing precedent suggested that a motion to revise or revoke was not the type of post-conviction application for review envisioned by § 2244(d)(2), and thus would not exclude any time from the statutory limitations period. See, e.g., Phillips, 477 F. Supp. 2d at 306 (holding that a Rule 29 motion is not a collateral attack under § 2244(d)(2) because it is part and parcel of the underlying proceeding in which the defendant was sentenced); Ledoux v. Dennehy, 327 F. Supp. 2d 97, 99-100 (D. Mass. 2004); Bland v. Hall, No. 00-12020-RWZ, 2002 WL 989532, at  (D. Mass. May 14, 2002). Within a week of the district court's order, however, we issued Kholi v. Wall, 582 F.3d 147 (1st Cir. 2009), aff'd, Wall v. Kholi, 131 S. Ct. 1278 (2011). In Kholi we held that the filing of a state post-conviction motion to reduce an imposed sentence, in the nature of a plea for discretionary leniency, tolls the AEDPA's limitations period. 582 F.3d at 149; see also Wall, 131 S. Ct. at 1287 ([A] motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law is an application for 'collateral review' that triggers AEDPA's tolling provision.). Kholi concerned a provision of Rhode Island procedural law, Rhode Island Superior Court Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a). See Kholi, 582 F.3d at 151. However, we see no reason why its holding should not apply with equal force here. Indeed, we can discern no basis (nor do the parties supply one) for meaningfully -18- distinguishing the Massachusetts rule from the Rhode Island rule.5 Accordingly, we conclude that a motion to revise or revoke sentence under Massachusetts Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(a) constitutes a request for State post-conviction or other collateral review within the meaning of AEDPA. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Thus, Holmes's Rule 29 Motion was a request for State post-conviction or other collateral review within the meaning of AEDPA. To toll the statute of limitations, however, the motion must have been properly filed. Id. In order to determine whether the motion was properly filed, we must look to Massachusetts law. See Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8 (2000) (holding that an application for post-conviction review is properly filed for § 2244(d)(2) purposes when its delivery and acceptance are in compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings). 5 For the sake of comparison, we include the pertinent language of the two rules: Rhode Island Rule 35(a): The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time. The court may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner and it may reduce any sentence when a motion is filed. . . . R.I. Super. Ct. Rule Crim. Proc. 35(a). Massachusetts Rule 29(a): The trial judge upon his own motion or the written motion of a defendant . . . may, upon such terms and conditions as he shall order, revise or revoke such sentence if it appears that justice may not have been done. Mass. R. Crim. P. 29(a). -19- Respondents argue that Holmes's Rule 29 Motion was improper under Commonwealth v. DeJesús, in which the SJC stated that to be properly filed, a [Rule 29] motion to revise or revoke must be accompanied by an affidavit, or otherwise indicate the grounds on which it is based. 795 N.E.2d 547, 552 (Mass. 2003) (emphasis added). Here, it is undisputed that Holmes's Rule 29 Motion and accompanying Affidavit did not specify the grounds on which the Motion was based. Therefore, Respondents argue, under DeJesús, the Rule 29 Motion was not properly filed and did not toll the statute of limitations. Holmes counters by noting that DeJesús, which was the first case to expressly delineate such a stringent filing requirement, was decided more than five years after he filed his Rule 29 motion. Therefore, he argues, it would be unfair to apply DeJesús retroactively to his Rule 29 Motion. We sympathize somewhat with Holmes's argument that applying DeJesús retroactively would be unfair. Nevertheless, we must look to Massachusetts law to decide whether to apply DeJesús retroactively, see Artuz, 531 U.S. at 8, and Massachusetts law favors Respondents. Several Massachusetts courts have applied DeJesús retroactively to Rule 29 motions that were filed prior to the issuance of the DeJesús decision in 2003. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Fenton F., 809 N.E.2d 1005, 1011 (Mass. 2004) (finding that a trial attorney's failure to file a Rule 29 motion in 1993, where he believed that no grounds existed to reduce the -20- defendant's sentence, was not ineffective assistance of counsel because one cannot file a motion to revise or revoke without stating the grounds on which it is based); Commonwealth v. Niditch, 883 N.E.2d 341, at  (Mass. App. Ct. 2008) (unpublished order) (noting that defendant's perfunctory motion to revise or revoke, filed on January 6, 1998, was improper because it was not accompanied by an affidavit, [and did not] otherwise indicate the grounds on which it [was] based); Commonwealth v. Glover, 823 N.E.2d 436, at  (Mass. App. Ct. 2005) (unpublished order) (holding that a Rule 29 motion filed prior to DeJesús was defective in that it was not accompanied by the required affidavit as specified by [R]ule 29(b), [and] did [not] adequately state the grounds for relief in order to be considered properly filed); see also Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 868 N.E.2d 183, at  (Mass. App. Ct. 2007) (unpublished order) (The defendant argues that [R]ule 29 allows a defendant to file a revise and revoke motion and then, at some unspecified time later, to file supplemental affidavits that activate the originally filed motion. We disagree with this novel construction of [R]ule 29.). But see Commonwealth v. Oliver, 905 N.E.2d 604, at  (Mass. App. Ct. 2009) (unpublished order) (signaling, in dicta, a reluctance to apply the standard from DeJesús to a Rule 29 motion filed in 1999, and denying the motion on other grounds). We therefore conclude that DeJesús does apply to Holmes's Rule 29 Motion, and further conclude that, under -21- DeJesús, the motion was not properly filed for AEDPA purposes, and therefore cannot serve as a tolling mechanism under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).