Opinion ID: 200987
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Instant Habeas Petition

Text: 12 Meanwhile, on August 17, 1998, Neverson filed a new pro se petition for habeas corpus that contained only exhausted claims. The district court (Judge Lindsay) dismissed Neverson's petition as time-barred under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (AEDPA). See Neverson v. Bissonnette, No. CIVA9811719RCL, 1999 WL 33301665, at  (D.Mass. Dec.10, 1999). AEDPA imposed a one-year statute of limitations for § 2254 claims. Codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), that limitations period expired for Neverson's purposes on April 24, 1997, one year after the date of AEDPA's enactment. Neverson, 1999 WL 33301665, at ; see Gaskins v. Duval, 183 F.3d 8, 9 (1st Cir.1999) (allowing a one-year grace period beginning on the date of AEDPA's enactment for prisoners whose convictions became final prior to AEDPA). 13 In his arguments to the district court, Neverson acknowledged AEDPA but argued that the § 2244(d)(1) period was tolled while his first habeas petition was pending. Neverson relied in part on 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2), which tolls the one-year limitations period during the pendency of a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review. He contended that the reference to other collateral review in § 2244(d)(2) meant that the limitations period was tolled during any prior federal habeas proceedings. If so, his second habeas petition was timely. 5 14 Judge Lindsay disagreed, holding that § 2244(d)(2) applied only to state collateral proceedings and that, as a result, the AEDPA limitations period had expired in April 1997, before Neverson filed his state petition for post-conviction relief. See 1999 WL 33301665, at . Judge Lindsay also rejected Neverson's argument that his second petition relate[d] back to his first under Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c). Id. But while he denied Neverson's petition, Judge Lindsay granted a certificate of appealability on both the tolling and relation-back issues. See id. Neverson then perfected his appeal.
15 A panel of this court appointed counsel for Neverson and heard argument on November 9, 2000. Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Duncan v. Walker, 531 U.S. 991, 121 S.Ct. 480, 148 L.Ed.2d 454 (2000) (mem.). Duncan presented one of the two questions raised by Neverson's appeal: whether 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) meant that AEDPA's one-year limitations period was tolled during prior federal habeas corpus proceedings. Accordingly, we stayed Neverson's appeal until June 2001, when the Supreme Court answered that question in the negative. See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 180-81, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001). Then, consistent with Duncan, this court upheld the district court's rejection of Neverson's statutory tolling and relation-back arguments. See Neverson, 261 F.3d at 125-26. 16 Nevertheless, we recognized that the separate doctrine of equitable tolling, if available at all under § 2244(d)(1), might salvage Neverson's claims. Id. at 126-27; see also Duncan, 533 U.S. at 183, 121 S.Ct. 2120 (Stevens, J., concurring) (observing that nothing in Duncan or in AEDPA precludes a federal court from deeming the limitations period tolled for [a federal habeas] petition as a matter of equity). Concluding that Neverson had raised an equitable tolling argument before the district court but that the court had not addressed it, we remanded the case with instructions to consider whether equitable tolling is available under § 2244(d)(1) and, if so, whether it would save Neverson's petition. 261 F.3d at 127. 17
18 On remand, the district court (Chief Judge Young) held that equitable tolling should apply under § 2244(d)(1) and tolled the limitations period for the 118 days that Neverson's first habeas petition was pending before Judge O'Toole. The court also, in an earlier order, allowed Neverson to amend his habeas petition to include claims under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 challenging his deportation. Then on February 4, 2003, after taking briefs and hearing argument, the district court denied Neverson's habeas petition on the merits. See Neverson v. Bissonnette, 242 F.Supp.2d 78, 95 (D.Mass.2003). 6 19 The district court granted a certificate of appealability as to the propriety of equitable tolling and as to each of the substantive grounds on which the court rejected the petitioner's habeas claim. Neverson brought the instant appeal.