Opinion ID: 3068508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Perkins Failed to Diligently Pursue

Text: His Ineffective Assistance Claims On appeal, Perkins contends that the district court erred in failing to construe either of his two motions for an out-of-time appeal as § 2255 motions and that these failures constituted “rare and exceptional” circumstances, in the form of government-imposed impediments, that prevented him from timely filing. Perkins correctly argues that courts should liberally construe the substance of pro se defendants’ filings, regardless of their form or title. See, e.g., Andrews v. United States, 373 U.S. 334, 338 (1963). As Perkins notes, we also previously have required district courts to recharacterize as § 2255 motions both requests for out-of-time appeals and Rule 60 motions that in substance bring ineffective assistance of counsel claims. See United States v. Moron-Solis, 388 F. App’x 443, 444-45 (5th Cir. 2010) (unpublished) (motion for out-of-time appeal); United States v. Flores, 380 F. App’x 371, 371-72 (5th Cir. 2010) (unpublished) (Rule 60 motion). Whatever the merit of Perkins’s arguments, however, we do not reach the second question of whether the district court’s alleged mistakes constitute “rare and exceptional circumstances” because, on the facts presented, he cannot meet the other prong of equitable tolling: reasonable diligence. Because Perkins must show diligence in order to establish that the district court abused its discretion in denying equitable tolling, we therefore must answer the first question “no.” Perkins never appealed the denial of the two motions he now contends should have been construed as timely § 2255 applications. His argument, then, is 6 Case: 10-10477 Document: 00511839368 Page: 7 Date Filed: 04/30/2012 No. 10-10477 limited to asserting that the district court’s failure to construe those motions as § 2255 applications is a ground for equitable tolling. We disagree. As an initial matter, Moron-Solis and Flores are distinguishable because both concerned appeals taken during the one-year limitations period. Further, unlike here, the defendants in both cases could have filed timely § 2255 motions on remand. More fundamentally, the district court’s ostensible error did not “prevent” Perkins from filing a § 2255 motion during the limitations period or within a reasonable amount of time after the district court denied his second motion for an out-of-time appeal. See Coleman, 184 F.3d at 402.4 “The word ‘prevent’ requires the petitioner to demonstrate a causal relationship between the extraordinary circumstances on which the claim for equitable tolling rests and the lateness of his filing, a demonstration that cannot be made if the petitioner, acting with reasonable diligence, could have filed on time notwithstanding the extraordinary circumstances.” Valverde v. Stinson, 224 F.3d 129, 134 (2d Cir. 2000) (citing, inter alia, Fisher, 174 F.3d at 716) (other internal citations, quotation marks, and footnote omitted). Perkins has not pointed to any causal link between the district court’s alleged error and his untimeliness. Indeed, rather than misleading Perkins in the exercise of his § 2255 rights, the district court affirmatively informed Perkins of the precise vehicle to raise any ineffective assistance of counsel claims in its order denying Perkins’s first motion for an out-of-time appeal. Accordingly, although Perkins need only have exercised “reasonable . . . not maximum feasible diligence,” Holland, 130 S. Ct. at 2565 (internal quotation marks and 4 Perkins appears to argue that his requests for appointed counsel implicitly raised ineffective assistance of counsel claims. We disagree. Although Perkins’s requests for appointed counsel evince his desire for effective representation, they cannot be read to advance any argument that his previous counsel provided ineffective assistance. 7 Case: 10-10477 Document: 00511839368 Page: 8 Date Filed: 04/30/2012 No. 10-10477 citations omitted), we hold on these facts that Perkins failed to pursue his ineffective assistance of counsel claims with an amount of diligence justifying equitable tolling. Cf. Valverde, 224 F.3d at 134 (“If the person seeking equitable tolling has not exercised reasonable diligence in attempting to file after the extraordinary circumstances began, the link of causation between the extraordinary circumstances and the failure to file is broken, and the extraordinary circumstances therefore did not prevent timely filing.”). Thus, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion, and we need not reach the “rare and exceptional” circumstances question.5 AFFIRMED. 5 Perkins’s cause is not advanced by his contention that the limitations clock should have started only after he had access to appropriate legal materials or discovered his attorney’s alleged failure to file a notice of appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(2), (f)(4) (providing that the limitations period may start on the later of “the date on which the impediment to making a motion created by governmental action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the movant was prevented from making a motion by such governmental action,” or “the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence”). To the extent this is an argument for statutory tolling, we lack jurisdiction to consider it as no COA was granted on that point. To the extent that it relates to his claim of equitable tolling, even if we accepted that Perkins lacked access to such materials and that his attorney failed to file a notice of appeal—and nothing in the record supports those conclusions except Perkins’s allegations and affidavit—the clock would have started no later than when Perkins began researching his first motion for an out-of-time appeal. Assuming that occurred as late as September 2007, Perkins gains only four months on the limitations clock; his § 2255 motion would still be a year late. 8