Opinion ID: 2785102
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Attorney Dayvid Figler’s Representation

Text: On April 30, 2004, three days after the Nevada Supreme Court issued its remittitur on direct appeal of Rudin’s RUDIN V. MYLES 11 judgment of conviction, Rudin’s appellate counsel, Craig Creel, moved to withdraw as counsel and asked the trial court to appoint post-conviction counsel. The trial court granted Creel’s motion on June 8, 2004. Rudin, proceeding pro per, filed a similar motion on July 14, 2004, also seeking appointment of post-conviction counsel.4 At a hearing on November 10, 2004, after 197 days had passed since the state supreme court issued its remittitur, the court granted Rudin’s motion and appointed attorney Dayvid Figler to represent her.5 Two weeks later, on November 24, 2004, the court issued an order to that effect.6 At the November 2004 hearing at which the state court appointed Figler to represent Rudin, Rudin attempted pro per to file with the court a series of papers. In the district court and on appeal, Rudin contends that those papers would have 4 We assume that the state court was required, under Nevada Rule of Appellate Procedure 46(d)(3)(C), to wait to set a hearing date until after Rudin had filed her pro per motion for appointment of post-conviction counsel. Under that rule, in a post-conviction appeal, an attorney’s motion to withdraw as counsel “shall be accompanied by . . . a motion by defendant to proceed in proper person or with substitute counsel.” 5 The record is not clear as to the reason, if any, that the post-conviction court delayed four months in hearing Rudin’s pro per motion for appointment of post-conviction counsel. Cf. Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 34.740 (requiring “expeditious judicial examination” of petitions for postconviction relief); 34.726 (limiting the period for filing a petition to one year). In the district court, Rudin argued in passing that the state court’s four-month delay was “unnecessarily long” and was a part of the “extraordinary circumstances” that gave rise to her filing delay. She does not renew that argument on appeal. 6 We take November 10, 2004, not November 24, 2004, as the date on which Figler’s representation commenced. 12 RUDIN V. MYLES constituted a “properly filed” post-conviction petition had the court accepted them. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Pursuant to the applicable local rules, however, the court declined to accept them and instead “turned [them] over to Mr. Figler.”7 But Figler never filed them with the court. One month later, in December 2004, Judge Bonaventure, who had presided over Rudin’s trial and post-conviction proceedings up until that point, recused himself sua sponte, and Rudin’s case was reassigned.8 When Rudin’s case was reassigned to another judge on December 29, 2004, 246 days had passed since the Nevada Supreme Court issued its remittitur. Rudin therefore had 119 days left to file a petition for post-conviction relief in state court. With respect to AEDPA, 182 days had passed since that limitations period had begun to run, leaving Rudin with 183 days to file an application for federal habeas relief. Again, the deadlines for filing those petitions were April 27, 2005, and June 30, 2005, respectively. And although Rudin had once tried to file a petition for relief in state court herself, the post-conviction court rejected that effort because the local 7 Rule 3.70 of the Rules of Practice for the Eighth Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada provides that papers “delivered to the clerk of the court by a defendant who has counsel of record will not be filed [but will be] forwarded to that attorney for such consideration as counsel deems appropriate.” 8 Judge Bonaventure recused himself as a result of personal biases that he had against Rudin’s previous appellate counsel, Craig Creel. See Matt Pordum, Bonaventure Won’t Hear Rudin Appeal, Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 28, 2004, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/28/bonaventure-wonthear-rudin-appeal/ (“ ‘My blood boils every time I hear the name Craig Creel. . . . Whether I look at him or think of him, my blood boils. I’m getting a headache thinking of him right now.’ ” (quoting Bonaventure, J.)). RUDIN V. MYLES 13 rules prohibited Rudin from doing so when she had “counsel of record.”