Opinion ID: 4470524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In 2008, Marice Nalls was convicted of aggravated rape 2 and armed robbery after a bench trial before a Louisiana state district judge. Dele Adebamiji represented Nalls at trial. On June 12, 2009, Nalls appealed his conviction to Louisiana’s First Circuit Court of Appeal. Adebamiji filed the appeal on Nalls’s behalf. Several days later, Adebamiji sent Nalls a letter informing him that he could no longer serve as his lawyer. Adebamiji wrote that his “representation stops at the filing of your appeal[,] and I have given your name and address to the court of appeal. So please watch out for all and any other important dates in the future.” Although Adebamiji sent the letter of withdrawal to Nalls, he never moved to withdraw as Nalls’s counsel of record before the First Circuit. In July 2009, the First Circuit granted Nalls leave to file a pro se supplemental brief in support of his appeal. Nalls did so on August 12, 2009. Not long after, Nalls began writing Adebamiji. The first of four letters was written on October 13, 2009. 3 In it, Nalls stated that he knew Adebamiji was no longer representing him. But Nalls also expressed a belief that the First Circuit would send notice of its decision to Adebamiji instead of Nalls because Adebamiji was Nalls’s counsel of record at the time the appeal was filed. Indeed, court rules required the First Circuit to send notice of its decision in Nalls’s case “to all counsel of record, and to all parties not represented by 2At the time of Nalls’s conviction, the crime of “aggravated rape” was codified at Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:42. The statute recently was amended, and the same crime is now called “First Degree Rape.” Act. No. 256, § 1, 2015 La. Acts 1785, 1785–86. 3 The State attached to its brief evidence presented for the first time on appeal that calls into question the dates on which these letters were written or mailed. But this court cannot consider new evidence submitted for the first time on appeal. Theriot v. Parish of Jefferson, 185 F.3d 477, 491 n.26 (5th Cir. 1999). Accordingly, this court must rely on the evidence presented in the lower court. 2 Case: 17-30975 Document: 00515263753 Page: 3 Date Filed: 01/08/2020 No. 17-30975 counsel.” La. Ct. App. Unif. R. 2-17.1. By failing to move to withdraw as Nalls’s counsel of record, Adebamiji remained Nalls’s agent for notice of the First Circuit’s decision long after he sent his withdrawal letter to Nalls. Over the next year and a half, Nalls wrote three more letters to Adebamiji. In each, he sought a status update on his case. Adebamiji never wrote back. Nalls also had his mother contact Adebamiji by phone. Nalls’s mother swore that she spoke with Adebamiji on several occasions in 2010 and 2011. She was told by Adebamiji on multiple occasions that he had not received a copy of the First Circuit’s decision. Unbeknownst to Nalls, the First Circuit had affirmed his conviction on October 23, 2009—only 10 days after he wrote his first letter to Adebamiji. Nalls finally received notice of the decision in April 2011 after asking his mother to contact the court directly. The deadline for Nalls to seek direct review of the First Circuit’s decision at the Louisiana Supreme Court had long since expired. 4 Nalls nevertheless moved quickly to continue challenging his conviction. On July 1, 2011, Nalls filed at the Louisiana Supreme Court an out-oftime application for certiorari or review of the First Circuit’s decision. On October 11, 2011—before the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled on his request— Nalls filed a pro se application for state post-conviction relief in the district court. In April 2012, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied Nalls’s request for untimely direct review. On March 15, 2013, the state district court dismissed Nalls’s application for post-conviction relief. The First Circuit ultimately denied Nalls’s writ seeking review of the district court’s decision. Nalls sought 4 Louisiana Supreme Court Rule X, § 5(a) states: “An application seeking to review a judgment of the court of appeal . . . shall be made within thirty days of the mailing of the notice of the original judgment of the court of appeal . . . .” The First Circuit mailed notice of its original judgment to Adebamiji the same day it issued its decision: October 23, 2009. Thus, Nalls’s deadline to seek review at the Supreme Court was on November 23, 2009. 3 Case: 17-30975 Document: 00515263753 Page: 4 Date Filed: 01/08/2020 No. 17-30975 further review from the Louisiana Supreme Court. On November 7, 2014, it granted his request in part, vacating his armed robbery conviction on prescription grounds but leaving undisturbed his rape conviction. State ex rel. Nalls v. State, 2013-2806, p.1 (La. 11/7/14); 152 So. 3d 164. Only 12 days later, on November 19, 2014, Nalls filed his first federal habeas application under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On November 7, 2017, the magistrate judge recommended that Nalls’s habeas application be dismissed as time-barred. The magistrate judge reasoned that Nalls’s application was untimely because more than a year elapsed between the deadline for Nalls to seek direct review of the First Circuit’s affirmance of his conviction and the date he filed his federal habeas application, excluding the time he spent pursuing post-conviction relief in state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) (requiring a state prisoner to file his federal habeas application within one year of “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review,” excluding “[t]he time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review . . . is pending”). The magistrate judge then declined to recommend equitably tolling the untimeliness of Nalls’s application, reasoning that Nalls failed to diligently pursue his rights awaiting notice of the First Circuit’s decision on his direct appeal. On December 6, 2017, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation, dismissing Nalls’s application as untimely. The district court declined to issue a Certificate of Appealability (“COA”). Just five days after the district court issued its decision, Nalls filed an appeal in this court. The court granted him a COA on the issue of whether the district court erred in refusing to equitably toll the untimeliness of his application. 4 Case: 17-30975 Document: 00515263753 Page: 5 Date Filed: 01/08/2020 No. 17-30975