Opinion ID: 214621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: First Habeas Petition Revisited

Text: The federal forum did not remain dormant during the roughly six-year period that Gaskins's state court post-appeal motions were being resolved. In December 2003, Gaskins moved in the district court for vacatur of the 2000 dismissal without prejudice of his habeas petition; to restore his petition to the docket; and to stay the petition while he exhausted his state court remedies. The district court denied the motion and Gaskins's subsequent motion for reconsideration, following which the court published a memorandum decision. Gaskins v. Duval, 336 F.Supp.2d 66 (D.Mass.2004) ( Gaskins IV ). In reaching its decision, the district court first noted that Gaskins had filed a mixed petition, containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. Id. at 67. Historically, as the court had done with Gaskins's petition in 2000, district courts had provided petitioners with two alternatives: either file an amended petition sans the unexhausted claims or return to state court to present the unexhausted claims. Id. The court, however, also pointed out that the one-year statute of limitations contained in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2), created a predicament for prisoners filing mixed petitions: If a prisoner deletes unexhausted claims from her petition, she may well be barred from bringing those claims at a later date, because of AEDPA's limitation on second or successive petitions. Under 2[8] U.S.C. § 2244(b), state prisoners may only bring such petitions in limited circumstances subject to strict procedural requirements. On the other hand, if the prisoner agrees to dismissal of her claims, she runs the risk of running afoul of the one year limitations period. Gaskins IV, 336 F.Supp.2d at 68. The district court then described the stay and abeyance procedure that courts had employed to protect habeas petitioners from falling into this trap. Id. (citing Neverson v. Farquharson, 366 F.3d 32, 42-43 (1st Cir.2004)). Rather than dismissing a mixed petition, a district court may stay proceedings while the petitioner returns to state court to resolve his unexhausted claims. Id. At the time of the district court's consideration, this procedure was in its relative infancy. We had recommended the practice, see Delaney v. Matesanz, 264 F.3d 7, 14 n. 5 (1st Cir. 2001), but the Supreme Court did not explicitly approve of itunder certain limited conditionsuntil 2005. See Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 276-78, 125 S.Ct. 1528, 161 L.Ed.2d 440 (2005). The district court noted that it did not employ the stay and abeyance procedure at the time that it had dismissed Gaskins's petition. Gaskins IV, 336 F.Supp.2d at 68. The court then went on to construe Gaskins's motion to vacate as a motion for relief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b). It ultimately denied the motion as violative of the Rule's requirement that the motion be filed within a reasonable time because its filing was almost two and a half years after the Supreme Court had held in Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001), that the limitations period is tolled during state, but not federal proceedings. Gaskins IV, 336 F.Supp.2d at 69-70. The court then added a conciliatory coda: Gaskins has one final option. He could file a new habeas petition, with a request that the Court apply the stay and abeyance procedure. Procedurally, a new habeas petition would stop the AEDPA limitations clock on the date of filing, and all the time since AEDPA's effective date that Gaskins has been challenging his convictions in the courts of the Commonwealth would be excluded. If Gaskins were to finish exhausting his claims in the state courts, without obtaining relief, this Court would presumably then have to determine whether Gaskins is eligible for equitable tolling of the period during which his original Petition was pending in the federal courts. If equitable tolling were not available, then Gaskins's federal habeas claims would be time-barred. Since the date of his original conviction, Gaskins has promptly pursued his remedies, and has never in any way abused the writ of habeas corpus. He has proposed that, should the Court allow his Motion To Reconsider, he will provide the Court with regular updates on his state proceedings, and will promptly pursue his federal claims, should the state courts deny him relief. He has consistently acted in good faith, and there can be little doubt that the equities favor him. Given that the Court ideally should have applied the stay and abeyance procedure in 2000, that Gaskins has consistently acted in good faith, and that his liberty is at stake, the Court would be entirely willing to permit Gaskins to file a renewed habeas petition, which the Court would then immediately stay and hold in abeyance until Gaskins finishes exhausting his administrative remedies. With matters in their present posture, however, this Court cannot render an advisory opinion concerning equitable tolling, and it is inappropriate for the Court to recharacterize Gaskins's Motion To Vacate in this manner without his permission, however. See Castro v. United States, [540 U.S. 375, 124 S.Ct. 786, 157 L.Ed.2d 778 (2003)]. Therefore, the Court denied Gaskins's Motion To Reconsider in its entirety, leaving his case closed. Should Gaskins wish to file a new habeas petition and to request that the Court stay proceedings until he has finished exhausting state remedies, he may do so. Id. at 70. In October 2004, less than one month later, Gaskins filed the petition that is the subject of this appeal and, consistent with the district court's suggestion, a motion to stay. The district court stayed the petition and administratively closed the case while Gaskins exhausted his claims in state court. See Gaskins v. Duval, 652 F.Supp.2d 116, 122 (D.Mass.2009) ( Gaskins V ). As noted above, Gaskins's state court efforts ended when the single SJC Justice denied further review on August 7, 2008. Within a month, Gaskins successfully moved to dissolve the stay and restore his second habeas petition to the district court docket. Id. In November 2008, the district court denied, without elaboration, the respondent's motion to dismiss based on the statute of limitations. The court denied the petition in its entirety in September 2009. See Gaskins V. This appeal followed.