Opinion ID: 3053959
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statutory Tolling of the Limitations Period

Text: Waldrip next contends that the district court erred in concluding that his federal habeas petition was time-barred. We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of the petition as untimely. See Shannon v. Newland, 410 F.3d 1083, 1087 n.3 (9th Cir. 2005); Delhomme, 340 F.3d at 819. 15470 WALDRIP v. HALL [5] The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 “requires a state prisoner whose conviction has become final to seek federal habeas corpus relief within one year.” Evans, 546 U.S. at 191 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A)). AEDPA “tolls this 1-year limitations period for the ‘time during which a properly filed application for State postconviction or other collateral review is pending.’ ” Id. (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2)) (ellipses points omitted). An application for post-conviction review is pending “while a California petitioner ‘completes a full round of state collateral review,’ ” Delhomme, 340 F.3d at 819 (brackets omitted), including during the “period between (1) a lower court’s adverse determination, and (2) the prisoner’s filing of a notice of appeal, provided that the filing of the notice of appeal is timely under state law.” Evans, 546 U.S. at 191 (emphasis in original). In California, “a state prisoner may seek review of an adverse lower court decision by filing an original petition (rather than a notice of appeal) in the higher court, and that petition is timely if filed within a ‘reasonable time.’ ” Id. at 192-93. Thus, in California, “[a]s long as the prisoner filed a petition for appellate review within a ‘reasonable time,’ he could count as ‘pending’ (and add to the one-year time limit) the days between (1) the time the lower state court reached an adverse decision, and (2) the day he filed a petition in the higher state court.” Id. at 193. Evans noted that the California Supreme Court had not yet provided “clear direction or explanation . . . about the meaning of the term ‘reasonable time’ in the present context.” See id. at 198. But Evans also observed that six months appeared to be too long: Six months is far longer than the “short periods of time,” 30 to 60 days, that most States provide for filing an appeal to the state supreme court. Saffold, [536 U.S.] at 219. It is far longer than the 10-day period California gives a losing party to file a notice of appeal in the California Supreme Court, see WALDRIP v. HALL 15471 Cal.App.Ct. Rule 28(e)(1) (2004). We have found no authority suggesting, nor found any convincing reason to believe, that California would consider an unjustified or unexplained 6-month filing delay “reasonable.” Id. at 201 (brackets omitted). Moreover, in Evans the Supreme Court noted that the issue was not purely one of state law: [I]n Saffold, we held that timely filings in California (as elsewhere) fell within the federal tolling provision on the assumption that California law in this respect did not differ significantly from the laws of other States, i.e., that California’s “reasonable time” standard would not lead to filing delays substantially longer than those in States with determinate timeliness rules. 536 U.S. at 222-223. 546 U.S. at 199-200 (emphasis in original). After making the observation quoted above that the Court did not believe that California would consider a 6-month delay reasonable, the Court in Evans went on to say: Nor do we see how an unexplained delay of this magnitude [(six months)] could fall within the scope of the federal statutory word “pending” as inter- preted in Saffold. Id. at 201. [6] Whether based on the Court’s expectation of what time delay the California Supreme Court would view as “reasonable” or on its interpretation of the word “pending” in the federal statute of limitations, Evans made clear that an unexplained delay of six months between the denial by one California state court and a new filing in a higher California 15472 WALDRIP v. HALL court was too long to permit tolling of the federal limitations period on the ground that state court proceedings were “pending.” That conclusion dooms Waldrip’s federal petition. The critical dates for Waldrip may be summarized as follows: October 16, 2001 Conviction affirmed by state court of appeal October 31, 2001 Habeas petition filed in state court of appeal (by Waldrip’s state appellate counsel) November 13, 2001 Habeas petition denied by state court of appeal November 26, 2001 Conviction final (40 days after conviction affirmed by state court of appeals when no peti- tion for review was filed with state supreme court) March 14, 2002 Habeas petition filed in state superior court (by Waldrip pro se) March 28, 2002 Habeas petition denied by state superior court December 11, 2002 Habeas petition filed in state supreme court (by Waldrip’s state appellate counsel) January 14, 2003 Supplement to habeas petition filed in state supreme court (by Waldrip pro se) WALDRIP v. HALL 15473 June 28, 2003 Habeas petition denied by state supreme court July 16, 2003 Habeas petition deemed filed in federal district court The California Court of Appeal affirmed Waldrip’s conviction on October 16, 2001. Waldrip did not petition the California Supreme Court for review, and his conviction became final forty days later, on November 26, 2001.2 Waldrip therefore had one year from that date to file a federal habeas petition. See Evans, 546 U.S. at 200. Waldrip did not file his petition in district court until July 16, 2003, one year and 233 days after his conviction became final. Therefore, his “federal petition was timely only if ‘a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review was pending’ for at least” 233 days of this time. See id. (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2)) (brackets omitted). Stated differently, because the federal petition was filed more than one year after Waldrip’s conviction became final, it is untimely unless the limitations period is tolled for at least 233 days. Although there are a number of different issues regarding the timeliness of Waldrip’s petition potentially raised by the events here, one factor is controlling: Waldrip took too long to file his petition to the California Supreme Court. The first state habeas petition, filed in the California Court of Appeal by Waldrip’s state appellate counsel, was filed and denied before the effective date of his conviction, 40 days after the Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction on direct appeal. Although its filing would otherwise have tolled the running of the federal limitations period, since it was denied before that period had started to run, it had no effect on the timeliness of the ultimate federal filing. 2 The fortieth day was in fact a Sunday, November 25, 2001, so we consider the next day, November 26, 2001, as the day Waldrip’s conviction became final. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(3). 15474 WALDRIP v. HALL The third habeas petition was filed in the California Supreme Court by Waldrip’s appellate counsel on December 11, 2002. As noted above, that filing raised the same argument that was raised in the first petition filed with the state court of appeal. Waldrip filed a pro se supplement to that California Supreme Court petition on January 14, 2003, in which he included the argument presented in his pro se habeas petition filed with the superior court. Although it might be difficult to characterize the filing by Waldrip’s attorney as an effort to seek review of the superior court’s denial, since it did not present the same argument that was presented in the superior court petition, Waldrip’s supplemental filing did, which means that the peculiar path followed by Waldrip in state court leading up to his petition to the California Supreme Court could be viewed in two different ways. [7] That final state court petition could be treated as an effort to seek review by the California Supreme Court of the denial by the state court of appeal of the habeas petition filed in October 2001, in effect disregarding the petition filed by Waldrip pro se in superior court. The problem is that more than a year passed between the date Waldrip’s conviction became final on November 16, 2001, and December 11, 2002, the date that the petition was filed with the California Supreme Court. Under Evans, that is too long to permit the time in between those dates to be tolled, and if the federal limitations period was running during that time, it ran out even before the California Supreme Court petition was filed. [8] Alternatively, the petition to the California Supreme Court can be viewed as an attempt to obtain review by a higher court of the denial of Waldrip’s petition to the superior court. Viewed this way, the period of delay prior to the California Supreme Court filing is shorter—a period of 258 days, or something over eight months, instead of a period over one year—but that is still not short enough to survive under Evans. Moreover, the time period leading up to the filing of the petition to the superior court would not be tolled, either. WALDRIP v. HALL 15475 On its face, that petition was not an effort to seek review of the court of appeal’s denial, because it was filed in a lower state court, so the time period between the conviction effective date and this filing could not be tolled on the theory that the first petition was “pending” because Waldrip was still in the process of seeking appellate review of its denial. The superior court petition commenced a new “round” of collateral review. See Delhomme, 340 F.3d at 820 (“each time a petitioner files a new habeas petition at the same or lower level, . . . the subsequent petition has no effect on the already pending application, but triggers an entirely separate round of review”). Under this view of Waldrip’s effort in state court, state proceedings were “pending” for 15 days in the superior court (between March 14, 2002 and March 28, 2002, inclusive) and arguably for 200 days, at most, in the state supreme court (between December 11, 2002 and June 28, 2003, inclusive).3 That adds up to only 215 days, and as noted above, his federal filing was too late unless he can toll 233 days. Waldrip attempts to explain or justify the delay in his state court filing by asserting that his counsel at that time was busy because he had changed employment, believed there was no specific deadline for seeking appellate review, and was waiting for the Supreme Court to decide Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003). That counsel was busy and did not know of a specific deadline does not justify the delay. Further, counsel filed the December 11 petition before the Court decided Andrade, so waiting until Andrade was decided does not explain the delay. Additionally, the December 11 petition was 3 It could be argued that January 14, 2003, rather than December 11, 2002, should properly be treated as the starting date, because it was not until the pro se supplement was filed on the latter date that the issues raised in the superior court petition were presented to the state supreme court, but for this discussion we use the date more favorable to Waldrip as it makes no difference to the end result here. 15476 WALDRIP v. HALL nearly identical to the October 31, 2001 petition and counsel could easily have filed it sooner than December 2002. Waldrip also justifies the delay by arguing that he could not use the prison library to work on his petition because a prison lockdown prohibited access to the law library. Waldrip explains that Calipatria State Prison “was on lock-down or modified lock-down status, which meant I did not have access to the law library” from December 3, 2001 to March 27, 2002. Waldrip was represented by counsel at that time, so it is not clear that Waldrip’s personal access to a law library should be significant, but the excuse is unpersuasive in any event. The superior court did not rule on the pro se petition until March 28, 2002, and by that date Waldrip had access to the library. The prison lockdown does not explain or justify the eight month delay in filing his petition to the state supreme court. [9] In sum, the one-year limitations period was tolled under the statute for at most 215 days, while petitions were pending in superior court and in the California Supreme Court. His federal petition was filed on July 18, 2003, one year and 233 days after the conviction became final. Giving him credit for 215 days of tolling still makes his federal filing too late. Because that petition was filed outside of the limitations period, the district court did not err in dismissing it as untimely.