Opinion ID: 1312837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was the June 7, 2005 Petition Properly Filed?

Text: Simms contends that he mailed his state habeas petition on June 7, 2005, and it should be deemed filed on that date under Illinois's mailbox rule. See People v. Saunders, 261 Ill.App.3d 700, 199 Ill. Dec. 349, 633 N.E.2d 1340, 1341-42 (1994). Simms argues that despite his failure to attach a copy of his trust fund ledger, the circuit court was required to accept his petition under Illinois law, and therefore it was properly filed. The rejection of the application, he argues, was in error. Under Illinois law, the court clerk was required to accept and file any complaint, appearance, or other paper presented by the applicant if accompanied by an application to sue or defend in forma pauperis, and those papers shall be considered filed on the date the application is presented. 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/5-105(e). The application to sue is required to be in writing and supported by the affidavit of the applicant. Id. 5/5-105(c). The court clerk relied on Administrative Order 90-7 of the Circuit Court of Randolph County, which requires inmates seeking to proceed in forma pauperis to submit a copy of their trust fund ledger as part of their affidavit. Because Simms did not include the trust fund ledger, the clerk rejected the application. The Supreme Court has held that failure to comply with certain state law requirements does indeed render a petition improperly filed. Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 413, 125 S.Ct. 1807, 161 L.Ed.2d 669 (2005) (holding that untimely state postconviction motions are not considered properly filed for purposes of AEDPA). But see Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8, 121 S.Ct. 361, 148 L.Ed.2d 213 (2000) (holding that petitions for state relief that contain claims that are procedurally barred may still be properly filed). In Pace, the Supreme Court noted specifically that the formal requirements for most petitions are not entrusted to the clerk's discretion, but must be later determined by the judge. Pace, 544 U.S. at 415 n. 5, 125 S.Ct. 1807. The petitioner's argument in that case was that only petitions rejected by the clerk could be declared improperly filed under AEDPA. Simms's argument is somewhat the inverse of the losing one in Pace. The clerk, he says, was required to file his petition whether or not it met the required form and therefore the petition should be considered filed when submitted to the clerk. To the extent that Simms argues that the period between the time the clerk received the petition and rejected it as improperly filed should be tolled, we can reject that out of hand. In Pace, the Supreme Court foreclosed such a contention. See Pace, 544 U.S. at 414, 125 S.Ct. 1807 (rejecting the notion that the proper filing of a petition is determined based on its acceptance by a clerk). Simms, then, must be contending that the clerk erred by misinterpreting state law, which he says commanded the clerk to accept the petition, and that the petition was therefore properly filed as mailed on June 7. Notably, Simms does not offer evidence that he complied with the local rule on in forma pauperis petitions, and that the clerk overlooked his compliance. Instead, he argues that the clerk was required to accept the petition despite the deficiency and cites to Illinois law for the uncontroversial proposition that a local rule cannot trump state law. Vision Point of Sale, Inc. v. Haas, 226 Ill.2d 334, 314 Ill.Dec. 778, 875 N.E.2d 1065, 1080 (2007) (Circuit courts in Illinois are vested with the power to adopt local rules governing civil and criminal cases so long as ... they do not conflict with supreme court rules or statutes....). On behalf of the warden, Illinois argues that we must defer to the clerk's interpretation of the Illinois statute and its relationship with the circuit court's filing requirements. But the clerk's determination of whether or not the petition was improperly filed is immaterial; had the clerk accepted the petition, any infirmity of the type described in Pace would have rendered it improperly filed. In fact, the case Illinois relies on, Artuz, 531 U.S. at 8, 121 S.Ct. 361, makes clear that petitions are properly filed when their delivery and acceptance are in compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings. Furthermore, a filing that is erroneously accepted by the clerk is not properly filed. Id. at 9, 121 S.Ct. 361. Therefore, the clerk's view of the petition is not dispositive. Illinois asks us to compare this case to Powell v. Davis, 415 F.3d 722, 726-27 (7th Cir.2005), but Powell involved our deference to a state supreme court's determination of whether a petition was properly filed, not deference to the court's administrative personnel. A clerk is not the expositor of Illinois's rules, but the administrator of those rules. Illinois also argues that there is no proof in the record that the petition was mailed on June 7, just proof that Simms signed and had the petition notarized on that date. This argument can also be disregarded. If we accept the district court's conclusion that the petition was only one day late, then any petition properly filed before July 1 would allow Simms to avoid the AEDPA time bar. Additionally, Illinois claims that Simms was actually 28 days late in filing his federal petition because it was not mailed from the jail but from a different zip code. Since the petition was not sent from jail, it was not entitled to the mailbox rule established by Rule 3(d) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts, which provides for filing via the institution's internal mailing system on or before the last day for filing. Since, Illinois argues, the petition was filed from outside the prison, it therefore must be considered filed on January 3, 2007 when it was received by the district court. See United States v. Craig, 368 F.3d 738, 740-41 (7th Cir.2004). Illinois did not raise this issue below and therefore it is forfeited. AEDPA's statute of limitations is not a jurisdictional bar to the court's power, see Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 205, 126 S.Ct. 1675, 164 L.Ed.2d 376 (2006), although a district court could raise the issue sua sponte if it caught a calculation error. Id. at 210, 126 S.Ct. 1675. Here, however, the argument relies on actual physical evidence (the postmarked letter) not in the record presented to the district court; we have no ability to gauge the argument's merits. So there is but one questionwhether Illinois law considered Simms's petition properly filed, even if the clerk didn't. We note that Simms's argument that the clerk was required to accept the petition is unavailing; an improperly filed petition does not toll the statute even if it is in the state court's handsthat is what Pace teaches us. And this is the real problem for Simmseven if the clerk did accept the petition on June 7, it was improperly filed for purposes of AEDPA if it did not comply with the applicable laws and rules governing filings. Artuz, 531 U.S. at 8, 121 S.Ct. 361. Despite Simms's protests, the Illinois statute on which Simms relies does not conflict with the Randolph County court's filing requirements. Simms argues that relevant Illinois law, 735 ILCS 5/5-105(e), would only require the clerk to hang onto the petition, file it, and [a]t most ... require the clerk to contact the inmate and seek the required information. Pet. Br. at 21. But, regardless of whether the statute commands the clerk in a situation like Simms's to file the petition and then ask for the required trust fund information, or whether the statute allows the clerk to return the petition without filing it and then file it when the proper trust fund information is included, Simms's petition was not properly filed, for purposes of AEDPA, until it complied with the applicable laws and rules governing filings. In either scenario, therefore, the petition was not properly filed until the trust fund information was included. Furthermore, the statute that Simms relies on is easily harmonized with the Randolph County Circuit Court rules. The statute requires the clerk to accept and file any complaint, appearance, or other paper presented by the applicant if accompanied by an application to sue or defend in forma pauperis, and those papers shall be considered filed on the date the application is presented. 735 ILCS 5/5-105(e). The statute requires that the application to sue be in writing and supported by the affidavit of the applicant. Id. 5/5-105(c). The contents of the affidavit shall be established by Supreme Court Rule. Id. Randolph County Circuit Court requires that in all civil cases brought by poor persons (that is, indigents seeking to prosecute an action without paying filing fees), the petition for leave to sue or defend as a poor person shall be accompanied by a copy of the inmate's trust fund ledger indicating all deposits and withdrawals made to the inmate's trust fund account for the six months immediately preceding the submission of the petition. Randolph County Cir. Ct. Admin. Order No. 90-7. Given that Illinois law specifically delegates the authority to establish the contents of the in forma pauperis affidavit to the state supreme court and that the state supreme court in turn delegates rule-making authority to the circuit courts, and that Simms doesn't challenge that this rule was validly enacted (at least as a procedural matter), we find it well within the Randolph County Circuit Court's purview under Illinois law to require that all petitions include a copy of the trust fund ledger. Given that the local rule the clerk relied on to reject the petition did not conflict with state law and that the petition was indisputably deficient (in that it did not meet the in forma pauperis requirements), it was not properly filed until July 1, 2005. Accordingly, the AEDPA limitations period was not tolled between June 7 and that date.