Opinion ID: 170663
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Stay of Application

Text: Mr. Espinoza next argues that the district court should have granted his request to stay his § 2254 proceedings so that he could return to state court to present certain claims that may not have been exhausted. The court denied this motion on the ground that Mr. Espinoza’s unexhausted claims were then timebarred in Colorado courts, so a stay would be futile. In Colorado, postconviction challenges with respect to felonies (other than class 1 felonies) must be brought -5- within three years after the conclusion of the direct appeal, a date long since passed in Mr. Espinoza’s case. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-5-402; People v. Hampton, 876 P.2d 1236, 1241 (Colo. 1994). Mr. Espinoza contends that a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision, Silva v. People, 156 P.3d 1164 (Colo. 2007) (en banc), permits him to raise his unexhausted claims in state court even though the statutory time period for postconviction challenges has expired. We agree with the district court that Silva offers Mr. Espinoza no such opportunity. In Silva the Colorado Court of Appeals had affirmed the denial of Silva’s first postconviction motion three weeks after the statutory time period for filing postconviction challenges had expired. 156 P.3d at 1166–67. Two weeks after that affirmance Silva brought a second postconviction motion, raising, among others, a claim of ineffective assistance of postconviction counsel. Id. at 1166. The Colorado Court of Appeals held that this claim was not time-barred because Silva could establish “justifiable excuse or excusable neglect” for raising the issue after the statutory time period, as the issue of postconviction ineffective assistance of counsel could not have been raised before the court’s order in Silva’s first postconviction motion. Id. at 1166–67. Nevertheless, the court held that Silva’s claim failed because there was no right to effective assistance of postconviction counsel. Id. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals on this last issue, holding that there is a limited statutory right to counsel in state postconviction proceedings. Id. at 1167. -6- Mr. Espinoza claims that Silva permits him to present new issues now because his failure to present them earlier was a result of his postconviction counsel’s refusal to do so. He is allowed to bring these claims, he argues, if he alleges ineffective assistance of postconviction counsel. But even if we assume that Colorado’s limited statutory right to postconviction counsel extends to Mr. Espinoza, nothing in Silva suggests that the Colorado courts would be willing to hear his new claims today. Mr. Espinoza already raised the issue of ineffective assistance of postconviction counsel before the Colorado courts, in his second postconviction proceeding. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of this claim because it was conclusory, not because it was time-barred or because Mr. Espinoza had no right to postconviction counsel. Silva hardly indicates that the Colorado courts will entertain a late motion on an issue already decided. It was therefore reasonable for the district court to decline to stay Mr. Espinoza’s § 2254 proceedings.