Opinion ID: 67568
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: AEDPA’s Time Bar

Text: We review the district court’s legal conclusions and mixed questions of law and fact de novo, using the same standards as the district court.8 The district court’s findings of fact are reviewed for clear error.9
Texas asserted before the district court that Hernandez’s petition is timebarred under AEDPA’s one-year limitations period.10 The district court did not reach this issue, but Texas re-urges it here as an alternative ground for affirming. We decline to exercise our discretion to affirm on this basis, however, finding instead that there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether Hernandez is entitled to equitable tolling. “Equitable tolling is appropriate in rare and exceptional circumstances”11 because AEDPA’s “one-year limitations provision does not operate as a jurisdictional bar.”12 When the government has “actively misled . . . the defendant about the cause of action,” equitable tolling is appropriate.13 Assuming arguendo that Hernandez either knew or should have known the factual predicate of his claim on the date that he received the Certificate of Mandatory Supervised Release listing an expiration date in 2014, he also insists 8 Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 946 (5th Cir. 2001). 9 Id. 10 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1) (2006). 11 Scott v. Johnson, 227 F.3d 260, 263 (5th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). 12 Coleman v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 398, 402 (5th Cir. 1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). 13 Id. 5 No. 07-10424 — with specificity — that he was affirmatively misled by Texas about the meaning of that 2014 date. According to Hernandez, he did not learn that he had been misled until Texas purported to “revoke” his mandatory supervised release. When we deduct the time during which he pursued relief in state proceedings that tolled AEDPA’s limitations period, Hernandez filed the instant petition less than one year after he learned that his mandatory supervised release had been revoked. As a result, if Hernandez is entitled to equitable tolling for the period between the time that he received the Certificate and the time that he learned that he had been misled (if in fact he had been misled), then his petition is timely. It is for the district court to address this argument in the first instance on remand.