Opinion ID: 3026255
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Time Limit

Text: The question of whether a criminal alien in Kolkevich’s position should be permitted to file an appeal from his final order of removal is distinct from the question of how much time he should be afforded in which to do so. Kolkevich not only argues that he should be able to file, but, at oral argument, suggested that he had unlimited time to bring his appeal. Although we agree with Kolkevich that he should be afforded an opportunity to challenge the final order of removal entered against him, we disagree that such an opportunity knows no temporal bounds. We dealt with an analogous situation following the enactment of AEDPA, which created a one-year period for state and federal prisoners who wanted to challenge their confinement via habeas corpus in federal court. In Morton v. Burns, 134 F.3d 33 109 (3d Cir. 1998), we addressed how this filing deadline should be applied to those prisoners whose claims had accrued prior to AEDPA’s enactment and, ultimately, agreed with nearly every other court of appeals that such prisoners should have one year from the effective date of the statute within which to file their claims.7 134 F.3d at 111-12. Indeed, although Morton did not rely specifically on any previous Supreme Court precedent, many of the cases to which Morton cited approvingly, especially Duarte v. Hershberger, 947 F. Supp. 146 (D.N.J. 1996), located the one-year grace period rule within the broader context of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on statutes of limitation. Duarte discussed the Supreme Court’s statute of limitations jurisprudence and determined that revised statutes that extinguish live claims must provide a “reasonable time” for pre-revision claimants to file. Duarte looked particularly to Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516 (1982), and the case on which Texaco relied, Wilson v. Iseminger, 185 U.S. 55 (1902). In Wilson, for instance, the Court stated: [i]t may be properly conceded that all statutes of limitation must proceed on the idea that the party 7 We noted that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit “articulated a somewhat more flexible rule that a habeas petitioner must be afforded a ‘reasonable time’ after [AEDPA’s enactment] to file his petition.” Morton, 134 F.3d at 111 (citing Peterson v. Demskie, 107 F.3d 92, 93 (2d Cir. 1997)). 34 has full opportunity afforded him to try his right in the courts. A statute could not bar existing rights of claimants without affording this opportunity; if it should attempt to do so, it would not be a statute of limitations, but an unlawful attempt to extinguish rights arbitrarily, whatever might be the purport of its provisions. It is essential that such statutes allow a reasonable time after they take effect for the commencement of suits upon existing causes of action; though what shall be considered a reasonable time must be settled by the judgment of the legislature, and the courts will not inquire into the wisdom of its decision in establishing the period of legal bar, unless the time allowed is manifestly so insufficient that the statute becomes a denial of justice. Wilson, 185 U.S. at 62-63. With this in mind, Duarte set out to determine what a “reasonable time” was and determined that “[w]here a shortened limitations period would bar pre-accrued claims, other circuits have provided claimants the shorter of: (1) the pre-shortened limitation period, commencing at the time the action accrued; or (2) the shortened limitation period, commencing from the date the statute became effective.” Duarte, 947 F. Supp. at 149 (citing cases from the Courts of Appeals for the 5th, 7th and 9th 35 Circuits). Duarte, therefore, adopted the one-year grace period of which we approved in Morton and which, essentially, became the law across the circuits. We believe a similar approach is warranted here. Therefore, under Morton and Duarte, we will provide pre-RIDA claimants with the lesser of either the pre- or the post-RIDA filing period. In this case, the pre-RIDA filing period is the one applicable to § 2241 habeas petitions, which, as discussed, was infinite. The post-RIDA filing period is the one applicable to petitions for review and is 30 days. Therefore, following Morton and Duarte, those in Kolkevich’s situation shall be afforded 30 days from the date of RIDA’s enactment to bring their claims – that is, until June 11, 2005. Of course, this date has long passed. Only those who filed their petitions for review by that date will be allowed to proceed in this Court. We believe that this 30-day period is reasonable. As is made clear by the House Report, one of Congress’s primary concerns in passing RIDA was to ensure that criminal aliens received the same type and amount of judicial review as other aliens. Were we to allow a grace period of longer than 30 days – for instance, six months or one year – a criminal alien who received his final order of removal on May 10, 2005 would receive more time to file his petition than a criminal alien, or even a non-criminal alien, ordered removed on May 12, 2005. 36 This is exactly the sort of disparity that Congress sought to avoid by passing RIDA.8 The implications of this rule for our case are clear. Kolkevich failed to file within 30 days of the enactment of RIDA, and his appeal is therefore foreclosed. Accordingly, we are without jurisdiction to consider Kolkevich’s request for review.9 8 In a case currently pending in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Monroy v. Gonzales, the ACLU is arguing as amicus that “the Court should hold that the 30-day deadline runs from the date on which aliens removable on the basis of a criminal conviction became eligible to file petitions for review (May 11, 2005, when the REAL ID Act took effect), and that such aliens have a reasonable period from that date to file their petitions in this Court. And because Mr. Monroy filed his petition for review within 30 days of that date, this Court can reserve the question of what would constitute a reasonable period beyond 30 days.” Brief for American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Monroy v. Gonzales, No. 07-75287, (9th Cir. June 26, 2006), 2006 WL 2450900, at -2. As we have said, we believe 30 days to be a reasonable time. 9 At oral argument, counsel for Kolkevich suggested that applying the 30-day grace period to his client would be “unfair” and that such a rule should be applied only in a purely prospective fashion – that is, to future litigants, but not to him. (continued...) 37 9 (...continued) However, as some commentators have noted, it is unclear whether we have the power to do so in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Harper v. VA Department of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86 (1993). See Harper, 509 U.S. at 97 (“When this Court applies a rule of federal law to the parties before it, that rule is the controlling interpretation of federal law and must be given full retroactive effect in all cases still open on direct review and as to all events, regardless of whether such events predate or postdate our announcement of the rule.”). See R ICHARD H. F ALLON, J R. ET AL., H ART AND W ESCHLER’S T HE F EDERAL C OURTS AND T HE F EDERAL S YSTEM 76 (5th ed. 2003) (noting that much of Harper’s reasoning “raises doubts that the Court would regard purely prospective adjudication as legitimate”). We need not express any opinion on that issue here, however, for, even assuming that pure prospectivity remains an option, application of that doctrine to the present case would be inappropriate. To apply a ruling in a purely prospective fashion, we must be convinced: (1) that the decision establishes “a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied” or decides “an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed”; (2) that application of the new rule retroactively would “further or retard” the rule’s operation; and (3) that the equities cut in favor of prospective application. Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 106-107 (1971). In this case, the third factor cuts decidedly against (continued...) 38