Court Opinion

ID: 9494405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:37:17.194897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:23.902383
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because the majority’s decision to toll equitably the limitations period of the An-titerrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) contravenes circuit precedent, I respectfully dissent.
The majority, in effect, holds that Jorss’s filing of a second petition for habe-as corpus on August 11, 1997, equitably relates back to his first petition, dismissed by the district court on August 5, 1997, because the district court erred when it dismissed Jorss’s first petition without prejudice. This circuit has explicitly held, however, that “a second habeas petition does not relate back to a first habeas petition when the first habeas petition was dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies” because in such a case there is “no pending petition to which the new petition could relate back or amend.” Green v. White, 223 F.3d 1001, 1003 (9th Cir.2000) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Dils v. Small, 260 F.3d 984, 986-87 (9th Cir.2001); Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F.3d 1143, 1148 (9th Cir.2000) (“[A] second petition does not relate back to a first petition where the first petition was dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies.”); Henry v. Lungren, 164 F.3d 1240, 1241 (9th Cir.1999) (“The district court did not expressly or impliedly retain jurisdiction over Henry’s original petition when the court dismissed for failure to exhaust. Because Henry’s original habeas action was dismissed in 1995, there was no pending petition to which Henry’s new 1997 petition could relate back or amend.”). Anthony v. Cambra, 236 F.3d 568 (9th Cir.2000), is not to the contrary. There we held that a district court did not abuse its discretion by reviewing an untimely petition when it had improperly dismissed a prior, timely petition without first granting leave to amend. Id. at 574. That opinion did not hold — nor could it without overruling Green, Dils, Van Tran, and Hewy — that a second, untimely petition may relate back to a prior, timely petition where the district court has refused to review the second petition.
The question presented to us is, therefore, whether Jorss’s petition may be saved by “equitable tolling,” not relation back, in order to avoid a conflict with Green, Van Tran, and Henry. There are at least two serious problems with that approach. First, our case law is clear that equitable tolling of AEDPA’s limitation period is allowed “only if extraordinary circumstances beyond a prisoner’s control make it impossible to file a petition on *959time.” Miles v. Prunty, 187 F.3d 1104, 1107 (9th Cir.1999) (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). The district court’s erroneous dismissal did not, however, create a circumstance making it “impossible to file a petition on time.” Id.; see also Allen v. Lewis, 255 F.3d 798, 800 (9th Cir.2001) (“[T]he prisoner must show that the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ were the but-for and proximate cause of his untimeliness.”). Jorss had the ability to appeal the district court’s decision to dismiss his first petition to this court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (“The courts of appeals ... shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States.”). The majority states that “Jorss promptly sought reconsideration.” That is true, but he did not use the channel that would have avoided the limitations problem. Jorss, not the district court, is the “but-for and proximate cause of his [own] untimeliness.” Allen, 255 F.3d at 800.
In addition, equitable tolling cannot assist Jorss, in the absence of some form of relation back, in tolling the period from August 5 to August 11, 1997. The question whether the AEDPA limitations period may be tolled by a pending federal petition has recently been addressed by the Supreme Court, which squarely rejected the proposition that “a properly filed federal habeas petition tolls the limitation period.” Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 2124, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001).
Because our circuit precedent is clear that an untimely petition does not relate back to a dismissed petition over which there is no longer jurisdiction and because Jorss does not meet the requirements for equitable tolling, I respectfully dissent.