Court Opinion

ID: 9497778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:59:57.37583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:24.985394
License: Public Domain

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I have no problem with the legal principles laid out by the majority, I disagree with its application of those principles in the present case. Specifically, I believe that the majority’s decision is contrary to the holding in Palmer v. Carlton, 276 F.3d 777 (6th Cir.2002), the very case upon which the majority relies. This court in Palmer denied equitable tolling to a defendant who had waited approximately two months to refile in federal court after exhausting his state-court remedies:
[A]doption of the Second Circuit’s approach [of allowing a 30-day safe harbor] in this case would not afford Palmer the relief he seeks. Although his state-court remedies were exhausted on March 22, 1999, he waited until May 24, 1999, before he returned to federal court and filed a second habeas petition. This wait amounted to more than the “normal” 30-day period suggested by the Second Circuit as a reasonable period for a petitioner to return to federal jurisdiction, and the record offers no reason for the two-month delay.
Id. at 781-82. Similarly, the record in the present case offers no reason for Griffin’s delay, and the delay at issue here was six and a half months — over three times as long as the one in Palmer.
The majority’s point that Palmer was a poor candidate for equitable tolling because he raised no federal constitutional claims, Op. at 634, appears to me to be irrelevant. Diligence is the key to equitable tolling, not the nature of the defendant’s claims, and neither Palmer nor Griffin were diligent in pursuing the remedies available to them.
Furthermore, I believe that the majority’s distinction between “mandatory equitable tolling” and “traditional equitable tolling,” Op. at 635, is an artificial one not justified by any prior caselaw. The 30-day Palmer rule is better viewed as a safe haven — “a brief, reasonable time limit upon the petitioner to present claims to state courts and return to federal court .... ” Palmer, 276 F.3d at 781. Under this analysis, the factors set out in Andrews v. Orr, 851 F.2d 146, 151 (6th Cir.1988), and reaffirmed in Dunlap v. United States, 250 F.3d 1001, 1008 (6th Cir.2001), *640are the same for all equitable tolling claims; but any delay beyond 30 days places the burden on the defendant to show reasonable diligence.
I acknowledge the majority’s point that Griffin had no set deadline to return to state court, but she had to have been aware that AEDPA’s one-year time limit had already expired. So she knew or should have known that time was of the essence in going to and from state court. Waiting six and a half months to go to state court — with no reasonable explanation — indicates to me a complete lack of diligence.
The majority’s statement that the delay “certainly does not indicate ‘an extraordinarily long period of unexplained idleness,’ ” Op. at 637, quoting Cook v. Stegall, 295 F.3d 517, 522 (6th Cir.2002), confounds me. It certainly does! The only point being made by the court in Cook was that “nearly twelve years” was “an extraordinarily long period of unexplained idleness” after the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations. Id. Cook therefore provides no support for the majority’s statement.
Furthermore, I find no basis to conclude that Griffin “was reasonably active in responding to the dismissal,” Op. at 637, and I am unpersuaded by the majority’s declaration that “six months for preparation and filing by a busy public defender’s office is not unreasonable.” Id. Counsel’s lack of diligence, moreover, is not a basis for equitable tolling. See Andrews, 851 F.2d at 151 (listing five factors to take into account in determining whether equitable tolling is justified, including the litigant’s own diligence, but not including counsel’s lack of diligence).
In sum, I find even less justification for the six-and-a-half-month delay in this case than for the two-month delay that was found to be unacceptably long in Palmer. I therefore believe that Palmer is controlling, and thus would AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.