Summary
noting the "four years that [petitioner's] post conviction motion was pending in state court"
Summary of this case from Herbert v. DickhautOpinion
Case No. 01-CV-71501-DT
January 8, 2002
OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING RESPONDENT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DISMISSING THE HABEAS CORPUS PETITION
Pro se petitioner Charles Edgar Dangerfield has filed an application for the writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Currently pending before the Court is respondent Barry McLemore's motion for summary judgment, which alleges that Petitioner has failed to comply with the statute of limitations. The Court has concluded for the following reasons that Respondent's motion should be granted and that the habeas petition should be dismissed as time-barred.
I. Background
On June 1, 1993, Petitioner pleaded nolo contendere in Washtenaw County Circuit Court to first-degree criminal sexual conduct. See MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.520b(1)(e). Petitioner subsequently pleaded nolo contendere to being a repeat sexual offender. See MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.520f. The trial court sentenced Petitioner to a term of twenty-two to forty-five years in prison. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Petitioner's conviction and sentence in an unpublished, per curiam opinion. See People v. Dangerfield, No. 167761 (Mich.Ct.App. Sept. 9, 1994). On May 30, 1995, the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. See People v. Dangerfield, 448 Mich. 941 (1995).
On April 10, 1997, Petitioner filed a motion for relief from judgment, which the trial court eventually denied on March 15, 1999. The Michigan Court of Appeals denied Petitioner's subsequent appeal from the trial court's decision "for lack of merit in the grounds presented." People v. Dangerfield, No. 225430 (Mich.Ct.App. July 26, 2000). On February 26, 2001, the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal because Petitioner had "failed to meet the burden of establishing entitlement to relief under MCR 6.508(D)." People v. Dangerfield, No. 117702 (Mich.Sup.Ct. Feb. 26, 2001).
On April 17, 2001, the Court received Petitioner's habeas corpus petition. The grounds for relief are that Petitioner: (1) was denied his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of trial counsel; (2) was deprived of due process of law by his appellate attorney's deficient performance; and (3) was entitled to withdraw his guilty plea because his trial attorney gave him inadequate advice and did not move to withdraw the plea. Respondent has moved for summary judgment, and Petitioner has filed an answer to the motion.
II. Discussion
Summary judgment must be granted if "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "[T]o preclude the granting of summary judgment, the non-moving party must show that there is doubt as to the material facts and that the record, taken as a whole, does not lead to a judgment for the movant." Guarino v. Brookfield Township Trustees, 980 F.2d 399, 403 (6th Cir. 1992) (end citation omitted).
A. The Statute of Limitations
At issue is the one-year statute of limitations set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (Apr. 24, 1996) ("AEDPA"). See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). Petitioner's conviction became final before the AEDPA became effective on April 24, 1996. Therefore, he had one year from April 24, 1996, or until April 24, 1997, to file his habeas petition. Payton v. Brigano, 256 F.3d 405, 408 (6th Cir.), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Oct. 5, 2001) (No. 01-6749); Searcy v. Carter, 246 F.3d 515, 517 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 237 (2001); Isham v. Randle, 226 F.3d 691, 693 (6th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1201 (2001); Brown v. O'Dea, 187 F.3d 572, 577 (6th Cir. 1999), vacated on other grounds, 530 U.S. 1257 (2000). Because Petitioner did not submit his habeas petition to the Court until April 17, 2001, the habeas petition is untimely, absent tolling. B. Tolling under Section 2244(d)(2)
Subsection (d) reads as follows:
(1) A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. The limitation period shall run from the latest of —
(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review;
(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an application created by State action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the applicant was prevented from filing by such State action;
(C) the date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or
(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.
(2) The time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending shall not be counted toward any period of limitation under this subsection.
28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) (West 2000).
The Clerk of Court received the petition on April 17, 2001, and filed it on April 18, 2001. Ordinarily, the Court deems a habeas petition "filed" on the date that the petitioner signed and dated the petition. See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 276 (1988) (concluding that the prisoner's notice of appeal was "filed" at the time he delivered it to prison officials for forwarding to the court clerk ); see also Marsh v. Soares, 223 F.3d 1217, 1218 n. 1 (10th Cir. 2000) (stating that "[l]iberal application of the mailbox rule, see Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 270, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988), causes [the Court] to treat the petition as placed in the hands of prison authorities on the same day it was signed"), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1194 (2001). In this case, however, Petitioner did not date the habeas petition or indicate the date that he delivered his petition to prison officials. The Court therefore considers the petition filed on the date it was received or within a day or two of that date.
The period of limitation began to run on April 25, 1996, the day after the AEDPA became law. It ran for 350 days, or until April 10, 1997, when Petitioner filed his motion for relief from judgment in state court. The limitation period was tolled for the entire time that Petitioner's motion for relief from judgment was under consideration in state court. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2); Harris v. Hutchinson, 209 F.3d 325, 327 (4th Cir. 2000); Swartz v. Meyers, 204 F.3d 417, 420 (3d Cir. 2000).
The period of limitation resumed running on February 27, 2001, the day after the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal the denial of Petitioner's post-conviction motion. The limitation period then ran 49 days, or until April 17, 2001, when the Court received the habeas petition.
Section "2244(d)(2) does not toll the limitations period to take into account the time in which a defendant could have potentially filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, following a state court's denial of post-conviction relief." Isham, 226 F.3d at 695. Moreover, section 2244(d)(2) merely tolls the running of the statute of limitations; the clock is not re-set, and the period of limitation does not begin to run anew, at the conclusion of state-court review. Payton, 256 F.3d at 408; Searcy, 246 F.3d at 519.
See infra note 2.
The limitation period ran for a total of 399 days, which is more than the 365 days prescribed by statute. Therefore, the only remaining question is whether the period of limitation should be tolled for equitable reasons.
C. Equitable Tolling
Equitable tolling applies to the one-year limitation period for habeas corpus petitions. Dunlap v. United States, 250 F.3d 1001, 1003 (6th Cir.), cert. denied ___ S.Ct. ___, 70 U.S.L.W. 3372 (U.S. Dec. 3, 2001) (No. 01-6014). When determining whether equitable tolling is appropriate, courts must consider: "(1) the petitioner's lack of notice of the filing requirement; (2) the petitioner's lack of constructive knowledge of the filing requirement; (3) diligence in pursuing one's rights; (4) absence of prejudice to the respondent; and (5) the petitioner's reasonableness in remaining ignorant of the legal requirement for filing his claim." Id. at 1008.
Petitioner has not asserted that he lacked notice or constructive knowledge of the filing requirement. Therefore, the Court's inquiry is limited to examining Petitioner's diligence in pursuing his rights and the reasonableness of any ignorance of the filing requirement. Andrews v. Orr, 851 F.2d 146, 151 (6th Cir. 1988).
1. Diligence
Petitioner waited about twenty months after his conviction became final on direct review to file his motion for relief from judgment. All but fifteen days of the one-year limitations period had expired by then. After the state courts concluded their review of Petitioner's motion, Petitioner waited another forty-nine days to submit his habeas petition.
Petitioner seeks to have the Court equitably toll the limitation period on the grounds that he is uneducated in the law, that he was, and is, representing himself, and that the prison law library was inadequate. Ignorance of the law, however, does not constitute an extraordinary circumstance justifying equitable tolling, Rose v. Dole, 945 F.2d 1331, 1335 (6th Cir. 1991), even for an incarcerated prose petitioner, Fisher v. Johnson, 174 F.3d 710, 714 (5th Cir. 1999).
Furthermore, Petitioner has not shown how the allegedly inadequate library impeded him. He was able to file a motion for relief from judgment and timely appeals from the trial court's denial of his motion. Petitioner could have begun preparation of his habeas petition during the nearly four years that his post-conviction motion was pending in state court. The possibility existed that the state courts would deny relief, and the period of limitation had not expired. The Court concludes that Petitioner was not diligent in pursuing his rights.
2. Reasonableness
Although Petitioner does not specifically allege that he was ignorant of the filing requirement, a claim of ignorance would be unreasonable. As early as September 12, 1996, the Seventh Circuit determined in an en banc decision that a one-year grace period was applicable for prisoners whose convictions became final before the effective date of the AEDPA. See Lindh v. Murphy, 96 F.3d 856, 866 (7th Cir. 1996), reversed on other grounds, 521 U.S. 320 (1997); see also Calderon v. United States Dist. Ct. for the Cent. Dist. of Cal., 128 F.3d 1283, 1287 (9th Cir. 1997) (concluding on April 17, 1997, that the AEDPA's one-year time limit began to run on April 24, 1996), reversed on other grounds, 163 F.3d 530, 539-40 (9th Cir. 1998). And while Petitioner's post-conviction motion was pending in state court, it became clear that "[s]ection 2244(d)(2)'s tolling provision . . . does not reset the date from which the one-year statute of limitations begins to run." Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d 13, 17 (2nd Cir.), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 840 (2000). The Court concludes that any ignorance of section 2244(d) or its implications for prisoners whose convictions became final before the effective date of the AEDPA was not reasonable.
III. Conclusion
Summary judgment is appropriate because "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Petitioner's claims clearly are time-barred, and this is not an appropriate case for equitable tolling. Accordingly, Respondent's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED, and the habeas petition is DISMISSED with prejudice.