Gibson v. KlingerGibson v. Klinger
Defendant Ronnie Lee Gibson appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus as untimely under the one-year limitations period provided by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA),
The relevant procedural facts are as follows. On December 16, 1975, following the entry of a guilty plea, an Oklahoma district court sentenced Mr. Gibson to life imprisonment for first-degree manslaughter. On December 7, 1995, Mr. Gibson filed a petition for state post-conviction relief, which the Oklahoma court denied on April 25, 1996. Because he did not appeal the judgment within the thirty-day time period required under Oklahoma law, his time to appeal the district court’s denial expired on May 25, 1996.
Mr. Gibson did not file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to
II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
We must first address whether we have properly acquired jurisdiction of this appeal. In the order dated May, 25, 2000, we granted a certificate of appealability (COA) on the procedural tolling question and did not address Mr. Gibson’s substantive, constitutional claims. Around the time that we issued the order, the Supreme Court decided
Slack v. McDaniel,
We granted a COA to address the timeliness of Mr. Gibson’s petition under AED-PA and did not determine whether the petition debatably presents a “valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right.” Before proceeding to the limitations issue, we must therefore review the constitutional claims. Because the district court did not address these claims and the parties
Because we must answer a question of law, our review of the district court’s denial is de novo.
Rowe v. LeMas-ter,
III. Discussion
AEDPA establishes a one-year statute of limitations for federal habeas petitions.
To determine whether the federal habe-as petition was timely, we must construe the language of AEDPA’s tolling provision,
A. Tolling During the Thirty-Day Statutory Time Period
In
Rowe v. LeMaster,
we tolled the one-year statute of limitations during the thirty-day statutory period in which a petitioner could have sought review of a state court denial of a post-conviction application.
1
This conclusion is consistent. with our decision in
Barnett v. Lemaster,
interpreting when a post-conviction application is “pending” for tolling purposes.
Other circuits have also recognized that similar definitions of “pending” support tolling the limitations period during a statutory grace period for appeal even when a petitioner fails to appeal during this period.
Swartz v. Meyers,
B. Consideration of State Decisions to Reach the Merits
Mr. Gibson argues that, because the state appellate court allowed his appeal out of time, we should toll the statute of limitations during the entire period between his initial filing for post-conviction relief and the state appellate court’s final denial, including the period between the expiration of his time to appeal and his filing of a motion for leave to appeal out of time. We do not agree. The state court’s grant of leave to appeal out of time cannot еrase the time period during which nothing was pending before a state court. In addition, we have held that a state court’s decision dismissing a prisoner’s post-conviction application as procedurally barred does not determine whether an application is “properly filed” for tolling purposes under AEDPA.
Habteselassie v. Novak,
Although the circuits agree that state procedural law should determine whether an application is “properly filed,”
see Adams,
The circuits’ disagrеement over whether to follow a state court’s decision regarding procedural matters is the reason both the Seventh and the Ninth Circuits recently reached a different result regarding a similar tolling question than the one we reach today. Both circuits look to state court decisions in determining whether an application is “properly filed.”
Freeman,
Despite the conclusions of the Seventh and Ninth circuits, we conclude that our more narrow approach, which confines our inquiry to state filing requirements, is more consistent with the plain language of
This result is also consistent with our recent decision in
Rowe.
In
Rowe,
we held that a second state habeas petition did not amend, and therefore “relate back” to, an original petition.
C. Determining Whether an Application is “Pending”
Because the state appellatе court did not dismiss his appeal out of time until June 1997, Mr. Gibson contends that our definition of “pending” in
Barnett,
Although the interpretation of the term “pending” is a matter of federal law, our definition does require some inquiry into relevant state procedural laws: under Barnett’s definition of “pending,” we must ask whether a petitioner was properly employing “state court procedures” in attempting to exhaust state court remedies.
Mr. Gibson allowed the statutory grace period for appeal to lapse on May 25, 1996, and did not begin the process that resulted in his actual appeal out of time until November 12, 1996, when he asked the state district court for leave to appeal out of time. Although Mr. Gibson properly filed a motion for leave to appeal in state district court on June 13, 1996, he did not file a subsequent motion in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals as required by statute, choosing instead to wait and begin the process again in the state district court in November 1996. Hence, although Mr. Gibson properly used state court procedures to file a post-conviction application for leave to appeal with the state district court on June 13, 1996, tolling the entire period between this first motion and his second motion on November 12, 1996, would be contrary to our definition of “pending”: Mr. Gibson was nоt “attempting to exhaust state remedies” during this entire period.
Barnett,
We also conclude our definition of “pending” is most consistent with Congress’s intent to encourage exhaustion of state court remedies without allowing prisoners to toll the limitations period indefinitely. Reading the statute to include Mr. Gibsоn’s June 1996 motion would certainly contravene Congress’s intent in establishing a one-year limitations period.
See Tinker v. Hanks,
The limitations period, therefore, resumed running on May 25, 1996, and continued to run until November 12, 1996, when Mr. Gibsоn filed his second application for leave to appeal out of time in the state district court. After the state appellate court gave Mr. Gibson permission to file an appeal of his application for post-conviction relief, Mr. Gibson had thirty days to file his appeal,
D. Equitable Tolling
Mr. Gibson also argues that the limitations period should be equitably tolled because he was unable to secure a copy of AEDPA and because the state court concluded that his failure to appeal the denial of post-conviction relief within the statutory time limit was not his fault. We will address Mr. Gibson’s first argument regarding his inability to obtain a copy of AEDPA but will not address his second argument regarding the state court’s decision because he did not present it to the district court.
Rhine v. Boone,
AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations is subject to equitable tolling but only “in rare and exceptional circumstances.”
Davis v. Johnson,
We agree with the district court that Mr. Gibson did not exercise due diligence in pursuing his federal claims. He has not demonstrated why he did not pursue his appeal out of time after receiving the state district court’s permission on June 13, 1996, or why he did not file his federal habeas petition within the 185 days after the state appellate court affirmed the denial of his post-conviction application. Mr. Gibson’s evidence that he could not obtain a copy of AEDPA on June 17, and 18, 1998, and that another inmate could not obtain a copy on March 12, 1998, does not demonstrate that the state prevented him from learning about AEDPA during the thirteen months between its enactment and the day the limitations period expired for his federal habeas petition. In fact, the evidence shows that the library had the legislation until it was removed by another inmate. Mr. Gibson’s alleged ignorance of AEDPA’s one-year limitations period does not support the application of equitable tolling principles.
Becausе Mr. Gibson did not file his federal habeas petition within the one-year limitations period, his petition is barred by AEDPA’s statute of limitations.
Notes
. Although we applied this thirty-day time period toward the one-year limitation period in
Hoggro,
we did not explicitly address the issue and the thirty days did not affect the outcome of the case.
. The Seventh Circuit had previously decided that, when a state court does not allow a second collateral attack, the limitations period is not tolled during the time following a petitioner's filing of a motion for leave to file a post-conviction application.
Tinker v. Hanks,