JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES
No. 03-9685
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 18, 2005—Decided April 4, 2005
544 U.S. 295
Courtland L. Reichman argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is when the 1-year statute of limitations in
I
In 1994, petitioner Robert Johnson, Jr., was indicted for distributing cocaine base and related conspiracy. Following his guilty plea to a single count of distribution in violation of
On appeal, Johnson argued for the first time that he should not have been sentenced as a career offender because one of
note[d] in passing that, should appellant obtain at some future date the vacation of the state court conviction in question because [it was] obtained in violation of his constitutional rights, he could petition the district court under
28 U. S. C. § 2255 for the relief he now asks us to provide. Id., at 8, n. 1.
We denied certiorari. Johnson v. United States, 517 U. S. 1162 (1996).
Two days later, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) went into effect, imposing, among other things, a 1-year period of limitations on motions by prisoners seeking to modify their federal sentences:
The limitation period shall run from the latest of—
(1) the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes final;
(2) the date on which the impediment to making a motion created by governmental action in violation of
*Donald F. Samuel and Michael Kennedy McIntyre filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the movant was prevented from making a motion by such governmental action;
(3) the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or
(4) the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.
28 U. S. C. § 2255 , ¶ 6.
A fifth option supplied uniformly by the Courts of Appeals gave prisoners whose convictions became final before AEDPA a 1-year grace period running from the new statute‘s effective date. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 183, n. 1 (2001) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (collecting cases).
On April 25, 1997, one year and three days after his pre-AEDPA federal conviction became final and just after the 1-year grace period expired, Johnson pro se filed a motion in the District Court for a 60-day extension of time to attack his federal sentence under
On February 6, 1998, Johnson petitioned for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Wayne County, Georgia, claiming the invalidity of his guilty pleas in seven cases between 1983 and 1993 because he had not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his right to counsel. One of the seven pleas Johnson challenged was the basis for one of
Just over three months later, Johnson was back in the Federal District Court pro se with a motion under
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. 340 F. 3d 1219 (CA11 2003). The majority reasoned that the state-court order vacating the prior state conviction was not
We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 965 (2004), to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as to whether vacatur of a prior state conviction used to enhance a federal sentence can start the 1-year limitation period under the fourth alternative of the
We agree with Johnson that the state-court vacatur is a matter of fact for purposes of the limitation rule in the fourth paragraph. But we also hold that the statute allows the fact of the state-court order to set the 1-year period running only if the petitioner has shown due diligence in seeking the order. Applying that qualification, we affirm.
II
The Government shares Johnson‘s preliminary assumption that if he filed his
Such was the premise in Custis v. United States, supra, even though we held that the ACCA generally created no opportunity to attack a prior state conviction collaterally at a federal sentencing proceeding, 511 U. S., at 490, and that the Constitution demands no more, id., at 496–497. We thought that Congress had not meant to make it so easy to challenge final judgments that every occasion to enhance a sentence for recidivism would turn a federal sentencing court into a forum for difficult and time-consuming reexaminations of stale state proceedings. Ibid. We recognized only one exception to this rule that collateral attacks were off-limits, and that was for challenges to state convictions allegedly obtained in violation of the right to appointed counsel, an exception we thought necessary to avoid undermining Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963). Custis v. United States, 511 U. S., at 494–496. As to challenges falling outside of that exception, we pointed out that a defendant who successfully attacked his state conviction in state court or on federal habeas review could then “apply for reopening of any federal sentence enhanced by the state sentences.” Id., at 497.
This case presents the distinct issue of how soon a prisoner, successful in his state proceeding, must challenge the federal sentence under
We think none of these positions is sound, at least in its entirety. As for the Government‘s proposed reading, certainly it is true that the circumstances rendering the underlying predicate conviction invalid are ultimate subjects of fact supporting the
There are further reasons against applying the fourth paragraph as the Government would. Congress does not
Johnson‘s argument improves on the Government‘s proposal by pegging the limitation period to notice of the state order eliminating the predicate required for enhancement, which is almost always necessary and always sufficient for relief. We do not find his proposal vulnerable to the point made by the majority of the Court of Appeals, that an order vacating a conviction is legally expressive or operative language that may not be treated as a matter of fact within the meaning of the statute. We commonly speak of the “fact of
But Johnson‘s take on the statute carries anomalies of its own, one minor, one more serious. It is strange to say that an order vacating a conviction has been “discovered,” the term used by paragraph four, and stranger still to speak about the date on which it could have been discovered with due diligence, when the fact happens to be the outcome of a proceeding in which the
A more serious problem is Johnson‘s position that his
We think neither anomaly is serious enough, however, to justify rejecting Johnson‘s basic argument that notice of the order vacating the predicate conviction is the event that starts the one year running. Our job here is to find a sensible way to apply paragraph four when the truth is that with Daniels not yet on the books AEDPA‘s drafters probably never thought about the situation we face here. Of course it is peculiar to speak of “discovering” the fact of the very eventuality the petitioner himself has brought about, but when that fact is necessary to the
While it sounds odd to speak of discovering a fact one has generated, a petitioner does not generate the fact of vacatur all by himself. He does, after all, have to learn of the court‘s response in the state proceeding, and receiving notice of success can surely qualify as a kind of discovery falling within the statutory language.
That leaves us with the question of how to implement the statutory mandate that a petitioner act with due diligence in discovering the crucial fact of the vacatur order that he himself seeks. The answer is that diligence can be shown by prompt action on the part of the petitioner as soon as he is in a position to realize that he has an interest in challenging the prior conviction with its potential to enhance the later sentence. The important thing is to identify a particular time when the course of the later federal prosecution clearly shows that diligence is in order. That might be the date the federal indictment is disclosed, the date of judgment, or the date of finality after direct appeal. Picking the first date would require the quickest response and serve finality best,
The dissent, like Johnson, would dispense with any due diligence requirement in seeking the state vacatur order itself, on the ground that the States can impose their own limitations periods on state collateral attacks, as most States do, post, at 316 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.). But the United States has an interest in the finality of sentences imposed by its own courts;
We accordingly apply the fourth paragraph in the situation before us by holding that from November 29, 1994, the date the District Court entered judgment in his federal case, Johnson was obliged to act diligently to obtain the state-court order vacating his predicate conviction. Had he done so, the 1-year limitation period would have run from the date he received notice of that vacatur.8
Although Johnson knew that his conviction subjected him to the career offender enhancement, he failed to attack the predicate for enhancement by filing his state habeas petition until February 1998, more than three years after entry of judgment in the federal case. Indeed, even if we moved the burden of diligence ahead to the date of finality of the federal conviction or to AEDPA‘s effective date two days later, Johnson would still have delayed unreasonably, having waited over 21 months. Johnson has offered no explanation for this delay, beyond observing that he was acting pro se and lacked the sophistication to understand the procedures. But we have never accepted pro se representation alone or procedural ignorance as an excuse for prolonged inattention when a statute‘s clear policy calls for promptness, and on this record we think Johnson fell far short of reasonable diligence in challenging the state conviction. Since there is every reason to believe that prompt action would have produced a state vacatur order well over a year before he filed his
We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
proceedings finally conclude. We further recognize that the facts underlying the challenge to the state-court conviction might themselves not be discoverable through the exercise of due diligence until after the date of the federal judgment. In such circumstances, once the facts become discoverable and the prisoner proceeds diligently to state court, the limitation period will run from the date of notice of the eventual state-court vacatur. Finally, we note that a petitioner who has been inadequately diligent can still avail himself of paragraph four if he can show that he filed the
The Court took this case to determine whether a vacatur is a “fact,” as that term is used in
In my view the Court‘s new rule of prevacatur diligence is inconsistent with the statutory language; is unnecessary since States are quite capable of protecting themselves against undue delay in commencing state proceedings to vacate prior judgments; introduces an imprecise and incongruous deadline into the federal criminal process; is of sufficient uncertainty that it will require further litigation before its operation is understood; and, last but not least, drains scarce defense resources away from the prisoner‘s federal criminal case in some of its most critical stages. For these reasons, I submit my respectful dissent.
I
The question on which we granted certiorari is this: “When a federal court bases an enhanced sentence on a vacated state conviction, is the vacatur of the state conviction a ‘fact’ supporting a prisoner‘s
The Court is quite correct, in my view, to hold that the state-court order of vacatur itself is the critical fact which begins the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996‘s 1-year limitations period. § 101, 110 Stat. 1217. Ante, at 309. It is an accepted use of the law‘s vocabulary to say that the entry or the setting aside of a judgment is a fact. Ante, at 307. An order vacating a judgment is a definite and significant fact of litigation history. So the Court is on firm ground to say a state judgment of vacatur begins the 1-year limitations period. Even aside from the textual support for petitioner‘s position, our opinions in Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994), and Daniels v. United States, 532 U. S. 374 (2001), were decided on the understanding that Congress did not expect federal sentences to be enhanced irrespective of the validity of the state conviction relied upon for the enhancement. Ante, at 305–306. Those cases suggest that the proper procedure for reducing a federal sentence enhanced on the basis of an invalid state conviction is to seek a vacatur of a state conviction, and then proceed through federal habeas.
The Court is correct, too, to say that the whole problem of vacating state-court judgments fits rather awkwardly into the language of
The Court, however, does not accept the consequence of its own correct determination. Instead it finds a need to make the words “discovery” and “due diligence” more applicable to the instance of vacatur. Hence it adopts the second requirement: “[W]e also hold that the statute allows the fact of the state-court order to set the 1-year period running only if the petitioner has shown due diligence in seeking the order.” Ante, at 302. This added condition cannot be found in the statute‘s design or in its text. It creates, furthermore, its own set of problems. Section
II
The 1-year period begins from “the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.”
The only way the majority‘s construction can fit the statute is if the controlling fact is the circumstance giving rise to the vacatur, not the vacatur itself. Yet the majority re-
The majority rejects petitioner‘s proposed construction of the “discovered through the exercise of due diligence” language, which I would adopt, for two reasons. First, the Court observes it is “strange to say that an order vacating a conviction has been ‘discovered,’ ... and stranger still to speak about the date on which it could have been discovered with due diligence, when the fact happens to be the outcome of a proceeding in which the
Though I agree it is a bit awkward, in my view it is well within the realm of reasonable statutory construction to apply the term “discover” to an order vacating a conviction. The ordinary meaning of the term “discovery,” after all, is “the act, process, or an instance of gaining knowledge of or ascertaining the existence of something previously unknown or unrecognized.” Webster‘s Third New International Dictionary 647 (1993). See also Black‘s Law Dictionary 465 (6th ed. 1990) (“[t]o get first sight or knowledge of“). There may be instances when there is a mistake in recording or entering the vacatur, or when it is not clear that the order in fact includes that relief, or when a prisoner‘s transfer or extradition reasonably causes the prisoner to learn of the order in some uncommon way. In these instances, admittedly infrequent, the word “discover” makes perfect sense. True, the due diligence language does not do much work when a petitioner receives prompt notice in the ordinary course. As explained, however,
The second reason the majority rejects Johnson‘s position is because it is troubled by the prospect that a petitioner “might wait a long time before raising any question about a predicate conviction....” Ante, at 307. Even if this concern were a sufficient basis for adding the majority‘s prevacatur diligence requirement to the statute and creating a two-tier diligence structure, the concern is overstated. In most instances, States can, and do, impose diligence by limiting the time for requesting a vacatur of a prior state conviction. It was represented at oral argument that all but about six States impose a limitation by statute or laches. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. Even in those six States, furthermore, it is not clear that equitable defenses would not apply. Id., at 17–18.
Any States that do not impose time limitations are free to do so if deemed necessary to protect the integrity of their own judgments, so a federal time limit is not required. This is illustrated by the instant case. When Johnson sought state relief, Georgia imposed no limitation on a petitioner‘s
The majority‘s construction, furthermore, can allow for the same delay it seeks to avoid. After all, the Court holds that the due diligence requirement is triggered only by a federal judgment. Consider a simple hypothetical. Suppose that a petitioner suffers a state conviction in 1980, and, despite learning in 1985 that his conviction is constitutionally infirm, does nothing. Suppose further he is sentenced for a federal crime in 2000. Under the majority‘s view, the petitioner‘s obligation to question his state conviction is not triggered until 2000, a full 15 years after he knew the basis for vacatur. Despite the adaptation it makes to
The error of the majority‘s position is further revealed by its selection of what I consider to be an incorrect date for triggering the prevacatur diligence requirement. It holds that the triggering event is set at the date of petitioner‘s federal judgment. Ante, at 310 (setting November 29, 1994, the date of judgment, as the date triggering the diligence requirement).
This rule of the Court‘s own contrivance is adopted, in my respectful submission, without full appreciation for the dynamic of the criminal process and its demands on counsel. Assuming for the moment that some event in the federal court should start the time period for pursuing state relief, surely the entry of judgment is ill chosen. This means the judgment is a mandatory beginning point for collateral proceedings to correct a judgment and sentence not yet final.
The law, and the decisions of this Court, put extraordinary demands on defense counsel. Immediately after a judgment, defense counsel must concentrate on ensuring that evidence of trial misconduct does not disappear and that grounds for appeal are preserved and presented. Today the Court says defense counsel must divert scarce resources from these heavy responsibilities to commence collateral proceedings to attack state convictions.
In this case seven different convictions in Georgia may have been relevant. In other cases convictions that might enhance have been entered in different States. See, e. g., Custis, 511 U. S., at 487. It is most troubling for a Court that insists on high standards of performance for defense counsel now to instruct that collateral proceedings must be commenced in one or more States during the critical time immediately after judgment and before appeal.
If the Court is to insist upon its own second tier of diligence, the dynamics of the criminal system and ordinary rules for determining when collateral proceedings become necessary should instruct us that, for federal purposes, this tier begins when the federal conviction becomes final. This also ensures that the federal court does not make demands on counsel and on state courts that are pointless if the federal conviction is overturned. Perhaps the Court rejects the date of final judgment as triggering its requirement because it adds little to the state requirements of diligence. If this surmise is correct, of course, it demonstrates that the Court should not adopt its interpretation in the first place.
Aside from diverting resources from a petitioner‘s federal case, the majority‘s approach creates new uncertainty, giving rise to future litigation. It leaves unsaid what standard will
In lieu of adopting an interpretation that creates more problems than it avoids, I would hold that the order vacating a prior state conviction is the fact supporting a