Brown v. Angelone

• Citation: 150 F.3d 370
• Decision Date: 14 July 1998
• Docket Number: 96-7208,Nos. 96-7173,s. 96-7173
• Parties: Michael Dwayne BROWN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald ANGELONE, Respondent-Appellee. Jesse James PRITCHARD, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald ANGELONE, Director, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

Page 370

150 F.3d 370

Michael Dwayne BROWN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald ANGELONE, Respondent-Appellee.

Jesse James PRITCHARD, Jr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ronald ANGELONE, Director, Respondent-Appellee.

Nos. 96-7173, 96-7208.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued April 7, 1998.

Decided July 14, 1998.

ARGUED: Neal Lawrence Walters, Appellate Litigation Clinic, University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellants. Pamela Anne Rumpz, Assistant

Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Richard Cullen, Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before MURNAGHAN, NIEMEYER, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

Reversed by published opinion. Judge MOTZ wrote the opinion, in which Judge MURNAGHAN and Judge NIEMEYER joined.

OPINION

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

This appeal concerns the timeliness of an initial petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus filed shortly after the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The district court concluded that the one-year limitation period mandated by that statute required dismissal of the petition, even though it would have been timely if filed the day prior to enactment of the new limitation period. We reverse.

I.

On November 27, 1985, a state court convicted Jesse James Pritchard, Jr., an inmate, of attempted escape. Pritchard unsuccessfully pursued direct appeal and state post-conviction relief, both of which apparently were denied sometime in 1989, although the record before us does not indicate the exact dates of those rulings.

On April 24, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (AEDPA). That statute instituted a limitation period for filing habeas petitions, which provides in pertinent part:

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[.]

AEDPA § 101, 110 Stat. 1217; 28 U.S.C.A. § 2244(d)(1) (West Supp.1998). The statute permits several narrow exceptions to this one-year period, none of which apply here.

A month later, on May 24, 1996, Pritchard filed his first federal petition for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (West 1994 & Supp.1998). The district court held that the new one-year limitation period "compelle[d]" it to dismiss the petition as time barred. Pritchard moved for a certificate of appealability, which we granted. ¹

II.

Congress has long provided state prisoners a statutory right to seek habeas relief in federal courts. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(a) (a federal court "shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court" when the petitioner seeks relief "on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States"). Prior to enactment of the AEDPA, no statute limited the time available for a prisoner to file a habeas petition. Rule 9(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts constituted the only pre-AEDPA time limit on such filings. The rule permits a district court to dismiss a petition

if it appears that the state ... has been prejudiced in its ability to respond to the petition by delay in its filing unless the petitioner shows that it is based on grounds of which he could not have had knowledge by the exercise of reasonable diligence before the circumstances prejudicial to the state occurred.

Habeas Corpus Rule 9(a). A prisoner could wait almost a decade to file his habeas petition without violating Rule 9(a). See Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U.S. 314, 322-29, 116 S.Ct. 1293, 134 L.Ed.2d 440 (1996).

Thus, as of April 23, 1996, a prisoner seeking federal habeas relief operated under no statutory time limitation; he awoke the next day, however, to a new habeas regime in which he has only one year from the date his conviction became final to file a federal petition. The Commonwealth argues, and the district court held, that this one-year limitation period applies to all petitions filed after the AEDPA's enactment and divests prisoners of their ability to seek federal habeas relief if they failed to file their petitions within one year of the date their convictions became final.

Under the Commonwealth's theory, in cases where state convictions became final within a year preceding the effective date of the AEDPA, inmates would have had whatever time remained in that year--even if only a few days--to seek federal relief once the statute went into effect. In cases like Pritchard's, where a conviction became final more than one year prior to the effective date of the AEDPA, the time to file a federal petition had apparently lapsed days, months, or years earlier, without any notice to the prisoner. For many prisoners the long-established right to seek federal habeas relief simply vanished at midnight on April 24, 1996. Thus, in Pritchard's case, as of April 24, 1996, the time to file a petition would have expired sometime in 1989 or 1990, even though the petition would have been timely if filed on April 23, 1996. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth maintains that applying the new limitation period in this manner, as the district court did, "would have no retroactive effect" under Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). Brief of Respondent-Appellee at 5.

The Supreme Court has held that the AEDPA's amendments to Chapter 153 of Title 28 of the United States Code generally apply to any petitions filed after the effective date of the Act, although not to petitions pending at the time of enactment. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, ----, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 2068, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997) ("We hold that ... the new provisions of chapter 153 generally apply only to cases filed after the Act became effective."); see also Breard v. Pruett, 134 F.3d 615, 618 (4th Cir.) ("[f]or habeas petitions filed after April 24, 1996 ... the Chapter 153 provisions apply"), cert. denied sub nom., Breard v. Greene, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1352, 140 L.Ed.2d 529 (1998). The AEDPA's amendments to Chapter 153 include the new § 2244(d) limitation period. Pritchard filed the petition at issue here on May 24, 1996, a month after the April 24 effective date of the AEDPA. Therefore, the provisions of the AEDPA, including the § 2244(d) time limitation, generally apply to his case. Accord Calderon v. United States Dist. Ct. for the Cent. Dist. of Cal., 128 F.3d 1283, 1287 n. 3 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 899, 139 L.Ed.2d 884 (1998).

Pritchard argues, however, that applying the new limitation period to bar habeas petitions based on convictions that became final more than a year before its effective date triggers the retroactivity concerns at issue in Landgraf. This contention presents a more complicated question. To answer it, we employ the analytical framework established in Landgraf.

Initially, we look to the statute itself to determine whether Congress has expressly directed that the limitation period applies in the manner urged by the Commonwealth. See Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483. As the Supreme Court noted in Lindh, the AEDPA "is not a silk purse of the art of statutory drafting." Lindh, 521 U.S. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 2068. The statute itself nowhere reveals Congress' intent concerning whether the statute applies as the Commonwealth proposes. Certainly nothing in the AEDPA indicates that Congress did intend "to foreclose prisoners who had no prior notice of the new limitations period from bringing" a habeas action. United States v. Simmonds, 111 F.3d 737, 745 (10th Cir.1997); see also United States v. Flores, 135 F.3d 1000, 1004-05 & n. 16 (5th Cir.1998). Consequently, absent an express congressional command, we follow "normal rules of construction" to determine whether the "statute's terms would produce a retroactive effect." Lindh, 521 U.S. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 2063; see Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483.

In considering these rules of construction, Landgraf recognized the strong "traditional presumption against applying statutes affecting substantive rights, liabilities, or duties to conduct arising before their enactment." Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 278, 114 S.Ct. 1483. The Court noted, however, that unlike substantive rules, "[c]hanges in procedural rules may often be applied in suits arising before their enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity." Id. at 275, 114 S.Ct. 1483. This is so because procedural rules generally "regulate secondary rather than primary conduct" and create "diminished reliance interests." Id. Courts usually (but not invariably) regard limitation periods as procedural in nature. Compare Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman, 486 U.S. 717, 722-29, 108 S.Ct. 2117, 100 L.Ed.2d 743 (1988), with Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 107-12, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 89 L.Ed. 2079 (1945). Courts also normally apply the statute of limitations in operation at the filing of suit even if enacted subsequent to the conduct giving rise to the suit, effectively shortening the period available for a plaintiff to file. See, e.g., St. Louis v. Texas Worker's Comp. Comm'n, 65 F.3d 43, 45-46 (5th Cir.1995); Vernon v. Cassadaga Valley Cent. Sch. Dist., 49 F.3d 886, 889-91 (2d Cir.1995). ²

However, in making its "cautious statement about procedural rules," Lindh, 521 U.S. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 2064, the Landgraf Court recognized that there is nothing talismanic about identifying a rule as procedural if its application results in genuinely retroactive effects. See Landgraf, 511 U.S....