Valverde v. Stinson

• Decision Date: 01 August 1999
• Docket Number: Docket No. 98-2404
• Citation: 224 F.3d 129
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 2000) ALIXCAIR VALVERDE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. JAMES STINSON, Superintendent, Great Meadow Corr. Fac., Respondent-Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 129

224 F.3d 129 (2nd Cir. 2000)

ALIXCAIR VALVERDE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. JAMES STINSON, Superintendent, Great Meadow Corr. Fac., Respondent-Appellee.

Docket No. 98-2404

August Term, 1999

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: April 26, 2000

Decided: September 11, 2000

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Frederic Block, Judge) dismissing as untimely a habeas corpus petition filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on May 6, 1997. We vacate and remand for the district court to develop further the facts relevant to the petitioner's claim that a corrections officer prevented him from filing the petition on time by confiscating his legal papers shortly before the limitations period expired. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] KIM P. BONSTROM, New York, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant.

JANE S. MEYERS, Assistant District Attorney, Brooklyn, NY (Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Kings County, and Leonard Joblove, Assistant District Attorney, of counsel), for Respondent-Appellee.

Before: JACOBS, LEVAL and SACK, Circuit Judges.

SACK, Circuit Judge:

Alixcair Valverde appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Frederic Block, Judge) dismissing as untimely his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254. The principal question presented by this appeal is whether the confiscation of a prisoner's draft habeas corpus petition and related legal papers by a corrections officer can justify equitable tolling of the one-year period of limitations applicable to habeas corpus petitions. Because we answer that question in the affirmative, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for further development of the facts relevant to the petitioner's claim for equitable tolling and a decision on the basis of these additional facts as to whether the petition was timely. If the petition was timely, of course, the district court will be required to resolve it on the merits.

BACKGROUND

On March 15, 1993, Valverde was convicted of two counts of murder in the second degree, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law §125.25[1] and [3], one count of attempted robbery in the first degree, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law §§ 110.00 and 160.15[1], and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, in violation of N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03. Valverde was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of twenty-three years to life on the two murder counts and five to fifteen years on the robbery and weapon counts.

On June 5, 1995, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Valverde's conviction. See People v. Valverde, 216 A.D.2d 339, 627 N.Y.S.2d 992 (2d Dep't 1995). On December 7, 1995, a judge of the New York Court of Appeals denied Valverde leave to appeal. See People v. Valverde, 87 N.Y.2d 908, 663 N.E.2d 1268, 641 N.Y.S.2d 238 (1995) (Levine, J.). Valverde's conviction became final on March 6, 1996, when the ninety-day period to seek direct review from the United States Supreme Court by way of certiorari expired. See Warren v. Garvin, 219 F.3d 111, 112 (2d Cir. 2000); Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d 13, 15 & n.1 (2d Cir. 2000) (per curiam), petition for cert. filed (U.S. Apr. 17, 2000) (No. 99-9695); Ross v. Artuz, 150 F.3d 97, 98 (2d Cir. 1998); see also S. Ct. R. 13(1) (establishing ninety day period for filing petition for writ of certiorari).

On May 6, 1997, Valverde, proceeding pro se, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254.¹ In response to a motion by the respondent, the district court dismissed Valverde's petition as time barred because it was not filed within a "reasonable time" after the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214.² The district court rejected Valverde's argument that his tardiness should be excused because of his limited ability to speak and write English and his limited access to an adequate law library while in prison. The district court did not address Valverde's additional argument that he was prevented from filing on time by a corrections officer's confiscation of his legal papers, including his hand-written habeas corpus petition.

On August 26, 1999, we granted Valverde a certificate of appealability for the limited purpose of determining whether equitable tolling might be warranted in light of the confiscation of his legal papers. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Equitable Tolling

We have said that AEDPA's one-year period of limitations governing habeas corpus petitions may be equitably tolled in "extraordinary or exceptional circumstances." Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d at 17. We have not yet applied the equitable tolling doctrine in the AEDPA context, however, because we have not heretofore been presented with a case involving circumstances that might warrant such equitable relief. See Warren, 219 F.3d at 113-14 (declining to apply equitable tolling); Geraci v. Senkowski, 211 F.3d 6, 9 (2d Cir. 2000) (same); Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d at 17 18 (same). We conclude that this is such a case, and apply the principle announced in Smith v. McGinnis to hold that the confiscation of a prisoner's legal papers by a corrections officer shortly before the filing deadline may justify equitable tolling and permit the filing of a petition after the statute of limitations ordinarily would have run.

The district court dismissed Valverde's petition because it was filed on May 6, 1997, fourteen months after Valverde's conviction became final, and twelve days after the first anniversary of the effective date of AEDPA. It is undisputed that Valverde's petition should be regarded as untimely if the statute of limitations is not tolled for at least twelve days. See Ross v. Artuz, 150 F.3d at 103 (requiring state court prisoners whose convictions became final before April 24, 1996 to file their petitions for habeas corpus on or before April 24, 1997).

Valverde, represented by counsel on appeal, does not contest the district court's ruling that the time for filing should not be extended because of his limited ability to communicate in English or his inadequate access to a law library. Valverde's principal contention is that the limitations period should be equitably tolled for a period sufficient to render his filing timely because the corrections officer's seizure of his legal papers "proximately caus[ed]" his failure to file on time.

"Equitable tolling allows courts to extend the statute of limitations beyond the time of expiration as necessary to avoid inequitable circumstances." Johnson v. Nyack Hosp., 86 F.3d 8, 12 (2d Cir. 1996). In Smith v. McGinnis, we said that in habeas cases, "[e]quitable tolling applies only in... 'rare and exceptional circumstance[s],'" 208 F.3d at 17 (first alteration in original, second alteration added) (quoting Turner v. Johnson, 177 F.3d 390, 391-92 (5th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 504 (1999)), and that a habeas petitioner seeking equitable tolling "must show that extraordinary circumstances prevented him from filing his petition on time," id. (citing Johnson v. Nyack Hosp., 86 F.3d at 12).³

The intentional confiscation of a prisoner's habeas corpus petition and related legal papers by a corrections officer is "extraordinary" as a matter of law. See Morello v. James, 810 F.2d 344, 347 (2d Cir. 1987) (holding that "intentional obstruction of a prisoner's access to the courts" by means of confiscating his legal work product "is precisely the sort of oppression that [violates] the Fourteenth Amendment"). And a person is plainly "prevented" from filing a pleading for some period of time if he is deprived of the sole copy of that pleading, something that the petitioner asserts happened to him here.

But assuming that these extraordinary circumstances occurred, preventing the petitioner from filing his petition for some length of time, we must still determine whether they "prevented him from filing his petition on time." Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d at 17 (emphasis added). The word "prevent" requires the petitioner to demonstrate a causal relationship between the extraordinary circumstances on which the claim for equitable tolling rests and the lateness of his filing, a demonstration that cannot be made if the petitioner, acting with reasonable diligence, could have filed on time notwithstanding the extraordinary circumstances. Cf. Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96 (1990) ("We have generally been much less forgiving in receiving late filings where the claimant failed to exercise due diligence in preserving his legal rights."); Fisher v. Johnson, 174 F.3d 710, 716 (5th Cir. 1999) (holding that "equity does not require tolling" "absent a showing that [the petitioner] diligently pursued his application the remainder of the time [between the extraordinary circumstance and the filing deadline] and still could not complete it on time").⁴ If the person seeking equitable tolling has not exercised reasonable diligence in attempting to file after the extraordinary circumstances began, the link of causation between the extraordinary circumstances and the failure to file is broken, and the extraordinary circumstances therefore did not prevent timely filing.

If a petitioner demonstrates that extraordinary circumstances did prevent him from filing on time and that he or she is therefore entitled to equitable tolling, how long should the limitations period be tolled? Although "equitable tolling does not lend itself to bright-line rules," Fisher, 174 F.3d at 713, we conclude that if an act of confiscation such as that alleged by Valverde prevents a petitioner from filing before the ordinary limitations period expires, the tolling period must be sufficient to permit the filing of a petition on or before the earliest date after the act of confiscation...