Bronaugh v. State of Ohio

Citation235 F.3d 280
Decision Date20 September 2000
Docket NumberNo. 99-3886,99-3886
Parties(6th Cir. 2000) D'Juan Bronaugh, Petitioner-Appellant, v. State of Ohio, Respondent-Appellee. Argued:
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Cincinnati. No. 98-00549, S. Arthur Spiegel, District Judge.

Paul Mancino, Jr., MANCINO, MANCINO & MANCINO, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant.

Stuart A. Cole, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Litigation Section, Columbus, OH, Laurence R. Snyder, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF OHIO, CORRECTIONS LITIGATION SECTION, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: JONES and MOORE , Circuit Judges; MATIA , Chief District Judge*.

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JONES, J., joined. MATIA, D. J., concurred in the judgment only.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

D'Juan Bronaugh, an Ohio prisoner who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1995, appeals the federal district court's dismissal of his petition for habeas corpus relief as time-barred under the one-year statute of limitations of 28 U.S.C. §2244(d). Bronaugh filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254 that was ultimately transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Bronaugh raised nine claims in his habeas petition, including ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel and several claims alleging that his due process right to a fair trial was violated. Respondent, the State of Ohio ("State"), moved to dismiss Bronaugh's petition as both procedurally defaulted and time-barred. While the district court did not agree that Bronaugh had procedurally defaulted his claims at the state court level, it granted the State's motion to dismiss on the grounds that Bronaugh's habeas petition was filed beyond the one-year statute of limitations of §2244(d)1 As part of the district court's order dismissing Bronaugh's habeas petition as untimely, the court granted a certificate of appealability "solely with respect to the issue addressed in this order as to whether the instant habeas corpus petition is barred from review under Sec. 2244(d)." Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 192 (District Court's Order Dismissing Habeas Petition). Thus, this court will only address the question of whether Bronaugh's habeas petition was timely filed. For the reasons set forth below, weREVERSE the district court's holding that Bronaugh's habeas petition is barred by the one-year statute of limitations set forth in §2244(d), and REMAND to that court for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

On June 3, 1994, a Hamilton County, Ohio grand jury returned an indictment charging D'Juan Bronaugh with one count of aggravated murder with a firearm specification. On May 3, 1995, a jury found Bronaugh guilty of aggravated murder with a firearm specification and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction on April 24, 1996.

Following the judgment of the court of appeals, Bronaugh's appointed counsel failed to make a timely appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio because his appeal omitted a copy of the court of appeals opinion and the judgment entry being appealed, as required by Ohio Sup. Ct. R. III, §1(D). Following the Ohio Supreme Court's denial of his subsequent motion for delayed appeal, Bronaugh filed in the state court of appeals an application to reopen his direct appeal due to ineffective assistance of appellate counsel pursuant to Ohio R. App. P. 26(B)2. The Ohio Court of Appeals denied Bronaugh's application as untimely, stating that he did not show good cause for filing his application more than ninety days after journalization of that court's judgment, as required by Rule 26(B). The Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed Bronaugh's appeal of the denial of his Rule 26(B) application as "not involving any substantial constitutional question." J.A. at 178.

The timing of various events in this case's complicated procedural history is vital to determining whether Bronaugh's habeas petition is timely under §2244(d). Those events are detailed in the following procedural timeline:

May 3, 1995: Bronaugh is sentenced after being found guilty of aggravated murder with a firearm specification.

April 24, 1996: Ohio Court of Appeals affirms Bronaugh's conviction.

June 10, 1996: Bronaugh's time for filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio expires.

June 19, 1996: Bronaugh files in the Supreme Court of Ohio a motion for delayed appeal.

July 31, 1996: Supreme Court of Ohio denies motion for delayed appeal.

April 7, 1997: Bronaugh files in the Ohio Court of Appeals a Rule 26(B) application to reopen his direct appeal.

October 21, 1997:Ohio Court of Appeals denies Bronaugh's application to reopen his appeal, stating that he did not show good cause for filing his application more than ninety days after the Court of Appeals's judgment was first journalized.

December 2, 1997: Bronaugh appeals the denial of his Rule 26(B) application to the Supreme Court of Ohio.

January 28, 1998: Supreme Court of Ohio dismisses Bronaugh's appeal of his Rule 26(B) application.

June 30, 1998: Bronaugh files petition for habeas corpus relief in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Bronaugh's petition is transferred to the Southern District of Ohio on July 28, 1998.

November 4, 1998: State of Ohio files motion to dismiss Bronaugh's habeas corpus petition.

December 8, 1998: District court grants State's motion to dismiss on the grounds that Bronaugh's petition was filed outside the one-year statute of limitations as imposed by §2244(d).

Bronaugh then appealed the district court's dismissal of his habeas corpus petition to this court.

II. ANALYSIS

This court reviews a district court's disposition of a habeas corpus petition de novo. See Harris v. Stovall, 212 F.3d 940, 941 (6th Cir. 2000). Because Bronaugh's habeas petition was filed after the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) became effective on April 24, 1996, the provisions of that act apply to this case. AEDPA states that a "1-year period of limitations shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." 28 U.S.C. §2244(d)(1). The statute of limitations begins to run from the latest of four circumstances, one of which is the "date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review." 28 U.S.C. §2244(d)(1)(A). The one-year period of limitations is tolled, however, for that amount of time in which "a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending." 28 U.S.C. §2244(d)(2).

Whether Bronaugh's petition for federal habeas corpus is timely hinges, in part, on when the one-year statute of limitations under §2244(d) first begins to run. This circuit has recently decided in Isham v. Randle, 226 F.3d 691, 694-95 (6th Cir. 2000), that, under §2244(d)(1)(A), the one-year statute of limitations does not begin to run until the time for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari for direct review in the United States Supreme Court has expired3. A criminal defendant has only ninety days following the entry of judgment by the "state court of last resort" in which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari. Sup. Ct. R. 13.

In this case, the State contends that the last day on which Bronaugh could file an appeal of his conviction to the Supreme Court of Ohio was June 10, 1996. See Appellee's Br. at 16. It was on June 10, 1996 that Bronaugh's appointed counsel filed an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court, only to have it rejected by that court's assignment clerk for failure to comply with the court's administrative requirement that a copy of the court of appeals opinion and judgment entry being appealed be included in the filing. See Ohio Sup. Ct. R. III, §1(D). The United States Supreme Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1257(a), only has jurisdiction over those state court cases in which final judgments or decrees have been rendered "by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had." The U.S. Supreme Court has held in a previous case that a similar action by the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Ohio, who refused to file an appeal when the petitioner failed to include the mandatory docket and filing fees, constituted a final judgment over which the U.S. Supreme Court could assert its jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §12574. See Burns v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 252, 256-57 (1959). Thus, if, as the State contends, Bronaugh's time for filing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio expired on June 10, 1996, and further assuming that the assignment clerk of the Ohio Supreme Court rejected Bronaugh's appeal on this same day,5 then the ninety-day period in which to petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court would begin to run on June 11, 19966. See Sup. Ct. R. 30 (stating that, in calculating the ninety-day window in which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, "the day of the act, event, or default from which the designated period begins to run is not included"). Bronaugh's ninety-day window in which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court ended on Sunday, September 8, 1996, yet Supreme Court Rule 30 also states that the last day of the filing period shall be included unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or federal legal holiday. Thus, the last day on which Bronaugh could have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court was Monday, September 9, 1996. See Sup. Ct. R. 30.

If the last day on which Bronaugh could petition for a writ of certiorari was September 9, 1996, the next question this court must address is whether §2244(d)'s...

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