Thompson v. Secretary, Dept. of Corrections

• Decision Date: 27 January 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-10540.,08-10540.
• Citation: 595 F.3d 1233
• Parties: Ricardo D. THOMPSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Florida Attorney General, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

595 F.3d 1233

Ricardo D. THOMPSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Florida Attorney General, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 08-10540.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

January 27, 2010.

Elaine Joan Mittleman (Court-Appointed), Falls Church, VA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Ann M. Phillips, Robin A. Compton, Daytona Beach, FL, for Respondents-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, and BIRCH and BLACK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Ricardo D. Thompson ("Thompson"), a state prisoner, appeals the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition as untimely under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). We granted Thompson a Certificate of Appealability on the following issue:

Whether, in light of Delancy v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., 246 F.3d 1328, 1330-31 (11th Cir.2001), the district court erred by dismissing [Thompson]'s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition as time-barred where it determined that a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which ultimately was dismissed for using the wrong statutory vehicle, was not "properly filed" pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).

Having considered the record, as well as the briefs and oral argument, we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing the § 2254 petition as untimely and REVERSE.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1998, a jury in Florida's Eighteenth Judicial Circuit convicted Thompson of two counts of sexual battery upon a minor and one count of lewd, lascivious, or indecent act upon a child. His convictions and sentences were affirmed on direct appeal. See Thompson v. State, 731 So.2d 819 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1999). Thompson was subsequently re-sentenced on 27 April 2001, from which he did not appeal.

Over the course of the next several years, Thompson filed numerous Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 ("Rule 3.850") motions and state habeas corpus petitions. Of relevance here are two of Thompson's state habeas petitions—a September 2004 habeas petition filed in Florida's Eighth Judicial Circuit and a December 2005 habeas petition filed in Florida's First District Court of Appeals. The Eighth Judicial Circuit denied his 2004 habeas petition on the ground that his claims should have been brought in a post-conviction (Rule 3.850) motion. The First District Court of Appeals affirmed this ruling. See Thompson v. Fortner, 932 So.2d 197 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2006). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on 10 October 2006. The First District Court of Appeals also summarily dismissed Thompson's 2005 habeas petition, citing Baker v. State, 878 So.2d 1236 (Fla.2004) (per curiam). See Thompson v. Fortner, 922 So.2d 316 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 2006) (per curiam). In Baker, the Florida Supreme Court held that post-conviction relief for individuals convicted of noncapital crimes in Florida must ordinarily be obtained through a Rule 3.850 motion in the sentencing court, rather than through a habeas corpus petition. See Baker, 878 So.2d at 1245.

Thompson filed the instant § 2254 petition pro se in November 2006. The district court found that his one-year limitations period had been tolled under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) by all of his collateral proceedings except for his 2004 and 2005 state habeas petitions, which the court found were not "properly filed." R1-31 at 5-6. The court then calculated that Thompson's one-year limitations period had expired in February 2006, thereby rendering his November 2006 § 2254 petition untimely. Accordingly, the district court denied his petition as untimely.

On appeal, Thompson, through counsel, contends that the district court erred in determining that his September 2004 and December 2005 state habeas petitions were not "properly filed" for purposes of tolling the one-year limitations period under § 2244(d)(2).

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo a district court's order dismissing a federal habeas petition as untimely, but review its factual findings for clear error. Delancy v. Fla. Dep't of Corr., 246 F.3d 1328, 1329 (11th Cir.2001) (per curiam).

The AEDPA mandates a one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas corpus petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1) (2009). This period is tolled, however, for "[t]he time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction relief or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending." Id. § 2244(d)(2). Here, the parties do not dispute the district court's calculation of Thompson's one-year limitations period other than whether it was tolled by his September 2004 and December 2005 state habeas petitions. Nor does the State dispute Thompson's contention that his federal habeas petition is timely if his excluded state habeas petitions trigger the tolling provision. The issue we must resolve then is whether the district court erred in determining that Thompson's September 2004 and December 2005 habeas petitions were not "properly filed" under § 2244(d)(2).

According to the Supreme Court, an application is "properly filed" under § 2244(d)(2) "when it is delivered to, and accepted by, the appropriate court officer for placement into the official record." Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8, 121 S.Ct. 361, 363, 148 L.Ed.2d 213 (2000). The term "properly filed" thus refers to the application's "compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings." Id. at 8, 121 S.Ct. at 364. For example, the filing requirements typically include "the form of the document, the time limits upon its delivery, the court and office in which it must be lodged, and the requisite filing fee." Id. (footnote omitted).

Whether an application is properly filed is distinct from whether the application's claims are meritorious or procedurally barred. See id. at 9, 121 S.Ct. at 364. Consequently, the Supreme Court determined in Artuz that an application raising procedurally barred claims was nonetheless "properly filed" for purposes of § 2244(d)(2). See id. at 11, 121 S.Ct. at 365. The Court explained that an application may include claims that are not properly presented or raised, "irrespective of whether the application containing those claims was properly filed." Id. at 10, 121 S.Ct. at 365. In other words, even though an application may not succeed in obtaining the desired relief, it may still be considered "properly filed" so long as it satisfies the statutory filing conditions. See id. at 11, 121 S.Ct. at 365; see also Drew v. Dep't of Corr., 297 F.3d 1278, 1284 (11th Cir.2002) (noting that the fact that a motion is successive, and may therefore fail on the merits, "does not render it improperly filed").

We applied this principle in Delancy. There, a Florida prisoner invoked the wrong statutory vehicle to challenge his sentences by filing a Rule 3.800 motion instead of a Rule 3.850 motion, resulting in the dismissal of his Rule 3.800 motion. See Delancy, 246 F.3d at 1330. We found that "under Artuz the district court erred in looking beyond the face of Delancy's Rule 3.800 motion to consider the individual claims (i.e., whether they are challenges to consecutive sentences or illegal sentences) in determining whether that motion was `properly filed' under § 2244(d)(2)." Id. We concluded that Delancy's Rule 3.800 motion was properly filed for purposes of tolling the one-year limitations period because "on its face, [the motion] met state procedural and filing requirements." Id. at 1330-31.

Likewise, in Estes v. Chapman, 382 F.3d 1237, 1241 (11th Cir.2004), we concluded that a motion to vacate a sentence was "properly filed" even though the state court ultimately lacked jurisdiction to modify the defendant's sentence. As the State conceded, the Georgia court had initial jurisdiction to determine whether it had jurisdiction to modify the sentence, and the motion otherwise complied with the filing requirements. See id. There was thus "no reason why the failure of Estes' motion should have retroactively rendered it improperly filed." Id. Consequently, Delancy prohibited the district court from looking beyond the face of the motion to ascertain whether it was properly filed. See id.

As in Estes, we find "no principled distinction between this case and Delancy." Id. Like Delancy, Thompson invoked the wrong statutory vehicle. Under Florida law, an individual convicted of a noncapital crime must, with limited exceptions, file a collateral post-conviction challenge to his conviction and sentence via a Rule 3.850 motion rather than a habeas corpus petition. See Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.850(h) (2009)¹; Baker, 878 So.2d at 1245. Because Thompson's 2004 and 2005 habeas corpus petitions challenged his convictions, the state courts determined that he should have raised his claims in a Rule 3.850 motion and therefore dismissed his petitions. Despite this error, Thompson filed his habeas petitions in the proper courts, the circuit court of the county of incarceration and the district court of appeal. See Fla. Stat. Ann. § 79.01 (2009) (vesting the state supreme court, district courts of appeal, and circuit courts with concurrent original jurisdiction to issue writs of habeas corpus); see also id. § 79.09 (requiring a habeas petition filed before a circuit judge to be filed in the circuit court of the county in which the prisoner is detained). Thus, like Delancy, Thompson filed his petitions in the proper place. Moreover, there is no evidence that Thompson did not comply with any other statutorily mandated filing conditions. Indeed, the State acknowledges on appeal that "it appears the state habeas petition met the state procedural and filing requirements on its face as a state habeas petition." Answer Brief of Appellee at 16 (emphasis omitted). As such, Thompson's 2004 and 2005 state habeas petitions were properly filed for purposes of triggering the tolling provisions of § 2244(d)(2). See Artuz, 531 U.S. at 8, 121 S.Ct. at 363-64; Delan...