Caldwell v. Dretke

• Decision Date: 26 October 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-10062.,No. 03-40927.,No. 03-20900.,03-40927.,03-20900.,04-10062.
• Citation: 429 F.3d 521
• Parties: Robert F. CALDWELL, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug DRETKE, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee. Pete Ronald Martinez, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee. David Franklin Beck, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 521

429 F.3d 521

Robert F. CALDWELL, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug DRETKE, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee.

Pete Ronald Martinez, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee.

David Franklin Beck, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 03-40927.

No. 03-20900.

No. 04-10062.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

October 26, 2005.

Matthew R. Scott (argued), Bell, Nunnally & Martin, Dallas, TX, for Caldwell and Martinez.

Forrest Lumpkin (argued), Austin, TX, for Dretke.

Robert N. Udashen (argued), Sorrels & Udashen, Dallas, TX, for Beck.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before WIENER, DeMOSS, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.

PRADO, Circuit Judge:

The issue in this case is whether orders of deferred adjudication community supervision¹ and straight probation are final judgments for purposes of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") one-year statute of limitations.² This is a question of first impression in this circuit. We hold that orders of deferred adjudication and straight probation are final judgments for purposes of AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgments of the district courts.

I

The district courts dismissed Petitioners-Appellants' habeas corpus petitions on procedural grounds. Thus, only the procedural posture of the three cases are relevant to the question before us.

A. Robert Franklin Caldwell

Robert Franklin Caldwell was indicted for the felony offense of aggravated assault. He pleaded guilty to the charges, and on June 17, 1998, the state trial court placed Caldwell on ten years of deferred adjudication probation. An order of deferred adjudication, by definition, defers an adjudication of guilt or innocence. Pursuant to the order of deferred adjudication, Caldwell was placed on probation for a period of ten years. Caldwell did not seek direct review of the deferred adjudication order.

Caldwell subsequently violated the terms of his probation, and on April 28, 2000, the state trial court revoked his probation. Pursuant to his earlier guilty plea, the state trial court issued a judgment finding Caldwell guilty of aggravated assault. Caldwell was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He timely appealed to the court of appeals, which dismissed the portion of his appeal regarding the state trial court's judgment to proceed with adjudication for lack of jurisdiction. The court of appeals affirmed the remainder of the judgment, issuing a mandate in November of 2001.³

Caldwell filed his second⁴ state application for habeas corpus relief challenging his conviction in February 2002. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied habeas relief without written order. On September 5, 2002, Caldwell filed a petition for federal habeas relief. The magistrate judge found that AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations had began to run on July 17, 1998, thirty days after the trial judge entered the order of deferred adjudication community supervision, and expired on July 17, 1999. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation and dismissed Caldwell's petition as untimely.

Caldwell timely filed a notice of appeal. The district court granted Caldwell a certificate of appealability to this court on whether the district court erred in determining that all issues relating to Caldwell's guilty plea and the deferred adjudication community supervision became final thirty days after the order was imposed, rather than thirty days after the formal adjudication of guilt.

B. Pete Ronald Martinez

Pete Ronald Martinez was indicted for the felony offense of aggravated robbery. He pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon on January 22, 1998. The state trial court found sufficient evidence substantiating Martinez's guilt and placed him on ten years deferred adjudication community supervision. Martinez violated the terms of his community supervision, and on August 28, 2000, the state trial court adjudicated Martinez guilty pursuant to his earlier guilty plea. The state trial court sentenced him to forty-five years imprisonment.

Martinez filed a motion for a new trial in September 2000. The trial court denied the motion for a new trial, and Martinez appealed, complaining of the effectiveness of his attorney at the original plea hearing. The court of appeals dismissed the appeal in October 2001 for lack of jurisdiction, reasoning that Martinez's ineffective assistance claim had to be raised in an appeal from the imposition of deferred adjudication probation.⁵

Martinez filed a state writ of habeas corpus in July 2002. The Texas Court of Criminal appeals denied the application without written order. Martinez filed his federal writ petition on December 5, 2002, raising issues relating to his guilty plea. Unlike the magistrate judge's determination in Caldwell's case, the federal district court concluded that AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations began to run from the judgment adjudicating guilt, entered after the trial court revoked Martinez's deferred adjudication community supervision. Thus, according to the district court's order, the AEDPA one-year limitations period began to run thirty days after the assessment of the forty-five year sentence. However, the district court found that Martinez's petition was nevertheless time-barred since it concluded that Martinez's state court application for habeas relief did not toll AEDPA's statute of limitations.⁶

Martinez timely filed his notice of appeal. The district court granted Martinez a certificate of appealability on whether his conviction became final after the expiration of the time for appealing his guilty plea and the deferred adjudication, or if his conviction became final after the expiration of time for appealing the state court's judgment adjudicating guilt.

C. David Franklin Beck

David Franklin Beck was charged with sexual assault of a child. Beck pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a jury. Pursuant to the jury's recommendation, the trial court sentenced Beck to ten years community supervision on February 23, 2000. In February 2001 the court of appeals affirmed Beck's conviction.

Beck violated the terms of his probation, and in May of 2001, the state moved to revoke Beck's probation. The trial court revoked Beck's probation on June 29, 2001 and sentenced him to ten years confinement. Beck gave timely notice of appeal from the judgment revoking his community supervision but withdrew the notice of appeal in early March 2002.

Subsequently, on March 12, 2002, Beck filed an application for state habeas relief, pursuant to article 11.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Beck's application for writ of habeas corpus without written order in August 2002. Beck filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court on October 8, 2002. In June 2003, the magistrate judge recommended that Beck's petition be denied as barred by the limitations period. The magistrate judge agreed with the State that Beck's conviction became final on March 9, 2001, the date on which the time to file a petition for discretionary review in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals expired. According to the magistrate judge, AEDPA's statute of limitations period expired on March 9, 2002, three days before Beck filed his state habeas application. The district court adopted the findings and recommendation of the magistrate judge.

Beck gave timely notice of appeal from the judgment entered by the district court. The district court granted a certificate of appealability to Beck on the issue of when a conviction and imposition of a probationary sentence, which is subsequently revoked, is final for purposes of AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations period.

II

We review a district court's denial of a habeas application on procedural grounds de novo. Larry v. Dretke, 361 F.3d 890, 893 (5th Cir.2004); Emerson v. Johnson, 243 F.3d 931, 932 (5th Cir.2001).

AEDPA procedure governs these cases because each habeas petition was filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, after AEDPA's effective date.⁷ Hughes v. Dretke, 412 F.3d 582, 588 (5th Cir.2005). AEDPA requires that "an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court" be filed within one-year of "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).

In the case of Petitioners Caldwell and Martinez, the issue is whether an order of deferred adjudication following a guilty plea is a final judgment upon the expiration of the time for seeking direct review, for purposes of section 2244, when the applicant only challenges issues pertaining to his guilt. If an order of deferred adjudication is a final judgment for this purpose, then Petitioners' habeas petitions are untimely because they were filed more than one year after the orders of deferred adjudication issued. If an order of deferred adjudication is not a final judgment for purposes of section 2244, however, then the judgment adjudicating guilt triggered the statute of limitations, and Petitioners' habeas applications are timely.

In Petitioner Beck's case, the issue is whether a judgment entered pursuant to a guilty verdict that results in community supervision is a final judgment upon the expiration of the time for seeking direct review, for purposes of section 2244,...