Dean v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 10 January 2002
• Docket Number: No. 98-3106.,98-3106.
• Parties: Steven DEAN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

278 F.3d 1218

Steven DEAN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 98-3106.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

January 10, 2002.

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Jeraldine Williams Smith, Law Office of Jeraldine Williams Smith, P.A., Tampa, FL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Thomas F. Kirwin, Terry Flynn, Tallahassee, FL, William Wagner, Dept. of Justice, Gainesville, FL, for Respondent-Appellee.

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

Before WILSON, RONEY and FAY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

This is an appeal from the district court's order barring Steven Dean's habeas corpus petition as untimely. Although convicted prior thereto, Dean filed his first habeas corpus petition after enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), but within the AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations. He filed an amended petition after expiration of the statute of limitations. The district court applied the limitations period to the amended petition and held that four out of six claims raised in the amended petition were untimely because they did not "relate back" to the date of the original petition. The court granted a certificate of appealability on the issue of whether the disallowed claims related back to the original petition. We reverse as to three of the claims, and affirm as to one.

Steven Dean was convicted of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846, and was sentenced to 365 months' imprisonment. His conviction was affirmed on July 3, 1991.

On April 24, 1996, the AEDPA was enacted. Among other things, the AEDPA imposed a one-year limitations period on petitions for habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. For prisoners like Dean, whose convictions became final before the enactment of the AEDPA, the deadline for filing such petitions was April 23, 1997. Goodman v. United States, 151 F.3d 1335, 1337 (11th Cir.1998).

On April 9, 1997, Dean filed a petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, asserting eight claims. At that time, Dean clearly indicated that he needed to flesh-out his claims. Attached to his petition, Dean requested leave to file a late brief after reviewing materials from his attorney and the state court clerk which he claimed he had just received. On August 19, 1997, Dean filed an amended petition, along with an attached memorandum in support of the petition, asserting six grounds upon which the district court should grant relief.

Since the August 19 amended petition was not filed within the one-year statute of limitations period prescribed by the AEDPA, the district court held it would consider only those claims that relate back to the timely filed April 9 petition. The court then concluded that amended grounds one, four, five, and six did not relate back to the original petition. Dean appeals that decision. Not before us on this appeal is the decision of the district court that although grounds two and three asserted in the August 19 petition did relate back to the original petition, they lacked merit.

Although Dean argues that he is entitled to equitable tolling because he requested and received leave to file a supplemental petition with the district court, that issue is not before us because the district court has issued a certificate of appealability on the first issue only.

The sole question on this appeal is whether Dean's amended claims relate back to the date of his original, timely-filed petition, such that his amended claims should be deemed timely and considered on the merits.

Because there was no time limit on the filing of habeas petitions before the AEDPA, the law of applying Rule 15(c) to such petitions is still developing. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 15(c). Congress intended Rule 15(c) to be used for a relatively narrow purpose. In the Advisory Committee Note to the 1991 amendments to Rule 15, the advisory committee states that "[t]he rule has been revised to prevent parties against whom claims are made from taking unjust advantage of otherwise inconsequential pleading errors to sustain a limitations defense." Congress did not intend Rule 15(c) to be so broad as to allow an amended pleading to add an entirely new claim based on a different set of facts. See generally Forzley v. AVCO, 826 F.2d 974 (11th Cir.1987). Thus, while Rule 15(c) contemplates that parties may correct technical deficiencies or expand facts alleged in the original pleading, it does not permit an entirely different transaction to be alleged by amendment. See 6A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1497 (2d ed.1990).

The district court based its determination that the claims did not relate back in part on the fact that the original claims alleged almost no facts. If no facts were alleged in the original claims, the court reasoned, there can be no "core facts" on which to base a finding of relation back.

Since the date of that decision by the district court, this Court has offered guidance on the question of whether an amended 2255 petition relates back to the original petition. Davenport v. United States, 217 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir.2000). In Davenport, petitioner Joseph Davenport filed a habeas corpus petition after enactment of the AEDPA, but within the one year grace period. Recognizing that this Court had not yet reviewed a Rule 15(c) petition in the context of a habeas corpus petition, we took guidance from other circuits in developing the rule:

This Court has not addressed Rule 15(c) in the context of a § 2255 motion. However, three circuits have addressed this precise issue. All three circuits held that for an untimely § 2255 claim to "relate back" under Rule 15(c), the untimely claim must have more in common with the timely filed claim than the mere fact that they arose out of the same trial and sentencing proceedings. See United States v. Pittman, 209 F.3d 314 (4th Cir.2000); United States v. Duffus, 174 F.3d 333 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 866, 120 S.Ct. 163, 145 L.Ed.2d 138 (1999); United States v. Craycraft, 167 F.3d 451 (8th Cir.1999). Instead, in order to relate back, the untimely claim must have arisen from the "same set of facts" as the timely filed claim, not from separate conduct or a separate occurrence in "both time and type." Pittman, 209 F.3d at 318 ("both time and type"); Duffus, 174 F.3d at 337 ("same set of facts"); Craycraft, 167 F.3d at 457 ("same set of facts" and "both time and type").

Id. at 1344.

The key consideration is that the amended claim arises from the same conduct and occurrences upon which the original claim was based. This may be the case even if one or both claims do not explicitly state supporting facts. When the nature of the amended claim supports specifically the original claim, the facts there alleged implicate the original claim, even if the original claim contained insufficient facts to support it. One...