Gates v. Judge James Kitchens
| Decision Date | 28 February 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 1:17CV58-SA-DAS,1:17CV58-SA-DAS |
| Parties | CHRISTOPHER GATES PETITIONER v. JUDGE JAMES KITCHENS, ET AL. RESPONDENTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
This matter comes before the court on the pro se petition of Christopher Gates for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The State has moved to dismiss the petition as untimely filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). The State has moved to dismiss the petition; the petitioner has not responded, and the deadline to do so has expired. The matter is ripe for resolution. For the reasons set forth below, the State's motion to dismiss will be granted and the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus dismissed as untimely filed.
When Christopher Gates filed the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus, he was in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and housed at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville, Mississippi.1 He was originally indicted on charges of possession of cocaine (Count I), possession of "MDMA" (Count II), possession of codeine (Count III), and possession of a stolen firearm (Count IV) in Clay County Circuit Court Cause Number 8839. See Exhibit B.2 On October 13, 2006, he pled guilty to the charge of possession of codeine in CountIII, and the Clay County Circuit Court sentenced him to serve a term of ten (10) years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections ("MDOC"). See Exhibit C. The circuit court further sentenced Gates to serve five (5) years of reporting post-release supervision. See Exhibit C. In exchange for his guilty plea to Count III, the Clay County Circuit Court entered an order retiring the remaining three (3) counts of the indictment to the files (Counts I, II, and IV). See Exhibit D. On January 11, 2008, the MDOC Records Department issued a notice to the Clay County Circuit Court that Gates would be released under the Intensive Supervision Program (ISP) on January 22, 2008, "in accordance with House Bill #565 to amend 47-7-17 of the Mississippi Code, 1972." See Exhibit E.
On May 13, 2015, an Assistant District Attorney for the Sixteenth Circuit Court District filed a Petition to Revoke Post-Release Supervision explaining that Mr. Gates had violated the terms of such supervision in multiple instances.3 See Exhibit F. On January 22, 2016, the Clay County Circuit Court entered an order revoking Gates' parole and ordered him to serve five (5) years in the custody of the MDOC. See Exhibit G.
Gates signed a motion for post-conviction relief dated October 28, 2016; however, the motion was not stamped as "filed" until January 17, 2017, in Clay County Circuit Court Cause Number 2017-0007K. See Exhibit H. On March 20, 2017, Gates signed a letter seeking to include additional grounds for relief in his post-conviction motion. See Exhibit I. On July 19, 2017, the Clay County Circuit Court entered an order dismissing Gates' motion for post-conviction relief finding that "itappear[ed] as though the Petitioner ha[d] been released from the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections since the filing of this post-conviction motion and therefore said filing [wa]s moot." See Exhibit J. Mr. Gates did not appeal the order dismissing his motion for post-conviction relief.4 In addition, he concedes in his federal habeas corpus petition that he has not filed any documents in the Mississippi Supreme Court challenging his original conviction and sentence imposed for possession of codeine or subsequent revocation. See ECF Doc. 1.
On March 22, 2017, Mr. Gates signed the instant federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which challenges both Gates' original conviction and sentence and later revocation. Mr. Gates was paroled on May 3, 2017. See Exhibit A.
Decision in this case is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d), which provides:
28 U. S.C. § 2244(d)(1) and (2).
Currently, criminal defendants in Mississippi may not pursue a direct appeal from a guilty plea. See Miss. Code Ann. § 99-35-101. However, such appeals were available in limited circumstances when Mr. Gates was convicted and sentenced.5 As such, Mr. Gates' conviction became final on November 13, 2006, thirty (30) days after the Clay County Circuit Court sentenced him on his guilty plea. See Roberts v. Cockrell, 319 F.3d 690 (5th Cir. 2003). Mr. Gates did not file a proper application for post-conviction relief as contemplated by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) on or before November 13, 2007, to toll the limitations period; as such, he does not enjoy statutory tolling under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Thus, Mr. Gates' federal habeas corpus deadline remained November 13, 2007.
Under the prison "mailbox rule," the instant pro se federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus is deemed filed on the date the petitioner delivered it to prison officials for mailing to the district court. Coleman v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 398, 401, reh'g and reh'g en banc denied, 196 F.3d1259 (5th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1057, 120 S. Ct. 1564, 146 L.Ed.2d 467 (2000) (citing Spotville v. Cain, 149 F.3d 374, 376-78 (5th Cir. 1998)). In this case, the federal petition was filed sometime between the date it was signed on October 28, 2016, and the date it was received and stamped as "filed" in the district court on January 17, 2017. Giving the petitioner the benefit of the doubt by using the earlier date, the instant petition was filed some nine years after the November 13, 2007, filing deadline. The petitioner does not allege any "rare and exceptional" circumstance to warrant equitable tolling. Ott v. Johnson, 192 F.3d 510, 513-14 (5th Cir. 1999). For these reasons, the State's motion to dismiss will be granted, and the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus - regarding Mr. Gates' challenge to his original conviction - will be dismissed with prejudice and without evidentiary hearing as untimely filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).
Mr. Gates' challenge to revocation of his parole is, however, timely. Under Mississippi law, "[a]n order revoking a suspension of sentence or revoking probation is not appealable." Griffin v. State, 382 So. 2d 289, 290 (Miss. 1980) (quoting Pipkin v. State, 292 So.2d 181, 182 (Miss. 1974)). Thus, Gates' sentence under his revocation became final on the day of revocation and sentencing, January 22, 2016. Mr. Gates' challenge to his revocation and resulting sentence in his federal habeas corpus petition were originally due on January 23, 2017. The court will grant Mr. Gates 264 days of statutory tolling for the period during which Gates' post-conviction motion was pending in the Clay County Circuit Court. Doing so yields a filing deadline of Monday, October 16, 2017, as to Gates' revocation and resulting sentence (Monday, January 23, 2017, plus 264 days, with the deadline being set on the next business day, Monday, October 16, 2017). Mr. Gates' federal habeas corpus petition was signed on March 22, 2017, and filed on April 17, 2017, and is thus timely filed.
If an inmate seeking habeas corpus relief fails to exhaust an issue in state court - and no more avenues exist to do so - under the doctrine of procedural default that issue cannot be raised in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. Sones v. Hargett, 61 F.3d 410, 416 (5th Cir. 1995). Similarly, federal courts have no jurisdiction to review a habeas corpus claim "if the last state court to consider that claim expressly relied on a state ground for denial of relief that is both independent of the merits of the federal claim and an adequate basis for the court's decision." Roberts v. Thaler, 681 F.3d 597, 604 (5th Cir. 2012). Thus, a federal court may not consider a habeas corpus claim when, "(1) a state court [has] declined to address [those] claims because the prisoner [has] failed to meet a state procedural requirement, and (2) the state judgment rests on independent and adequate state procedural grounds." Maples v. Thomas, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 912, 922, 181 L.Ed.2d 807 (2012) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). This doctrine is known as procedural bar.
A state procedural rule is "independent" when the state law ground for decision is not "interwoven with the federal law." Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040, 103 S. Ct. 3469, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1201 (1983). A state law ground is interwoven with federal law if "the state has made application of the procedural bar depend on an antecedent ruling on federal law [such as] the determination of whether federal constitutional error has been committed." Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 75, 105 S. Ct. 1087, 84 L. Ed. 2d 53 (1985); see also State court decision must...
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