Jones v. Bertrand

• Decision Date: 22 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-2725,97-2725
• Citation: 171 F.3d 499
• Parties: Bruce E. JONES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Daniel BERTRAND, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 499

171 F.3d 499

Bruce E. JONES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Daniel BERTRAND, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 97-2725.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 11, 1998.

Decided March 22, 1999.

Thomas L. Shriner, Jr., David W. Simon (argued), Foley & Lardner, Milwaukee, WI, for Petitioner-Appellant.

James E. Doyle, Maureen M. Flanagan (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Wisconsin Department of Justice, Madison, WI, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before BAUER, MANION, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Bruce E. Jones sought to file this pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus, along with an application to proceed in forma pauperis ("IFP"). The district court dismissed his petition, holding that since it did not arrive at the court until after the one year statute of limitations had expired and his application to proceed IFP did not accompany his petition for habeas relief, the petition was not timely filed. Jones appealed that decision, raising two issues. First, he claims that the filing date for statute of limitations purposes for a pro se petition for habeas relief should be the date it is received by prison officials for mailing, not when it is actually received by the district court clerk. Second, he argues that his petition should not be deemed incomplete, and therefore untimely, because it was not accompanied by either the five dollar filing fee or an application to proceed IFP. Because we agree with Petitioner on both of these issues, we R EVERSE the district court's decision and R EMAND it for further consideration.

BACKGROUND

Bruce Jones was convicted in Milwaukee County circuit court for first-degree murder on June 21, 1982 and sentenced to life in prison at the Green Bay Correctional Institute. At that time, there was no fixed period for filing a petition for habeas corpus relief. Then, on April 24, 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA") which gave state prisoners one year from the final disposition of their case to file for habeas relief. Since the final disposition of Jones' case occurred well over a year before, the AEDPA would have essentially precluded Jones from seeking habeas relief. In order to avoid such an unjust result for Jones and other similarly situated prisoners, we decided in Lindh v. Murphy, 96 F.3d 856, 866 (7th Cir.1996) (en banc), rev'd on other grounds, 521 U.S. 320, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997) that when the final disposition of a state court conviction occurred before the passage of the AEDPA we would give the state prisoner until April 23, 1997 (one year after the passage of the AEDPA) to file his petition for habeas relief.

On April 23, 1997, Jones mailed his pro se petition for habeas relief to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin by placing it in the prison mail box at the Green Bay Correctional Institute. Upon receiving his petition, the district court clerk notified Jones that, in addition to sending the petition for habeas corpus, he had to include either the five dollar filing fee or a completed application to proceed IFP before the petition could be officially filed. Jones then completed his application to proceed IFP and sent it to the district court, along with the five dollar filing fee; it was received on May 7, 1997. Ultimately, on May 23, 1997, after a motion for reconsideration, the district court denied Jones' petition because it was untimely filed. The court ruled that the petition was not deemed filed until May 7, 1997, the date the clerk received the five dollar filing fee, and therefore the petition was filed after the April 23, 1997 deadline. On June 24, 1997, the district court issued Jones a certificate of appealability and permission to proceed with this appeal IFP.

DISCUSSION

We review a district court's legal determination to deny a petition for habeas corpus de novo. Lieberman v. Washington, 128 F.3d 1085, 1091 (7th Cir.1997).

I. The Houston "Mailbox Rule"

The district court dismissed Jones' petition for habeas corpus relief because it was not filed within one year of the enactment of the AEDPA. Jones argues that in order to determine the filing date of his petition for statute of limitations purposes, the court should look to the date he handed it to prison officials for mailing, and not when the court clerk actually received the petition. The United States Supreme Court faced a very similar issue in Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988). In that case, a pro se prisoner mailed his notice of appeal from prison within the 30-day statute of limitations period set forth under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1), however, the court did not receive the notice until after the deadline had passed. The court declined to review his notice of appeal as being untimely filed. Id. at 269-70, 108 S.Ct. 2379. The Supreme Court ultimately reversed that decision and ruled that the notice was filed within the 30-day period because Petitioner delivered the notice to the proper prison authorities for mailing before the statute of limitations had expired. Id. at 270, 108 S.Ct. 2379. This has become known as the Houston "mailbox rule."

In explaining the reason for applying the mailbox rule, the Court stated that prisoners filing pro se have a unique disadvantage compared to other litigants because they are not able, either personally or through their attorney, to go directly to Although this "mailbox rule" applies to a pro se prisoner's filing of a notice of appeal, this circuit has not ruled on whether the rule should be extended to a pro se prisoner's filing of other papers, including a petition for habeas corpus. Other courts have extended the Houston mailbox rule to cover the service of discovery responses, see Faile v. Upjohn Co., 988 F.2d 985 (9th Cir.1993), § 1983 claims, see Cooper v. Brookshire, 70 F.3d 377 (5th Cir.1995); Lewis v. Richmond City Police Dep't, 947 F.2d 733 (4th Cir.1991), Federal Tort Claim Act cases, see Garvey v. Vaughn, 993 F.2d 776 (11th Cir.1993), and motions to vacate a prison sentence, see United States v. Hatala, 29 F.Supp.2d 728 (N.D.W.Va.1998). Additionally, the circuit courts that have been faced with the issue of whether to extend the rule to include pro se habeas petitions have almost unanimously decided to do so. See, e.g., Spotville v. Cain, 149 F.3d 374 (5th Cir.1998); Burns v. Morton, 134 F.3d 109 (3rd Cir.1998). Several district courts within this circuit have extended the Houston mailbox rule to include pro se habeas petitions as well. See, e.g., Young v. Roth, No. 97 C 3103, 1998 WL 851502 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 3, 1998); United States ex rel. Rivera v. DeTella, No. 97 C 2993, 1998 WL 704308 (N.D.Ill. Sept. 29, 1998).

                the courthouse to file their documents or to pick up the telephone to ascertain whether the papers have been officially filed.  Id. at 270-71, 108 S.Ct. 2379.   The Court also noted that the application of the mailbox rule for prisoners filing pro se is consistent with the interpretation of Rules 3 and 4 of Appellate Procedure wherein a document is deemed filed upon receipt by the district court clerk and not when it is officially stamped "filed" because a litigant cannot be responsible for any delay between the clerk's receiving the document and the formal "filing" of the document.  Id. at 273, 108 S.Ct. 2379.   Similarly, the Court observed that inmates have no control over documents once they are delivered to prison officials and court papers can arrive at the clerk's office after any designated deadline even if they were delivered to the prison officials well before the limitations period ended.  Id. at 271, 108 S.Ct. 2379.   Therefore, for the purposes of a prisoner filing a pro se notice of appeal, the Supreme Court adopted a bright line test and held that it is timely filed for statute of limitations purposes so long as it is delivered to the prison authorities before the 30-day statute of limitations has expired and not when it is actually received by the clerk.  Id. at 275-76, 108 S.Ct. 2379
                

In their reasoning, courts reconcile the difference between the Houston mailbox rule and Rule 3(b) of Habeas Corpus proceedings. Rule 3(b) reads in pertinent part:

[u]pon receipt of the petition and the filing fee, or an order granting leave to the petitioner to proceed in forma pauperis, and having ascertained that the petition appears on its face to comply with rules 2 and 3, the clerk of the district court shall file the petition and enter it on the docket in his office.

Rule 3(b) Governing § 2254 Cases. Courts have stated that Rule 3(b) determines when a case is filed in the procedural sense for the purpose of being placed on the court's docket, and the mailbox rule governs when a case is filed in the substantive sense for statute of limitations purposes. United States ex rel. Washington v. Gramley, No. 97 C 3270, 1998 WL 171827 (N.D.Ill. Apr. 10, 1998) at * 3. If Rule 3(b) governed the filing time for statute of limitations purposes, then the date of filing would be different for those inmates who initially pay the filing fee and those who apply for IFP status, since, according to the Rule, the petition is not filed until the petitioner has been granted IFP status, which would only be at some point after the application for IFP status was submitted. Cf. id. Allowing this Rule to determine the filing date for statute of limitations purposes would make little sense; a prisoner would be unable to surmise The rulings extending the mailbox rule are consistent with the notion that prisoners filing pro se do not have the same access to the court system as other litigants, and, in order for justice to be properly served, their papers should be considered filed when given to prison officials. We join the overwhelming authority that the Houston mailbox rule should be extended to prisoners filing pro se habeas petitions, and, for statut...