Robinson v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 20 July 2020
• Docket Number: S228137
• Citation: 9 Cal.5th 883,266 Cal.Rptr.3d 13,469 P.3d 414
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: Julius M. ROBINSON, Petitioner and Appellant, v. G. W. LEWIS, as Warden, etc., Respondent.

9 Cal.5th 883

469 P.3d 414

266 Cal.Rptr.3d 13

Julius M. ROBINSON, Petitioner and Appellant,

v.G. W. LEWIS, as Warden, etc., Respondent.

S228137

Supreme Court of California.

July 20, 2020

Heather E. Williams, Federal Defender, Carolyn M. Wiggin and David H. Harshaw III, Assistant Federal Defenders, for Petitioner and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Eric L. Christoffersen, Rachelle A. Newcomb, Brian G. Smiley and David Andrew Eldridge, Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondent.

Opinion of the Court by Groban, J.

Someone who wishes to challenge a state judgment of conviction by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in state court must present each claim in a timely fashion. Generally, under California law, there are no fixed, determinate deadlines.¹ Whether a claim has been timely presented is assessed based on an indeterminate reasonableness standard. Here, Julius Robinson — like many such petitioners, a self-represented prison inmate — filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his state court judgment in the superior court. That court denied the petition. Sixty-six days later, he filed a new petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Court of Appeal raising the same claims. The Court of Appeal denied the petition. Then Robinson filed a new original petition for a writ of habeas corpus in this court. After we denied it, Robinson filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court challenging the same judgment. The petition was denied, and Robinson appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Time limits exist in the federal courts for filing petitions challenging a state court judgment. Whether the petitioner proceeded in a timely fashion in state courts often has great significance in the federal courts’ determinations of whether the federal petition was timely. It is critical in this case. The Ninth Circuit is uncertain how the California courts treat the time gap between the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a lower California court and the filing of a new petition in a higher California court raising the same claims for purposes of determining whether a claim was timely presented. Accordingly, it asked us to explain how California law treats what we will call "gap delay." (See Robinson v. Lewis (9th Cir. 2015) 795 F.3d 926 ( Robinson ).) We accepted the request, although we restated the question presented to more accurately reflect California law and practice. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.548(f)(5).) The discussion that follows concerns only gap delay, not delay in presenting a claim in the first instance.

As we restated it, the question before us is as follows: When a California court denies a claim in a petition for writ of habeas corpus, and the petitioner subsequently files the same or a similar claim in a petition for writ of habeas corpus directed to the original jurisdiction of a higher court, what is the significance, if any, of the period of time between the earlier petition's denial and the subsequent petition's filing (66 days in this case) for purposes of determining the subsequent claim's timeliness under California law?²

Our answer is that when an original petition is filed in this court, we do not consider whether the petition was timely but rather whether the claims presented within the petition were timely. We consider only the question of whether each of those claims was presented without substantial delay, as set forth in In re Robbins (1998) 18 Cal.4th 770, 780, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 153, 959 P.2d 311 ( Robbins ). Gap delay is relevant to this question. But we do not generally consider, separately, whether the gap delay, by itself, made the claims raised in the petition untimely, and no specific time limits exist for when a new petition for a writ of habeas corpus must be filed in a higher court after a lower court denies the petition. In the instant case, a 66-day gap between the denial of a petition in the superior court and the filing of a new petition in the Court of Appeal would not be considered substantial delay. It would not make any claim raised in the petition untimely if the petitioner had otherwise presented that claim without substantial delay.

Indeed, for the reasons described below, we would never consider delay of up to 120 days between denial of a petition in the superior court and the filing of a new petition in the Court of Appeal (or between denial of a petition in the Court of Appeal and the filing of a new petition in this court) to be substantial delay for these purposes. Delay beyond that time period would be a subject to consider in the normal Robbins analysis.

I. THE NINTH CIRCUIT'S REQUEST

This case involves the interplay between California law and the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The Ninth Circuit's opinion requesting us to answer the aforementioned question described its understanding of the problem confronting the court. "Under federal habeas law, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), a state prisoner must file a petition for federal habeas review within a one year limitations period. Section 2244(d)(2) further specifies that this federal limitations period is tolled for ‘[t]he time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending.’ The federal statute has been interpreted to define ‘[t]he time that an application for state postconviction review is "pending" ’ as including ‘the period between (1) a lower court's adverse determination, and (2) the prisoner's filing of a notice of appeal, provided that the filing of the notice of appeal is timely under state law." Evans v. Chavis , 546 U.S. 189, 191, 126 S.Ct. 846, 163 L.Ed.2d 684 (2006).

" Chavis explained that in most states other than California, the number of days a petitioner has for filing an appeal is established by statute. Id . at 191-92 . This makes it simple to determine whether a filing is ‘timely under state law,’ see id ., and thus whether a petition for review is ‘properly filed’ and the federal statute of limitations tolled, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). California, however, has a unique system by which state habeas petitioners challenge adverse state court decisions." Chavis , 546 U.S. at 192, 126 S.Ct. 846. Rather than requiring a petitioner whose habeas petition has been dismissed to appeal that decision to a higher court, California law provides that an original petition may be filed at each level of the California court system. Id . at 192-193, 126 S.Ct. 846. Such a petition is timely if filed within a "reasonable time." Id . at 192, 126 S.Ct. 846 (quoting In re Harris , 5 Cal.4th 813, 828 n.7, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 373, 855 P.2d 391 (1993) ).^{[3 ]} California courts allow a longer delay if the petitioner demonstrates good cause. In re Robbins , 18 Cal.4th 770, 780, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 153, 959 P.2d 311 (1998).

"If a California court states it has dismissed a state habeas petition because the petition was untimely, ‘that would be the end of the matter.’ " Carey v. Saffold , 536 U.S. 214, 226, 122 S.Ct. 2134, 153 L.Ed.2d 260 (2002). "When a California state court determines that a state prisoner's state habeas petition is untimely under state law, there is ‘no "properly filed" state petition, and [the state prisoner is] not entitled to statutory tolling’ under the AEDPA." White v. Martel , 601 F.3d 882, 884 (9th Cir. 2010) (per curiam).

"But if a California court dismisses a habeas petition without comment, or even if it reviews a petition on the merits without discussing timeliness, a federal court ‘must itself examine the delay in each case and determine what the state courts would have held in respect to timeliness,’ Chavis , 546 U.S. at 197-98 , in order to determine whether the petition was ‘properly filed’ for purposes of tolling the federal statute of limitations, id . at 191 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2) ). Observing that California courts had not provided authoritative guidance on this issue, Chavis made its own conjecture regarding state law, namely ‘that California's "reasonable time" standard would not lead to filing delays substantially longer than’ between 30 and 60 days, the range of time allowed for filing a notice of appeal by other states’ statutes. Id . at 199, 201 . Based on this conjecture, Chavis held that California courts would hold the unexplained six-month delay by the state prisoner in that case to be unreasonable, and therefore concluded the state prisoner had not filed his state habeas petition on time. Id . at 201 ." ( Robinson , supra , 795 F.3d at pp. 928–929, fn. omitted.)

Because of continuing uncertainty regarding how California's "reasonable time" standard applies to gap delay, the Ninth Circuit turned to us for guidance. It stated the question to be decided as follows: "When a state habeas petitioner has no good cause for delay, at what point in time is that state prisoner's petition, filed in a California court of review to challenge a lower state court's disposition of the prisoner's claims, untimely under California law; specifically, is a habeas petition untimely filed after an unexplained 66-day delay between the time a California trial court denies the petition and the time the petition is filed in the California Court of Appeal?" ( Robinson , supra , 795 F.3d at p. 928.)

We restated the question as indicated in the beginning of this opinion.

The Ninth Circuit informs us that "[t]he facts of this case are as follows. Julius Robinson was convicted by a jury of two counts of premeditated murder, two counts of malicious discharge of a firearm, and gun and gang enhancements. He was sentenced to a determinate term of 17 years, and an indeterminate term of 205 years to life. On February 8, 2011, the California Court of Appeal...