Chasing finality: federal collateral relief.

• Author: Francis, N. Noelle
• Position: Twenty-Fourth Federalist Society Student Symposium, Law and Freedom - Case Note

1. INTRODUCTION

   The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) provides the first statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas corpus petitions by state defendants. (1) Persons in custody pursuant to a state court judgment must seek federal habeas relief within one year of the latest of four dates. (2) Most commonly, the statute of limitations runs from "the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review." (3) The statute of limitations tolls, however, 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." (4) Last Term, the Supreme Court defined the term "properly filed," holding in Pace v. DiGuglielmo (5) that an untimely application for state collateral relief is never properly filed and cannot toll the federal habeas statute of limitations. (6)

   Pace is a vigorous attack against delays that have characterized federal habeas review of state judgments for decades. Although the Court declared a bright-line rule that can be easily applied, Pace is in other ways unclear. Part II of this Note gives an overview of the relevant facts and procedural history; Part III briefly outlines the issues that gave rise to a statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas corpus petitions by state defendants; and Part IV elaborates on the Court's application of AEDPA's statute of limitations and tolling provisions, makes suggestions for further implementation of the Court's holding, and argues that the Court's draconian position against untimely applications for state collateral review was taken to advance the finality of state judgments.

2. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

   John Pace pled guilty to second-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime in a Pennsylvania state court and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in February 1986. (7) On November 27, 1996, he filed a pro se petition for collateral review of his sentence under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). (8) The PCRA became effective in 1988 and was amended in November 1995 to include, for the first time, a one-year statute of limitations on postconviction petitions. (9) The amended statute states that any postconviction petition, including a second or subsequent petition, shall be filed within one year of the date the petitioner's judgment becomes final, unless the petition falls under one of three exceptions. (10) The statute of limitations went into effect on January 16, 1996. (11) Pace filed his PCRA petition well over one year after his conviction became final and approximately ten months after the PCRA statute of limitations went into effect, but at the time of his filing "no Pennsylvania court had yet applied the PCRA statute of limitations to a petitioner whose conviction had become final prior to the effective date of the Act." (12) AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations was also in effect at the time of Pace's filing, having been enacted in April 1996. Because the Third Circuit Court of Appeals had created a one-year grace period within which petitioners whose convictions had become final prior to the enactment of AEDPA could file a timely federal habeas application, (13) he had five months, without tolling, to the April 1997 federal deadline. In July 1997, the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas dismissed Pace's petition on its merits, (14) without ruling on the timeliness of the application. (15) Pace appealed in August 1997, approximately four months after the federal habeas grace period had run. (16) In December 1998 the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that Pace's PCRA petition in the Court of Common Pleas and his petition in the Superior Court were both untimely. (17) The court retroactively applied the PCRA limitations period to Pace's application and held that his time for filing under the PCRA expired one year after his conviction became final. (18) The state supreme court denied review in July 1999. (19)

   In December 1999, Pace filed a pro se federal habeas petition in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. (20) Recognizing that AEDPA's statute of limitation would bar Pace's federal petition, the district court held that Pace was entitled to statutory tolling from the time he filed his PCRA petition in November 1996 to the time he received a final judgment on his petition in July 1999. (21) The court reasoned that, because the PCRA time bar was unclear as it applied to Pace's petition, such bar could not prevent his application from being properly filed. (22)

   The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. Relying on its own precedent, it concluded that when a state court deems a petition untimely, it is not properly filed. (23)

   The Supreme Court affirmed. In a 5-4 vote, (24) the Court held that a postconviction petition that is rejected by the state courts as untimely is not properly filed within the meaning of AEDPA. (25) The Court did not address the specific predicament Pace faced: that the timeliness rule was unclear. Instead, the Court announced a general rule that addressed whether the existence of judicially reviewable exceptions to a time limit could prevent a late application from being improperly filed. The Court held that "[i]n common understanding, a petition filed after a time limit, and which does not fit within any exceptions to that limit, is no more properly filed than a petition filed after a time limit that permits no exception." (26) To hold otherwise would contravene AEDPA's purpose, the Court reasoned, by allowing a state prisoner to toll the statute of limitations at will, simply by filing untimely state postconviction petitions. (27) The Court also held that a petitioner's "reasonable confusion" about the timeliness of her application for state collateral relief would constitute "good cause" to file a federal habeas petition within AEDPA's deadline, and to seek a "protective" stay and abeyance of the federal proceedings thus initiated to preserve the opportunity for federal review when state remedies are exhausted. (28)

   Justice Stevens dissented, arguing that the PCRA time bar operates like an ordinary procedural bar that precludes a prisoner from obtaining relief based on the merits of the claims made in a petition for collateral review, such as a bar against claims previously determined on the merits on direct appeal, or a bar against claims that the petitioner unjustifiably failed to raise on direct appeal. The Court had previously held that such rules could not prevent an application for collateral relief from being properly filed. (29) If this precedent were applied to Pace's case, the PCRA time bar could not cause his application to be improperly filed. (30) Justice Stevens reminded the majority that AEDPA was designed to streamline and simplify the federal habeas system, which had been characterized by indeterminate delays and shameful overloading, and argued that the majority's holding was unfaithful to those goals because it would inevitably subject district courts to a flood of protective fillings. (31) Justice Stevens would have held that an application for state collateral relief that is ultimately held to be untimely, based on judicial review of its claims, is properly filed and tolls the federal habeas limitations period unless there is explicit evidence that the application was filed as a dilatory tactic. (32) He rebuffed the majority's concern that petitioners would intentionally postpone federal habeas proceedings by filing untimely petitions for state collateral relief as misguided, stating that a federal habeas petitioner's principal interest is in speedy federal review of her claims and in immediate relief from state incarceration. (33)

3. THE NEED FOR A FILING DEADLINE

   Federal habeas corpus review of state judgments is the most controversial and friction-producing issue in the relation between the federal courts and the states. (34) Scholars have noted that "[t]here is an affront to state sensibilities when a single federal judge can order [the] discharge of a prisoner whose conviction has been affirmed by the highest court of a state." (35) Traditionally, there was no statute of limitations on federal habeas review and the doctrine of laches did not apply. (36) A prisoner could postpone federal litigation for years and the district courts could release state prisoners at any time, thereby undercutting the finality of state judgments, and compromising a state's ability to defend its judgments against collateral attack or retry the defendant should she be granted federal habeas relief. (37)

   The Supreme Court responded to this problem with Rule 9(a), (38) which became effective in 1977. (39) Rule 9(a) allowed district courts to dismiss a habeas petition if the state "ha[d] been prejudiced in its ability to respond to the petition by [the] delay in its filing." (40) The rule was insufficient to quell concerns about delayed filing because it did not protect the state against federal habeas petitions filed and granted so late that the state was prejudiced in mounting a retrial. (41) Capital defendants were of particular concern because they had real motive to postpone execution by filing federal habeas petitions. Members of Congress complained that delays in seeking federal habeas relief attenuated the deterrent effect of the death penalty and stifled confidence in the criminal justice system. (42) The problem with enacting a strict filing deadline was that it created tension with the habeas "exhaustion doctrine," which requires persons in custody pursuant to a state court judgment to exhaust state remedies with respect to all claims before seeking federal habeas relief. (43) Some prisoners would not be able to exhaust state remedies in time to meet the federal deadline. Congress...