Evans v. Chavis
Issues
Whether a federal court should presume that a prisoner's filing of a state petition for writ of habeas corpus was timely because the state court gave no indication that the filing was untimely, or whether the federal court should engage in an independent determination of whether the filing was timely under state law.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), state prisoners have one year to file their federal writ of habeas corpus petitions after their state conviction becomes final, but the one-year limitations period may be tolled for "properly filed" state habeas petitions that are "pending." In 1991, a jury convicted Reginald Chavis of attempted first degree murder. After unsuccessfully appealing his conviction, Chavis filed two rounds of state habeas petitions. The courts denied all of Chavis's state petitions, and Chavis filed a federal habeas petition on August 30, 2000. The state claims that the one-year limitations period applicable to Chavis's federal habeas corpus petition expired during the three years that passed between his first round of petitions to the California Court of Appeal and the filing of his first habeas petition with the California Supreme Court. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, held that Chavis's petition was "pending" and thus entitled to tolling for the three-year interval. It based its decision of the fact that the California Supreme Court did not dismiss the petition as untimely but rather decided it on the merits.
The Supreme Court's ruling will turn on an interpretation of the term "pending." If the Court agrees with Chavis that the federal court should presume from a state court's silence that the petitioner's filing was "pending," then the Court will affirm the Ninth Circuit's ruling that the three-year interval was tolled. But if the Supreme Court finds that a federal court must conduct an independent determination of timeliness under state law, then the Court must remand this case for further proceedings to determine whether Chavis's petition would be considered timely under California law. This case is significant because it will determine what a federal court must do when the state court is silent on the issue of whether the prisoner's filing was timely under state law. Thus, it may have an impact on federalism, comity, and finality, as well as the intended function of the writ of habeas corpus.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
1. Did the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals err in holding that a prisoner is entitled to tolling for a three-year interval between his first round petitions for writ of habeas corpus to the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court-an interval during which AEDPA took effect-because the California Supreme Court did not dismiss the petition as untimely, but summarily denied the petition without comment or citation?
2. Did the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals contravene the Supreme Court's decision in Carey v. Saffold, 536 U.S. 214, 225 (2002), which held that the California Supreme Court's denial of a habeas petition "on the merits" does not itself "indicate that the petition was timely"?
On July 29, 1991, a jury in Sacramento County Superior Court convicted Reginald Chavis of attempted murder and sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Chavis v. LeMarque, 382 F.3d 921, 923 (9th Cir. 2004).
Additional Resources
- LII Law about... Death penalty
- Cornell Law School: Death Penalty Project
- Andrew P. Thomas, Penalty Box, National Review (May 4, 1998)
- William P. Welty, "Adjudication on the Merits" Under the AEDPA, 5 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 900 (2003)
- Federal Habeas Corpus Review: A Brief Overview