Habeas Filing Deadlines

Per Howard Bashman's request, here's a few words on today's 6-5 6th Circuit decision. As explained by the dissent, the issue at stake was whether the 1-year statute of limitations for federal habeas petitions includes:

the time between the denial of petitioner’s state post-conviction claim and the denial of his petition for a writ of certiorari on that claim before the Supreme Court.

The majority held that:

the statute of limitations... is tolled from the filing of an application for state post-conviction or other collateral relief until the conclusion of the time for seeking Supreme Court review of the state’s final judgment on that application independent of whether the petitioner actually petitions the Supreme Court to review the case.

Well let me say that though I took Civil Procedure and Criminal Procedure last year, we never covered habeas relief and spent limited time on statutes of limitations. But I gather that the dissent (and apparently all other Circuits) believe that the statute of limitations should begin to run when the highest state court has denied the claim, and should not be tolled while the defendant appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority seems to rely on pragmatic concerns which would promote an easy and uniform standard. The minority makes the dangerous move of actually trying to follow the language of the statute.

I think Bashman's quite right (of course) that this is not the end of this case, and I will look to see the Supreme Court's writ of certiorari. Kind of a sick thing to be looking forward to a statute of limitations case. Thanks Howard!