{"id":1720,"date":"2008-11-04T09:07:44","date_gmt":"2008-11-04T14:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=1720"},"modified":"2008-11-04T09:07:44","modified_gmt":"2008-11-04T14:07:44","slug":"when-does-the-habeas-statute-of-limitations-begin-to-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2008\/11\/when-does-the-habeas-statute-of-limitations-begin-to-run\/","title":{"rendered":"When Does the Habeas Statute of Limitations Begin to Run?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Supreme Court hears argument today in the case of\u00a0Jimenez v. Quarterman<\/em> (No. 07-6994).\u00a0 The case requires the Court to determine what triggers the\u00a0one-year statute of limitations for federal habeas corpus claims.\u00a0 Congress\u00a0imposed\u00a0the one-year\u00a0limitation in 1996, hoping to diminish the number and success of challenges\u00a0in federal court to state convictions.\u00a0\u00a0The statute, in pertinent part,\u00a0provides that the one-year clock for filing a federal claim begins to run on “the date on which the [state] judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.”\u00a0 This may seem straightforward enough, but Jimenez’s case highlights an ambiguity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Jimenez initially filed an appeal in his case in 1996, the appeal was dismissed when no brief was filed on his behalf.\u00a0\u00a0No further review was sought\u00a0in a higher court at that time.\u00a0\u00a0Normally, this would conclude direct review, and the clock would start running for a federal habeas petition.\u00a0 However, Jimenez persuaded the state courts in 2002 that he should get a second chance at direct review because his lawyer bungled the first time around.\u00a0 Thus, Jimenez finally got\u00a0to file his brief in the state court of appeals, but he lost anyway.\u00a0 State proceedings concluded in June 2005, and\u00a0Jimenez filed his federal habeas petition\u00a0less than a month later.\u00a0 So, when is it that\u00a0his state judgment “became final by the conclusion of direct review”: when the first direct review process ended, or\u00a0the second?<\/p>\n

Defendants don’t normally get two chances at direct review separated by many years, so it is not surprising that the Court has yet to resolve the\u00a0issue.\u00a0 However, the case illustrates one of the problems with the 1996 habeas reforms (which included a number of additional measures intended to reduce the volume of habeas litigation in federal courts): engrafting a bunch of new procedural hurdles for habeas petitioners onto the existing\u00a0legal framework has resulted in years of litigation, including\u00a0several Supreme Court cases, as the courts have wrestled with one statutory ambiguity after another.\u00a0 To the extent the goal was to provide relief for busy federal judges, perhaps Congress should have left well enough alone.<\/p>\n

For readers interested in more information about Jimenez<\/em>, SCOTUS Blog has a helpful summary of the arguments made in the parties’ briefs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court hears argument today in the case of\u00a0Jimenez v. Quarterman (No. 07-6994).\u00a0 The case requires the Court to determine what triggers the\u00a0one-year statute of limitations for federal habeas corpus claims.\u00a0 Congress\u00a0imposed\u00a0the one-year\u00a0limitation in 1996, hoping to diminish the number and success of challenges\u00a0in federal court to state convictions.\u00a0\u00a0The statute, in pertinent part,\u00a0provides that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}