Ramirez v. Allbaugh ( 2019 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 27, 2019
_________________________________
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
JEFFREY RAMIREZ,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v. No. 18-6127
(D.C. No. 5:17-CV-00838-HE)
JOE ALLBAUGH, Director of the (W.D. Okla.)
Oklahoma Department of Corrections,
Respondent - Appellee.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT
_________________________________
Before BRISCOE, McKAY, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
Mr. Jeffrey Ramirez, an Oklahoma state prisoner, appeals the district court’s
judgment dismissing as untimely his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254. A judge of this court granted a certificate of appealability (COA) on the issues
raised in Mr. Ramirez’s pro se combined opening brief and application for a COA, which
concern whether tolling applies to the period in which he had to file his § 2254 petition.

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this
appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered
submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent,
except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may
be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and
10th Cir. R. 32.1.
We then appointed counsel for Mr. Ramirez and obtained additional briefing. Exercising
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
I. Procedural Background
On October 1, 2013, Mr. Ramirez was sentenced to life imprisonment for a
first-degree murder conviction in Oklahoma County District Court (OCDC). The
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) affirmed his conviction and sentence on
December 5, 2014. Mr. Ramirez did not file a certiorari petition in the United States
Supreme Court.
On December 10, 2014, Mr. Ramirez filed a pro se motion for a suspended
sentence in the OCDC. The OCDC denied that motion on August 17, 2015. On
November 5, 2015, Mr. Ramirez filed a twenty-three-page pro se application for
post-conviction relief (First APCR) in the OCDC. On November 17, 2015, the OCDC
struck the First APCR because it exceeded the twenty-page limitation set forth in local
Rule 37(B) without the court’s prior permission. In relevant part, local Rule 37(B)
provides:
All motions, applications and responses thereto, including briefs, . . . shall
not exceed twenty (20) pages in length, excluding exhibits, without prior
permission of the assigned judge. Reply briefs shall be limited to five (5)
pages in length. Page limitations herein exclude only the cover, index,
appendix, signature line and accompanying information identifying
attorneys and parties, and certificate of service. No further briefs shall be
filed without prior permission of the assigned judge.
Official Ct. R. of the Seventh Jud. and Twenty-Sixth Admin. Dists. Comprised of Okla.
and Can. Ctys., Rule 37(B).
2
On November 30, 2015, Mr. Ramirez filed a pro se motion to file an APCR that
exceeded the page limitation (Overlength Motion). More than eight months later, on
August 6, 2016, the OCDC denied the Overlength Motion. On August 25, 2016,
Mr. Ramirez filed an APCR that complied with the twenty-page limit (Second APCR).
The OCDC denied the Second APCR on February 17, 2017, and the OCCA affirmed that
ruling on July 7, 2017.
On August 4, 2017, Mr. Ramirez filed a pro se § 2254 petition in the United States
District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma raising six grounds for relief,
including a claim of actual innocence. The court referred the petition to a magistrate
judge for initial proceedings. The magistrate judge issued a report recommending that
the petition should be dismissed as untimely because it was filed outside the one-year
limitations period set out in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), which, in Mr. Ramirez’s case, began
on “the date on which [Mr. Ramirez’s state court] judgment became final by the
conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review,” id.
§ 2244(d)(1)(A). The magistrate judge concluded that under § 2244(d)(2), which stops
the running of the limitations period during the pendency of any “properly filed
application for State post-conviction or other collateral review,”1 Mr. Ramirez’s motion
for a suspended sentence extended the filing deadline from March 7, 2016 to August 20,
1
In full, § 2244(d)(2) provides: “The 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 shall not be counted toward any period of
limitation under this subsection.”
3
2016.2 But the magistrate judge determined that neither of the APCRs triggered
§ 2244(d)(2) tolling because the First APCR was not “properly filed,” as required by
§ 2244(d)(2), and the Second APCR was filed after the extended limitations period
expired on August 20, 2016. The magistrate judge found that equitable tolling did not
apply because after the defective First APCR, Mr. Ramirez waited approximately nine
months to file another APCR. Finally, the magistrate judge concluded that an equitable
exception to the limitations period for a claim of actual innocence did not apply.
After Mr. Ramirez filed objections to the report and recommendation, the district
court declined to adopt it. The court determined that Mr. Ramirez’s motion for a
suspended sentence and his Second APCR triggered § 2244(d)(2) tolling, and equitable
tolling applied to the intervening time during which his Overlength Motion was pending
before the OCDC. The court concluded that equitable tolling applied because, as a pro se
litigant, Mr. Ramirez could have reasonably viewed his Overlength Motion “as
something that needed to be resolved before further filings or proceedings would be
necessary or appropriate,” and the OCDC’s delay in ruling on that motion was beyond
Mr. Ramirez’s control. R. at 84. The court further observed that once the OCDC ruled
on that motion, Mr. Ramirez promptly filed his Second APCR. The combined tolling
effect, the court concluded, rendered the § 2254 petition timely filed. Accordingly, the
court referred the matter back to the magistrate judge.
2
The parties agree that minor adjustments of this date to account for weekends or
holidays do not affect the outcome of this appeal. We therefore refer to this date.
4
In further proceedings before the magistrate judge, the State filed a motion to
dismiss the § 2254 petition, arguing that it was time-barred. The magistrate judge issued
a supplemental report with a recommendation that the district court reconsider its
timeliness ruling in light of the State’s motion because the State had never received
service of the first recommendation, Mr. Ramirez’s objections to it, or the district court’s
order concluding the petition was timely filed. The magistrate judge also recommended
granting the motion to dismiss the petition as untimely, agreeing with the State on what
she viewed as the dispositive issue—that equitable tolling did not apply to the time period
during which the Overlength Motion was pending. Applying, among other cases, Loftis
v. Chrisman, 812 F.3d 1268 (10th Cir. 2016), which we discuss more fully below, the
magistrate judge determined that the OCDC’s delay in ruling on the Overlength Motion
was not an uncontrollable circumstance that prevented Mr. Ramirez from filing an APCR
that complied with the page limitation. The magistrate judge reasoned that Mr. Ramirez
filed the nonconforming First APCR “without adequately informing himself of the
applicable rule governing page limitations or without regard for that rule if he was, in
fact, aware of it.” R. at 219. She then faulted Mr. Ramirez for filing the Overlength
Motion and then sitting back for nearly nine months “before filing what he could have
always filed: a conforming [APCR].” Id. The magistrate judge further explained that
even if Mr. Ramirez thought his Overlength Motion had to be resolved before he could
file an APCR that complied with the twenty-page limit, the OCDC, despite its delay in
ruling on that motion, had done nothing to “lead him to that erroneous conclusion,”
R. at 220. Finally, the magistrate judge observed that any confusion or misunderstanding
5
on Mr. Ramirez’s part was insufficient to invoke equitable tolling because “‘ignorance of
the law, even for an incarcerated pro se petitioner, generally does not excuse prompt
filing.’” R. at 220-21 (quoting Marsh v. Soares, 223 F.3d 1217, 1220 (10th Cir. 2000)).
The district court agreed with the recommendation, adopted the supplemental
report over Mr. Ramirez’s objections, and granted the motion to dismiss “for
substantially the reasons stated in the supplemental report and its application of the Loftis
standard.” R. at 230. This appeal followed.
II. Standard of review
We review de novo the dismissal of a § 2254 petition as untimely under § 2244(d).
United States v. Denny, 694 F.3d 1185, 1189 (10th Cir. 2012). But “we review the
district court’s decision on equitable tolling for an abuse of discretion.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). Although Mr. Ramirez’s appointed counsel has filed briefs in
this case, we afford a liberal construction to Mr. Ramirez’s pro se filings (here and in the
district court), but we do not act as his advocate. Yang v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925,
927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008).
III. Discussion
In his pro se brief, Mr. Ramirez claims the district court erred in reversing its
position on equitable estoppel and ultimately concluding it did not apply simply because
the State filed a motion to dismiss his petition as untimely. We readily reject this
argument. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b) (“[A]ny order or other decision, however designated,
that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the
parties . . . may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the
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claims and all the parties’ rights and liabilities.”); Rimbert v. Eli Lilly & Co., 647 F.3d
1247, 1251 (10th Cir. 2011) (“[D]istrict courts generally remain free to reconsider their
earlier interlocutory orders,” and the law-of-the-case doctrine does not apply “to rulings
revisited prior to entry of a final judgment.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also
Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 209-10 (2006) (holding “that district courts are
permitted, but not obliged, to consider, sua sponte, the timeliness of a state prisoner’s
habeas petition,” but explaining that “before acting on its own initiative, a court must
accord the parties fair notice and an opportunity to present their positions”).3
In his counseled brief, Mr. Ramirez agrees with the district court’s ruling that his
motion for a suspended sentence extended his filing deadline to August 20, 2016. And he
concedes that because his First APCR was more than twenty pages, it did not satisfy the
state court’s page limit and therefore was not “properly filed” within the meaning of
3
In his pro se appellate brief, Mr. Ramirez discussed the merits of his
actual-innocence claim, but he did not present any argument that his actual innocence
qualifies as “an equitable exception to § 2244(d)(1),” McQuiggin v. Perkins, 569 U.S.
383, 392 (2013). Counsel for Mr. Ramirez expressly declined to “address
[Mr. Ramirez’s] actual innocence” but stated that Mr. Ramirez does not “concede[] guilt”
or “waive[] any substantive claim relating to his actual innocence.” Aplt. Supp. Br. at 14,
n.11. Mr. Ramirez has therefore forfeited appellate review of whether actual innocence
acts as an equitable exception to the § 2244(d)(1) limitations period in this case.
See Becker v. Kroll, 494 F.3d 904, 913 n.6 (10th Cir. 2007) (“An issue or argument
insufficiently raised in the opening brief is deemed waived.”). Even if he had adequately
raised the issue, we would consider it waived on appeal because Mr. Ramirez never
addressed it in the district court even though (1) the magistrate judge rejected the
actual-innocence exception in her first report and (2) the State argued in its motion to
dismiss that the exception did not apply. See Daigle v. Shell Oil Co., 972 F.2d 1527,
1539 (10th Cir. 1992) (“As a general rule we refuse to consider arguments raised for the
first time on appeal unless sovereign immunity or jurisdiction is in question.”); see also
Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 645 (2010) (reiterating that § 2244(d)(1)’s “statute of
limitations defense is not jurisdictional” (ellipsis and internal quotation marks omitted)).
7
§ 2244(d)(2). See Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8 (2000) (“[A]n application is ‘properly
filed’ when its delivery and acceptance are in compliance with the applicable laws and
rules governing filings.”); Habteselassie v. Novak, 209 F.3d 1208, 1210 (10th Cir. 2000)
(“[A] ‘properly filed’ application is one filed according to the filing requirements for a
motion for state post-conviction relief.”). But he argues that equitable tolling should
apply to the nearly nine-month period that his Overlength Motion was pending before the
OCDC, and that such tolling would allow § 2244(d)(2) to toll the limitations period
during the time his Second APCR was pending. The end result of these calculations
would make his § 2254 petition timely filed. We reject this argument.
Section 2244(d)(1)’s limitations period “is subject to equitable tolling,” Holland v.
Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 645 (2010), but “only in rare and exceptional circumstances,”
Sigala v. Bravo, 656 F.3d 1125, 1128 (10th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).
A petitioner seeking equitable tolling of the limitations period must show “(1) that he has
been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in
his way and prevented timely filing.” Holland, 560 U.S. at 649 (internal quotation marks
omitted). The extraordinary-circumstance “prong of the equitable tolling test is met only
where the circumstances that caused a litigant’s delay are both extraordinary and beyond
[his] control.” Menominee Indian Tribe of Wis. v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 750, 756
(2016).
Mr. Ramirez argues that he diligently pursued his rights because soon after the
OCDC struck his First APCR, he sought leave to file a post-conviction motion that
exceeded the page limits, and when that was ultimately denied more than eight months
8
later, he promptly filed a post-conviction motion that complied with the court’s
twenty-page limit. He contends that the time it took for the OCDC to rule on the
Overlength Motion was an extraordinary circumstance that stood in his way of filing an
APCR before expiration of § 2244(d)(1)(A)’s limitations period. He leans heavily on
Burger v. Scott, 317 F.3d 1133 (10th Cir. 2003), for the observation that equitable tolling
may be appropriate “when a prisoner actively pursues judicial remedies but files a
defective pleading during the statutory period,” id. at 1141 (quoting Gibson v. Klinger,
232 F.3d 799, 808 (10th Cir. 2000)). And, chief among other points, he claims
Loftis actually supports equitable tolling in his case. We are not persuaded.
In his Overlength Motion, Mr. Ramirez informed the OCDC that he was trying to
exhaust his state-court remedies before filing his federal habeas petition: “[I am] facing a
deadline to submit fully exhausted[,] through the State appeals process[,] issues to the
federal appeals courts within one year of [my] accum[u]lated denial dates.” R. at 143.
As found by the magistrate judge, that deadline was statutorily tolled until August 20,
2016. Despite Mr. Ramirez’s express awareness of a deadline for obtaining the benefit of
further statutory tolling by virtue of a properly-filed APCR, and in the face of that
deadline steadily approaching as the Overlength Motion pended before the OCDC, he did
not prompt the OCDC to rule on the motion, nor did he submit an APCR that complied
with the twenty-page limit prior to the expiration of the § 2244(d)(1)(A) limitations
period. And although the OCDC had struck his First APCR, he did not submit a
proposed APCR with his Overlength Motion, which might have supported equitable
tolling under Burger, to which we now turn.
9
In Burger, a prisoner had sent an APCR to the state court through the prison mail,
but the state court did not file it until four months later, after the federal habeas
limitations period expired. After determining that statutory tolling did not apply, we
concluded that the district court had abused its discretion in denying equitable tolling.
Among other reasons, we explained that by placing in the prison mailing system an
APCR that was “proper . . . under the applicable state law,” Burger, 317 F.3d at 1142, the
prisoner “believed that his state petition was sufficient to begin the State’s process of
reviewing his claim,” and the record contained evidence that the state court had been in
possession of the APCR for “the entire four-month period,” id. at 1143.
Unlike the APCR in Burger, Mr. Ramirez’s First APCR was not “proper” under
applicable Oklahoma law because it exceeded Rule 37(B)’s page limit without prior
permission. And because Mr. Ramirez did not submit an APCR with his Overlength
Motion,4 it was not reasonable for Mr. Ramirez to believe that the Overlength Motion
was sufficient to begin the OCDC’s review of his claims. For these same reasons, we
find inapplicable Burger’s recognition that due diligence may be shown “when a prisoner
actively pursues judicial remedies but files a defective pleading during the statutory
period,” id. at 1141 (quoting Gibson, 232 F.3d at 808). Burger took this principle from
4
Although Mr. Ramirez states in his pro se brief that he attached an APCR to his
Overlength Motion, there is no APCR attached to the Overlength Motion contained in the
district court record, and his attorney agrees that it appears he filed the motion without
attaching his APCR. Further, the content of the Overlength Motion indicates that
Mr. Ramirez may have attached only the OCDC’s prescribed form for an APCR to
support his argument that certain required fields in the form occupied three pages and
therefore the pages remaining for presentation of the issues is not equivalent to a
twenty-page brief. R. at 142.
10
Gibson, where we cited Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96 (1990),
as support. See Gibson, 232 F.3d at 808. In Irwin, the Supreme Court cited two
examples of when it had concluded that a defective filing warranted equitable tolling:
(1) a complaint timely filed but in the wrong court and (2) a timely-filed but defective
class action, which equitably tolled the limitations period for individual claims. Irwin,
498 U.S. at 96 & n.3. Mr. Ramirez’s circumstances are distinguishable from either of
those examples. They are also distinguishable from Burger, where the only possible
defect mentioned was applicability of a filing fee, but that did not preclude the state court
from ultimately accepting the otherwise-proper APCR. Burger, 317 F.3d at 1144. Here,
the OCDC promptly struck Mr. Ramirez’s First APCR. Because substantial time (nine
months) remained before the § 2244(d)(1)(A) limitations period expired, any actions
determinative of due diligence occurred after that ruling.
Although “[t]he diligence required for equitable tolling is reasonable diligence, not
maximum feasible diligence,” Holland, 560 U.S. at 653 (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted), under the circumstances here, we see no abuse of discretion in the district
court’s determination that Mr. Ramirez did not act with the requisite diligence when he
filed his Overlength Motion. Further, the fact that the OCDC took nearly nine months to
rule on the Overlength Motion may have been a circumstance beyond Mr. Ramirez’s
control, but it did not prevent or prohibit him from filing an APCR that complied with the
page limitation prior to the expiration of the federal habeas limitations period.5 In fact,
5
Relatedly, we disagree with Mr. Ramirez’s contention that based on the portion
of Rule 37(B) stating that “[n]o further briefs shall be filed without prior permission of
11
when the OCDC eventually denied the Overlength Motion on August 6, 2016,
Mr. Ramirez still had until August 20, 2016, to file an APCR that complied with the page
limitation, but he did not file a compliant APCR until August 25, 2016.
Mr. Ramirez’s reliance on Loftis does not call for a different conclusion. Through
no fault of his own, Mr. Loftis, a state prisoner, did not receive a copy of an order
denying his APCR until seventeen days after it was filed, a full week after the ten-day
period to file a notice of appeal from it had expired. Upon receipt, Mr. Loftis promptly
filed a motion in the state district court seeking an extension of time to file his notice of
appeal, which the court granted. Mr. Loftis filed a notice of appeal, but the case
languished in the OCCA for a year before that court ruled that the district court’s order
granting the extension “had no legal effect” and dismissed the appeal as untimely. Loftis,
812 F.3d at 1271. The OCCA determined that Mr. Loftis should have known to ignore
what appeared to this court to be a “mandatory requirement to file a notice of appeal,” id.
at 1276, and instead could have, and should have, filed “a petition in error and supporting
brief” within the time that remained to do so when he finally received the order denying
his APCR, id. at 1271. During the year the case was before the OCCA, the § 2244(d)(1)
limitations period expired. Under these circumstances, we concluded that equitable
the assigned judge,” he reasonably believed he could not file a compliant APCR after the
OCDC had struck the First APCR. We instead agree with the State that when read in
context, this prohibition on “further briefs” refers to briefs beyond the opening and reply
briefs mentioned in the rule, not other motions or, in this case, another APCR. It would
be unreasonable to believe that this prohibited Mr. Ramirez from filing a compliant
APCR just because the court had struck his First APCR. In any event, “ignorance of the
law, even for an incarcerated pro se petitioner, generally does not excuse prompt filing.”
Marsh, 223 F.3d at 1220 (internal quotation marks omitted).
12
tolling applied, primarily because the “state district court itself caused [Mr. Loftis] to
believe,” through its order granting his motion for an extension of time, “that his efforts
had been sufficient to ensure state review of his habeas claims.” Id. at 1275. We also
determined that Mr. Loftis had “made reasonable, diligent efforts to comply with
procedural rules which provided no clear guidance for the unusual circumstances in
which, through no fault of his own, he was situated.” Id.
The district court in Mr. Ramirez’s case distinguished Loftis on the ground that the
record provided no basis for finding that the OCDC “had led [Mr. Ramirez] to believe he
had done all that was required under the circumstances. . . . Rather, the pertinent state
court orders made clear that [Mr. Ramirez’s] filing was not sufficient. They did nothing
to suggest that [he] had done all that was necessary for state collateral review . . . .”
R. at 230. We agree with the district court on this point.
Mr. Ramirez argues that like Mr. Loftis, he was confused by Rule 37(B) because it
provides no guidance on proper procedure in the event an APCR is stricken for exceeding
the page limit. He points out that in the order striking the First APCR, the OCDC did not
provide any guidance either. And he asserts it was reasonable to believe he did all that
was necessary to ensure state collateral review when he asked for permission to file an
overlength APCR. We disagree. Although Rule 37(B) makes plain that a prisoner must
obtain permission from the court before filing an APCR that exceeds twenty pages,
simply asking for that permission was not sufficient to “ensure state review of
[Mr. Ramirez’s] habeas claims,” Loftis, 812 F.3d at 1275, because nothing guaranteed
that the OCDC would give that permission. It was therefore unreasonable for
13
Mr. Ramirez to believe that by filing the Overlength Motion, he had done all that was
necessary to ensure state collateral review. Furthermore, unlike the situation in Loftis,
which was not due to any fault on the prisoner’s part, the circumstances in which
Mr. Ramirez found himself were of his own making—he filed his First APCR without
obtaining prior permission to exceed the page limit, and he elected to file a motion to
exceed the page limit rather than an APCR that conformed to the limit.
Finally, we reject Mr. Ramirez’s contention that, because the OCDC struck his
First APCR only twelve days after it was filed, the OCDC’s lengthy silence on his
Overlength Motion reasonably suggested he had done all that was required to ensure
collateral review. While the delay may have been inordinate, there always remained the
very real—and ultimately realized—possibility that the OCDC would deny the motion. It
was therefore unreasonable for Mr. Ramirez to construe the OCDC’s silence on the
matter as an indication that he had done enough to ensure collateral review.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in declining to apply equitable tolling. We therefore affirm its judgment.
Entered for the Court
Monroe G. McKay
Circuit Judge
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