Westmoreland v. Warden, Georgia Department of Corrections , 817 F.3d 751 ( 2016 )

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-15738
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:14-cv-01315-TWT
AMOS WESTMORELAND,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
WARDEN,
COMMISSIONER, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Respondents-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(March 30, 2016)
Before TJOFLAT, MARTIN, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
MARTIN, Circuit Judge:
Amos Westmoreland appeals the dismissal of his pro se federal habeas
petition. The District Court held that the petition was untimely based on the
limitations period in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). Mr. Westmoreland told the court that
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his limitations period was tolled (which is to say paused) by the pendency of an
extraordinary motion for new trial he filed in Georgia state court. He also
repeatedly asked the state to turn over a copy of this motion. Each time Mr.
Westmoreland asked, the state insisted that it had given the District Court all the
records the court needed. The court decided the issue without seeing Mr.
Westmoreland’s state-court motion. This Court then granted a certificate of
appealability (COA) on these issues:
(1) Whether the proper filing of a Georgia extraordinary motion for
new trial tolls the time period for filing a 28 U.S.C. § 2254
petition, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2); and if so, whether
Westmoreland’s Georgia extraordinary motion for new trial was
properly filed; and
(2) If a Georgia extraordinary motion for new trial is a tolling motion
under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2), and Westmoreland properly filed his
extraordinary motion, whether the district court erred by
dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition as time-barred.
After our Court granted this COA, the state acknowledged that it had been wrong
all along. The state now agrees that Mr. Westmoreland’s petition is timely. We
agree too. We thus reverse and remand. 1
I.
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The state also filed a motion asking this Court to expand the appellate record to include
Mr. Westmoreland’s extraordinary motion for new trial and the order denying that motion, plus
documents that purported to show Mr. Westmoreland’s failure to exhaust state remedies. We
grant the motion as to the extraordinary motion for new trial (Exhibit 5) as well as the order
denying the motion (Exhibit 6). We deny it as to all the other exhibits because, as explained in
part III, we are not addressing exhaustion at this time.
Mr. Westmoreland also filed a pro se motion for leave to file a reply brief out of time.
We grant this motion.
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We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a habeas petition as
untimely. Day v. Hall, 528 F.3d 1315, 1316 (11th Cir. 2008) (per curiam).
Federal habeas petitions that challenge state-court judgments must be filed within a
year of “the latest of” one of four triggering dates, including “the date on which the
judgment became final.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). This one-year limitations
period is tolled while “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or
other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending.”
Id. § 2244(d)(2). An application is considered “for” collateral review if it seeks “a
judicial reexamination of a judgment or claim in a proceeding outside of the direct
review process.” Wall v. Kholi, 562 U.S. 545, 553, 131 S. Ct. 1278, 1285 (2011).
And an application is considered “properly filed” if “its delivery and acceptance
are in compliance with the applicable laws and rules governing filings.” Artuz v.
Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 8, 121 S. Ct. 361, 364 (2000). Also, if a properly filed state
application is denied, then the time for appealing this denial tolls the federal filing
deadline. See Cramer v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 461 F.3d 1380, 1383 (11th Cir.
2006) (per curiam). This is true “regardless of whether the inmate actually files the
notice of appeal.” Id. So long as the applicant was allowed to appeal, the
limitations period is tolled “until the time to seek review expires.” Id.
In Georgia, a motion for new trial filed more than 30 days after a judgment
is entered is called an “extraordinary” motion for new trial. O.C.G.A. § 5-5-41(b).
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This Court has never decided whether a Georgia extraordinary motion for new trial
is an application for collateral review, though we have said such a motion is “in the
nature of a collateral proceeding.” Mize v. Hall, 532 F.3d 1184, 1191 n.5 (11th
Cir. 2008). And the Georgia Supreme Court has explained that an extraordinary
motion for new trial is one of three ways to “challenge a conviction after it has
been affirmed on direct appeal.” Thomas v. State, 727 S.E.2d 123, 123 (Ga. 2012).
(The other two are “a motion in arrest of judgment” and “a petition for habeas
corpus.” Id.) We thus hold that a Georgia extraordinary motion for new trial can
be an “application for State post-conviction or other collateral review.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244(d)(2).
II.
Mr. Westmoreland’s § 2254 petition is timely. Mr. Westmoreland’s
conviction became final on October 25, 2010. He thus had until October 25, 2011,
to file his federal petition. Mr. Westmoreland properly filed an extraordinary
motion for new trial in the Georgia trial court on May 2, 2011. This was a motion
for collateral review, so while it was pending the one-year clock froze at 189 days
(the number of days between October 25, 2010 and May 2, 2011). The state trial
court denied the motion on the merits on June 9, 2011. Mr. Westmoreland had 30
days to appeal this denial. See O.C.G.A. § 5-6-35(d). This means the clock did
not start again until at least July 9, 2011. Mr. Westmoreland then properly filed his
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state habeas petition on October 28, 2011. This was 111 days after July 9. 189
plus 111 is 300, so his filing was within § 2244(d)’s one-year period and further
tolled this period. Mr. Westmoreland then filed his federal petition on May 1,
2014, before his state petition was denied on June 27, 2014. This means he was
still within his one-year time for filing when he filed his federal petition.
The District Court dismissed Mr. Westmoreland’s petition without properly
considering the effect of the extraordinary motion for new trial. The state bears
much responsibility for this mistake. Shortly after Mr. Westmoreland filed his
federal petition, the District Court ordered the state to file all “pleadings,
transcripts and decisions as are available and required to determine the issues
raised.” The state responded by moving to dismiss the petition as untimely. Mr.
Westmoreland then asked the court to order the state to make his extraordinary
motion for new trial a part of the district court record. The state objected, claiming
it had “already filed all relevant exhibits that are germane to resolving the issue of
the timeliness of this petition.” Mr. Westmoreland then filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2250
request for a copy of the same motion. The state again objected, repeating that it
had “already filed all relevant exhibits that are germane to resolving the issue of
the timeliness of this petition.”
In this Court, the state reports that it “has examined the trial court’s public
record in Petitioner’s criminal case and does not dispute Petitioner’s contentions.”
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The state thus concedes that “the petition was timely filed” because the “one-year
period should have been tolled while the extraordinary motion for new trial was
pending in the Georgia courts.” If the state had made this concession back in 2014,
when Mr. Westmoreland repeatedly pointed the state’s attention to his state-court
motion, then the District Court would have had the means to decide the timeliness
issue correctly the first time around. Instead, the state repeatedly told the District
Court that it had given the court everything “germane to resolving” the timeliness
issue, the District Court relied on this representation, Mr. Westmoreland was
delayed two more years in prison, and this Court had to issue an apparently
unnecessary COA and decide an unnecessary appeal.
III.
Even with its admission that Mr. Westmoreland’s federal petition is timely,
the state says we should affirm the District Court anyway because Mr.
Westmoreland failed to exhaust state remedies. The COA did not cover the
exhaustion issue. To the contrary, the COA order expressly stated that, “should
this Court ultimately conclude that [Mr. Westmoreland’s] § 2254 petition was
timely filed, the district court will determine any issues of exhaustion, procedural
default, and cause and prejudice in the first instance.” We thus decline the state’s
invitation to consider the exhaustion issue now. When considering the exhaustion
issue on remand, the District Court must determine whether cause and prejudice
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excuse any possible failure to exhaust. If not, then the court must determine if a
stay and abeyance is proper while Mr. Westmoreland exhausts state remedies. See
Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 277–78, 125 S. Ct. 1528, 1535 (2005).
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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