Eric S. Branch v. Jeff Atwater

Case: 14-15488 Date Filed: 06/26/2015 Page: 1 of 3
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 14-15488
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D.C. Docket No. 4:14-cv-00174-RH-CAS
ERIC S. BRANCH,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Defendant,
JEFF ATWATER,
Chief Financial Officer, State of Florida,
ALTON L. COLVIN,
Executive Director of the Justice Administration Commission,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
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(June 26, 2015)
Case: 14-15488 Date Filed: 06/26/2015 Page: 2 of 3
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, HULL and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This is Eric Branch’s appeal from the district court’s dismissal of his
42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit challenging an aspect of Florida’s system for providing
counsel to prisoners under sentence of death for purposes of state post-conviction
proceedings such as those filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851.
The aspect of the system that Branch challenges is the difference that existed when
he filed his state post-conviction petition between the registry counsel system in
the region of the state where his petition was filed and the Capital Collateral
Regional Counsel (CCRC) system in the rest of the state. That difference was the
result of a pilot program designed to determine if a registry counsel system could
provide adequate representation and resources more efficiently and at less cost than
the CCRC system. Branch contends that the difference between the resources and
representation provided to inmates like him in the district of the state he was in and
that provided to the inmates in the other two districts of the state violated his Equal
Protection rights.
The district court dismissed the complaint on statute of limitations grounds
after rejecting Branch’s contention that he was entitled to equitable tolling because
he had been misled by, or had misunderstood, what his counsel or the district court
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Case: 14-15488 Date Filed: 06/26/2015 Page: 3 of 3
had said about whether Branch could file pro se a § 1983 complaint like the one
that was filed in this lawsuit.
We affirm the dismissal on statute of limitations grounds for the reasons set
out in the district court’s order of November 11, 2014.
AFFIRMED.
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