Wells v. State of California
- Yvonne Rogers
- 5:24-cv-00172
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Wells v. Campbell, Judge Rogers ordered Stanley V. Wells to explain why his federal habeas petition should not be dismissed as untimely or unexhausted.
Stanley V. Wells was required to respond within 28 days and show why his federal petition should not be dismissed without prejudice as untimely or unexhausted. The order did not make a final ruling on the petition’s underlying claims.
What happened
In Stanley V. Wells v. Tammy L. Campbell, Wells, a state prisoner representing himself, challenged his California convictions and sentence in a federal petition. He had been convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 152 years to life plus 60 years in enhancements. He later filed a state petition challenging his sentence and DNA evidence, but the state trial court rejected it as procedurally barred.
The court identified two possible problems. Claims related to Wells’s direct appeal appeared to have been filed too late under the federal one-year filing deadline. The claims raised in his state petition also appeared not to have been presented to the California Supreme Court, which generally must happen before a federal court can consider them.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not dismiss the petition at this stage. She ordered Wells to explain within 28 days why the petition should not be dismissed without prejudice as untimely or unexhausted. The order warned that failing to respond would result in dismissal of the action.
The detailed version
- Wells v. State of California · No. 5:24-cv-00172
- Yvonne Rogers
- June 27, 2024
Background
Stanley V. Wells, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state-court custody. The opinion states that Wells was convicted in Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2006 of forcible sodomy, forcible sexual penetration, residential robbery, and other charges. He received a sentence of 152 years to life in state prison, plus 60 years based on sentencing enhancements.
The California Court of Appeal denied Wells’s direct appeal on January 29, 2009. The California Supreme Court denied his petition for review on April 15, 2009. The court stated that direct review was completed in July 2009, when the time to ask the United States Supreme Court to review the case expired.
On February 27, 2023, Wells filed a state petition in Santa Clara County Superior Court seeking to vacate his sentence and arguing that DNA evidence used at trial was flawed. That court denied the petition on April 25, 2023, finding the claims procedurally barred because they had been previously raised and rejected, could have been presented on appeal, or were unsupported by the submitted documents. Wells signed the federal petition on or about December 20, 2023.
Possible timeliness problem
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 provides a one-year limitation period for a state prisoner’s federal petition. The court said that claims similar to those Wells raised on direct review appeared untimely because direct review ended years earlier. The court also noted that Wells had not alleged facts supporting delayed commencement or tolling of the limitation period.
The court recognized that time may be excluded while a properly filed state post-conviction or other collateral-review application is pending. It also noted that equitable tolling may be available when external forces, rather than a petitioner’s lack of diligence, caused the late filing. Because the court could not dismiss the petition as untimely without giving Wells notice and an opportunity to respond, it ordered him to explain why the claims should not be dismissed on that ground.
Possible exhaustion problem
Before seeking federal review of the fact or length of state custody, a petitioner generally must present the claims to the California Supreme Court. The court said that, to the extent Wells sought to raise only the claims from his state petition, the federal petition appeared to be fully unexhausted because he had not presented those claims to the California Supreme Court.
A fully unexhausted federal petition must be dismissed, and the court stated that such a dismissal would be without prejudice, allowing refiling after exhaustion. The court nevertheless gave Wells an opportunity to show that his claims had been exhausted and to explain why the petition should not be dismissed on that ground.
Order
The court ordered Wells to show cause within 28 days of the order’s filing date why the petition should not be dismissed without prejudice as untimely or unexhausted. The court did not decide whether Wells’s underlying claims had merit. It warned that failing to respond within the required time would result in dismissal of the action. The order also directed Wells to keep the court informed of any address change and warned that failing to comply with court orders could result in dismissal for failure to prosecute.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.