Hildebrand v. Campbell
- Beth Freeman
- 5:24-cv-01791
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Hildebrand v. Campbell, Judge Freeman ordered a response to possible untimeliness without deciding Michael Hildebrand’s habeas claims.
Michael Hildebrand must respond if Campbell files a motion to dismiss; Campbell must file either that motion or a notice about it within 35 days. The petition’s underlying claims remain undecided.
What happened
In Hildebrand v. Campbell, Michael Hildebrand, a California prisoner representing himself, challenged his 2006 no-contest plea and sentence through a federal petition asking to be released from unlawful custody. He raised six grounds, including an illegal sentence, lack of informed agreement, pressure to plead, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
The court noted that federal law generally gives state prisoners one year to file such petitions, with some exceptions and pauses for properly filed state proceedings. Because nearly eighteen years had passed since Hildebrand’s sentencing and the California Supreme Court had cited untimeliness in denying his state petition, the court found a serious question about whether the federal petition was filed on time.
Judge Freeman did not decide the underlying claims or grant a motion to dismiss. Instead, the court ordered Campbell to file, within 35 days, either a motion to dismiss the petition as untimely or a notice stating that such a motion is unwarranted; it also set deadlines for any opposition and reply.
The detailed version
- Hildebrand v. Campbell · No. 5:24-cv-01791
- Beth Freeman
- Aug. 13, 2024
Background
Michael Hildebrand, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He alleged that he pleaded no contest in Santa Clara County Superior Court to lewd or lascivious conduct on a child by force and received a sentence of 36 years to life in state prison on December 8, 2006.
Hildebrand asserted that he had exhausted state remedies. The petition challenged the validity of his plea agreement on six grounds: that the sentencing court imposed an illegal sentence; that he unknowingly agreed to that sentence; that he was not fully advised about the sentence; that he pleaded under pressure; that his attorney provided ineffective assistance; and that a miscarriage of justice eliminated any time bar.
Timeliness issue
The court explained that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act generally requires a state prisoner to file a federal habeas petition within one year of the latest of several specified events. The one-year period can be paused while a properly filed state post-conviction or other collateral-review application is pending.
Hildebrand filed this federal petition on March 21, 2024, nearly eighteen years after his December 2006 sentencing. Although he claimed to have recently exhausted his state remedies, the court stated that it was questionable whether he qualified for enough time tolling, or pausing, to make the petition timely. The court also noted that the California Supreme Court’s decision cited a state rule indicating that his state habeas petition was untimely.
Order
The court treated timeliness as a procedural issue that should be addressed before any merits review. It ordered Campbell to file within 35 days either a motion to dismiss the petition as untimely or a notice stating that a motion to dismiss is unwarranted.
The court gave Hildebrand 28 days after receiving a motion to file an opposition, and gave Campbell 14 days after receiving the opposition to file a reply. The motion would be submitted without a hearing. If Campbell stated that dismissal was unwarranted, or if the court denied a dismissal motion, the court would then decide whether to require an answer to the petition.
The operative order therefore did not decide whether Hildebrand’s plea or sentence was unlawful and did not itself grant or deny a motion to dismiss. It also warned that failure to prosecute or comply with court orders could lead to dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.