Glaze v. Warden, California Rehabilitation Center

Background

Isaiah T. Glaze, a California state prisoner proceeding without an attorney, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his conviction and sentence. The federal court had previously found that, when read liberally, the petition stated a potentially reviewable claim that his trial attorney’s advice to plead guilty violated the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

Glaze received a 13-year state-prison sentence on April 1, 2021, after pleading guilty to attempted murder, inflicting traumatic injury on a domestic partner, and assault with a firearm. He did not directly appeal. Instead, he filed four state habeas petitions. The California Court of Appeal denied his first petition on November 5, 2021. The Contra Costa County Superior Court denied his next petition on December 21, 2021. The Court of Appeal denied his third petition on March 4, 2022. Glaze filed his fourth state petition in the California Supreme Court on January 3, 2023; that court denied it without explanation on May 3, 2023. Glaze filed his federal petition on May 6, 2023.

Analysis

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 gives a petitioner one year to file a federal petition after the state judgment becomes final. Because Glaze did not appeal, the court determined that the one-year period began after the 60-day period for seeking direct review and expired on May 31, 2022.

State post-conviction proceedings can pause the federal filing period while they are pending. In California, the time between state-court filings may also count as paused time if the petitioner filed the next petition within a reasonable period. California’s 120-day safe harbor means that a filing in a higher court within 120 days of the lower court’s denial is not considered untimely based on the gap alone.

The gap between the Court of Appeal’s March 4, 2022 denial and Glaze’s January 3, 2023 filing in the California Supreme Court was 305 days. Because the California Supreme Court did not clearly say that Glaze’s petition was untimely, the federal court decided whether California would view the delay as reasonable. The court found that the 305-day delay exceeded the 120-day safe harbor and that Glaze had not shown good cause for the delay.

Glaze attributed the delay to advice from post-conviction counsel, difficulties gathering facts, and prison lockdowns that limited law-library access. The court found these explanations insufficient because Glaze had previously filed three similar state petitions without a lawyer, had filed two of them promptly, and relied largely on the same claims and records in the California Supreme Court petition. The court therefore concluded that the 305-day gap was unreasonable and was not counted as paused time.

Ruling

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted the Respondent’s motion to dismiss the federal petition as untimely. The court did not reach the merits of Glaze’s claim that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance. The order directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the file and stated that it resolved docket number 20.