Hovsepian v. Gastelo

Background

Armik A. Hovsepian, an inmate at California Men’s Colony–East, filed a petition without a lawyer under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 1994 state conviction for attempted murder. The petition says a Santa Clara County jury convicted him of two counts of attempted murder with firearm enhancements. He was sentenced on December 16, 1994, to two life terms plus an additional term of seventeen years and four months. His direct appeal was denied in 1996, and the California Supreme Court denied review that same year. He later filed state petitions for post-conviction relief, all of which were denied. He did not report filing an earlier federal petition.

Claims

Hovsepian alleged that his retrial on attempted-murder charges after an earlier trial involving assault charges violated the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. He also claimed that he was factually innocent.

Timeliness analysis

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act generally requires a state prisoner to file a federal challenge to a noncapital conviction or sentence within one year of the date specified by the statute. The court noted that Hovsepian’s conviction occurred in 1994 and that his double-jeopardy claim was raised and rejected on direct appeal in 1996. Hovsepian acknowledged that his petition was late, but argued that his claim of factual innocence excused the delay.

The court explained that a federal court may sometimes consider a late or procedurally barred claim when refusing to do so would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. To use that exception, a petitioner must provide new reliable evidence—such as scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence—not presented at trial. The evidence must be strong enough that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted the petitioner. The court found that Hovsepian had not presented new reliable evidence. Instead, his innocence argument relied on his contention that the first trial’s mistrial effectively exonerated him and that California law required new evidence before a second prosecution.

Order

The court did not dismiss the petition at this stage. It ordered Hovsepian to show cause within 60 days why the petition should not be dismissed as untimely. This is a threshold ruling about the petition’s filing deadline, not a decision on whether his double-jeopardy or factual-innocence claims ultimately succeed.