Reyes v. Lizzaraga
- Edward Chen
- 3:18-cv-04388
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 9
In Reyes v. Lizzaraga, Judge Chen stayed the habeas case for state exhaustion and denied dismissal without deciding the claims’ merits.
Juvenal Angel Reyes, whose federal habeas case was paused so he could pursue unexhausted claims in state court; Joe Lizzaraga, whose motion to dismiss was denied; and the parties, who must provide status updates while the state proceedings continue.
What happened
Reyes v. Lizzaraga concerns Juvenal Angel Reyes’s federal challenge to convictions and sentences imposed by the Santa Clara County Superior Court. Reyes said that several claims in his amended petition had not yet been presented to California’s highest court and asked to pause the federal case while he pursued them in state court.
Reyes had exhausted only Claim 3. Claims 1, 2, and 4 through 12 remained unexhausted, and the respondent argued that some claims should be dismissed for failure to exhaust or because they were filed too late. The respondent later agreed that the case should be paused so Reyes could pursue at least Claim 5 in state court.
Judge Chen denied the motion to dismiss and granted Reyes’s request to pause the case. The court allowed Reyes to pursue all 11 unexhausted claims in state court, declined to decide their timeliness or merits, and required periodic status reports while the state proceedings continued.
The detailed version
- Reyes v. Lizzaraga · No. 3:18-cv-04388
- Edward Chen
- Aug. 3, 2022
Background
Juvenal Angel Reyes was convicted in Santa Clara County Superior Court on eight counts. He received a sentence of life without parole and a consecutive four-year term; the sentences on the remaining counts were stayed. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions, and the California Supreme Court denied review after Reyes’s appellate counsel raised two jury-instruction issues.
Reyes filed an original federal petition without a lawyer and later filed an amended petition while represented by federally appointed counsel. The amended petition asserted 12 claims, including challenges to jury instructions, the sufficiency of the evidence, the life-without-parole sentence, and the effectiveness of trial counsel. Reyes conceded that only Claim 3 had been presented to and denied by the California Supreme Court. Claims 1, 2, and 4 through 12 had not been fully exhausted in the state courts. Claim 5 had been presented to the Santa Clara County Superior Court but had not been appealed.
Issues and legal standard
Federal law generally requires a person seeking federal relief from a state conviction to first present each federal claim to the state courts. A petition containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims is called a mixed petition. Under the stay-and-abeyance procedure recognized in Rhines v. Weber, a federal court may pause a mixed petition so the petitioner can pursue state remedies without risking the federal filing deadline. The court explained that it could grant a stay if at least one unexhausted claim warranted one, without deciding the exhaustion status of every claim individually.
The respondent initially moved to dismiss 11 of the 12 claims for failure to exhaust and untimeliness. In the reply brief, however, the respondent did not contest equitable tolling for Claim 5 and agreed that the federal case should be stayed so Reyes could exhaust that claim in state court.
Court’s analysis
Because the respondent agreed that a stay was appropriate for Claim 5, the court granted a stay for all 11 unexhausted claims—Claims 1, 2, and 4 through 12. The court concluded that it did not need to resolve whether exhaustion had been waived for some claims or whether Claims 6 through 12 were untimely at that stage.
The court expressly took no position on the timeliness or merits of the unexhausted claims. It stated that the respondent could raise those arguments in state court and again in federal court if the federal proceedings resumed after exhaustion.
Reyes also asked the court to appoint his federal counsel to represent him in the state exhaustion proceedings. The opinion’s discussion states that the court declined to appoint counsel for those state proceedings. The supplied text ends during that discussion, so the precise final wording of that portion is incomplete.
Disposition
The court denied the respondent’s motion to dismiss the first amended federal petition. It granted Reyes’s request for stay and abeyance, and the matter was stayed. Reyes was ordered to file a status report 90 days after the order and every 180 days afterward until the state proceedings were completed, followed by notice within 30 days after completion. The order disposed of Docket No. 40.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.