Alexander v. Cuevo

Background

Jimmy Lloyd Alexander seeks federal habeas relief—a federal court order addressing whether a state conviction violates federal law—from convictions for kidnapping, robbery, and rape. The opinion states that a Monterey County Superior Court jury found him guilty in 2017 and that a sentence of 175 years to life, with the possibility of parole, was imposed in 2018. His efforts to overturn the convictions in state court were unsuccessful.

The court had previously dismissed Alexander’s original petition with permission to amend because his allegation that the prosecutor knowingly used false evidence lacked enough supporting facts. After Alexander filed a first amended petition, Respondent moved to dismiss for failure to exhaust state remedies. Alexander did not oppose that motion; instead, he filed a second amended petition without permission and later told the court that he wanted to proceed with its exhausted claims.

Claims and Analysis

Alexander’s second amended petition asserted four categories of claims: insufficient evidence of force or fear for the kidnapping conviction; improper admission of expert testimony; an unconstitutional sentence under the Eighth Amendment; and improper jury instructions concerning expert testimony.

Under the initial screening required by Section 2254 habeas rules, the court found Claims 2 through 4 cognizable, meaning legally capable of being considered in this type of proceeding. Respondent argued that Claim 1 was partly unexhausted and untimely. Alexander did not dispute that the subclaim alleging that the prosecutor knowingly presented false evidence had not been exhausted in state court. The court therefore dismissed that subclaim.

The court treated the remaining part of Claim 1 as timely at the screening stage. It calculated that the one-year federal filing period ended April 3, 2022, after the tolling that Respondent allowed for one state-court filing. The second amended petition was filed on August 30, 2022. The court concluded, however, that the remaining insufficiency-of-the-evidence claim related back to a timely claim because it shared a common core of operative facts with Alexander’s claim concerning the kidnapping jury instruction. The court emphasized that Respondent could continue to challenge that conclusion as the case proceeded.

Disposition

The court ordered Respondent to file an answer addressing the merits of Claims 1 through 4 in the second amended petition by July 10, 2023, except for the dismissed false-evidence subclaim. Alexander’s reply was due within 30 days after the answer, and the petition would then be treated as submitted. Judge William H. Orrick’s order screened the petition and set the case’s next steps; it did not resolve the merits of the remaining claims or grant habeas relief.