Aledo v. Samuel

Background

Paul V. Aledo filed this self-represented action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, seeking federal review of his state-court conviction. He was convicted in Monterey County Superior Court of premeditated attempted murder and was found to have personally used a firearm and caused great bodily injury. On October 18, 2017, he received a sentence of 25 years to life in state prison.

Aledo pursued state-court challenges. The state trial court denied one habeas petition filed in 2018. After the California Sixth District Court of Appeal remanded the case for reconsideration of a sentence enhancement, the trial court declined to resentence him, and the appellate court affirmed that decision on July 14, 2021. Aledo did not pursue that direct appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Aledo later filed a state habeas petition in April 2022. The Monterey County Superior Court denied it as untimely, duplicative, and lacking a showing of prejudice. The Sixth District Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court summarily denied his later petitions. Aledo filed this federal action on or after November 29, 2022.

Reasoning

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a federal law commonly called AEDPA, generally gives a state prisoner one year to file a federal habeas petition. The parties agreed that Aledo’s one-year period began on August 23, 2021, so the deadline was August 23, 2022.

Aledo argued that his 2022 state habeas petition paused the federal deadline. The court rejected that argument because the state court denied the petition as untimely. Under federal law, a state petition that is untimely under state law is not considered properly filed and does not pause the federal one-year period. The court also concluded that the later state petitions did not pause the deadline because their summary denials carried an unrebutted presumption that those courts agreed with the lower court’s timeliness ruling.

The court also considered equitable tolling, which can extend a deadline when a person has pursued rights diligently and an extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing. Aledo did not argue that equitable tolling applied and did not identify an extraordinary circumstance that prevented a timely federal filing. The federal limitations period therefore expired on August 23, 2022, before Aledo filed this action.

Ruling

Judge P. Casey Pitts granted the respondents’ motion to dismiss. The action was dismissed because the habeas petition was not filed before the federal limitations period expired. The court stated that a certificate of appealability would not issue and directed the clerk to close the file. The opinion does not state whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice.