Tran v. Martinez
- 3:23-cv-01677
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In BA T. TRAN v. T. MARTINEZ, the court dismissed the late habeas petition with prejudice as time-barred.
BA T. TRAN’s federal challenge to his state murder conviction was dismissed with prejudice as untimely. T. MARTINEZ prevailed in the case.
What happened
BA T. TRAN, a state prisoner, challenged his 2011 first-degree murder conviction and 50-years-to-life sentence in a federal petition. He raised claims about his trial and appellate lawyers, including their failure to subpoena a witness and raise an issue on appeal.
The court ruled that the petition was filed too late under the one-year federal deadline for state-prisoner habeas petitions. It rejected BA T. TRAN’s reliance on Martinez v. Ryan, explaining that decision concerns procedural default, not the filing deadline. The court also found no applicable exception or earlier state petition that would have paused the deadline.
The court dismissed the petition with prejudice as time-barred, ordered judgment for T. MARTINEZ, and closed the case. The opinion does not identify the judge by name; the ruling was issued by the court.
The detailed version
- Tran v. Martinez · No. 3:23-cv-01677
- Mar. 26, 2024
Background
BA T. TRAN, identified as a state prisoner, filed a self-represented petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging a 2011 first-degree murder conviction and a sentence of 50 years to life. The judgment was affirmed on appeal in 2013, and the California Supreme Court denied review that year. About a decade later, BA T. TRAN sought state collateral review, arguing that trial counsel provided constitutionally inadequate assistance, failed to subpoena a critical witness, and that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise an issue. The California Supreme Court denied that petition in March 2023. BA T. TRAN filed the federal petition in April 2023.
Timeliness ruling
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, commonly called AEDPA, generally gives a state prisoner one year to file a federal habeas petition, measured from the latest of several specified events. A properly filed state post-conviction or other collateral-review application can pause that period while it is pending.
The court determined that BA T. TRAN’s judgment became final in 2013 or 2014, after the period for seeking review in the United States Supreme Court expired. The one-year period therefore began then. The court found that BA T. TRAN had not identified a filing impediment that was later removed, a newly recognized and retroactive constitutional right, or a factual basis that could not previously have been discovered through due diligence. The court also found that no state collateral petition had been filed before the one-year period expired that could have paused the deadline.
The court rejected BA T. TRAN’s argument based on Martinez v. Ryan, explaining that Martinez concerns procedural default rather than timeliness. The court stated that BA T. TRAN had conflated those two issues and had waited ten years before filing the federal petition.
Disposition
The court dismissed the petition with prejudice as time-barred. It directed the Clerk to enter judgment in favor of T. MARTINEZ and against BA T. TRAN and to close the case. The opinion does not identify the judge by name.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.