Quinones v. Lee

Background

Ricardo Quinones, representing himself, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state conviction after pleading guilty to robbery and criminal possession of a weapon. William Lee moved to dismiss the petition as filed after the deadline. Magistrate Judge Judith C. McCarthy recommended granting that motion. Quinones filed objections.

Timeliness analysis

The court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation after reviewing the challenged portions of the report and recommendation independently. It concluded that Quinones’s conviction became final on March 11, 2010, thirty days after his February 9, 2010 sentence, because he had waived his appeal rights, did not timely appeal as of right, and was denied permission to appeal. The one-year federal deadline therefore expired on March 11, 2011. Quinones filed his federal petition on June 1, 2020.

The court rejected Quinones’s argument that the deadline began in 2020, when the New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. It also rejected his arguments that requests for records under the Freedom of Information Law or motions under New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10 changed the deadline. The court explained that the § 440.10 motion was filed in July 2018, years after the federal deadline had expired, and that a later state-court motion cannot restart an expired deadline. It further held that Freedom of Information Law requests do not pause the federal deadline and, in any event, Quinones’s first such requests came after the deadline had run.

Equitable tolling and actual innocence

The court also rejected equitable tolling, which is a limited exception that can pause a filing deadline. It found that Quinones had not acted diligently because his earliest identified effort to prepare the petition was a May 2016 records request, more than six years after his conviction became final. The court additionally agreed that he had not shown an extraordinary circumstance that prevented timely filing.

The court found that Quinones had not shown actual innocence through new reliable evidence. The materials he submitted—including investigative records, transcripts, and post-conviction records—did not meet the required standard, and the court said some of the evidence undermined rather than supported his innocence claim. The court also relied on his admissions during his guilty-plea proceeding and sentencing.

Ruling

The court held that the petition was untimely and that no statutory tolling, equitable tolling, or actual-innocence exception allowed it to proceed. It overruled Quinones’s objections, adopted the report and recommendation in its entirety, granted Lee’s motion to dismiss, and dismissed the petition. The court directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the case. It also stated that no certificate of appealability would issue and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, denying permission to appeal without paying filing fees.