PER CURIAM
ALLEN V. SIEBERT
552 U. S. ____ (2007)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
RICHARD F. ALLEN, COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT
OF CORRECTIONS
v. DANIEL SIEBERT
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
No. 06–1680. Decided November 5, 2007
Per Curiam.
Daniel Siebert was convicted and
sentenced to death in the State of Alabama for the murder of Linda
Jarman. Siebert’s conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct
appeal, and the certificate of judgment issued on May 22, 1990.
This Court denied certiorari on November 5, 1990.
Siebert
v.
Alabama,
498 U. S. 963. On August
25, 1992, Siebert filed a petition for postconviction relief in
Alabama state court. The state courts denied the petition as
untimely, however, because it was filed approximately three months
after the expiration of the then-applicable 2-year statute of
limitations, 2 Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2000–2001), which
began to run from the date the certificate of judgment issued.* The
Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari on September 15, 2000.
Siebert did not seek review in this Court. On September 14, 2001,
Siebert filed a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, see
28 U. S. C. §2254, in the District Court for the Northern
District of Alabama.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (AEDPA) established a 1-year statute of limitations for
filing a federal habeas petition. §2244(d)(1). The limitations
period is tolled, however, while “a properly filed application for
State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to
the pertinent judgment or claim is pending.” §2244(d)(2). Because
Siebert’s direct appeal became final before AEDPA became effective,
the 1-year limitations period began to run from April 24, 1996,
AEDPA’s effective date. See
Carey v.
Saffold,
536 U. S. 214,
217 (2002). Thus, absent tolling, Siebert’s federal habeas petition
would be untimely by over four years.
The District Court dismissed Siebert’s habeas
petition as untimely, reasoning that an application for state
postconviction relief is not “properly filed” if it was rejected by
the state court on statute-of-limitations grounds. The Court of
Appeals reversed, however, holding that Siebert’s state
postconviction petition was “properly filed” within the meaning of
§2244(d)(2), because the state time bar was not jurisdictional and
the Alabama courts therefore had discretion in enforcing it. See
Siebert v.
Campbell, 334 F. 3d 1018, 1030
(CA11 2003)
(per curiam). The Court of Appeals accordingly
remanded to the District Court to consider the merits of Siebert’s
petition.
While Siebert’s habeas petition was pending on
remand in the District Court, we decided
Pace v.
DiGuglielmo,
544 U. S. 408 (2005). In
Pace, we held that a state postconviction petition
rejected by the state court as untimely is not “properly filed”
within the meaning of §2244(d)(2).
Id., at 414, 417.
Relying on
Pace, the District Court again found that
Siebert’s state postconviction petition was not “properly filed,”
and dismissed his federal habeas petition as untimely. The Court of
Appeals, however, reversed and remanded. In a one-paragraph
opinion, the court distinguished
Pace on the ground that
Rule 32.2(c), unlike the statute of limitations at issue in
Pace, “operate[s] as an affirmative defense.” 480
F. 3d 1089, 1090 (CA11 2007). Thus, the court found its prior
holding—that Siebert’s state postconviction petition was “properly
filed” because the state court rejected it on a nonjurisdictional
ground—stood as the law of the case.
Ibid.
The Court of Appeals’ carve-out of time limits
that operate as affirmative defenses is inconsistent with our
holding in
Pace. Although the Pennsylvania statute of
limitations at issue in
Pace happens to have been a
jurisdictional time bar under state law, see
Commonwealth
v.
Banks, 556 Pa. 1, 5–6, 726 A. 2d 374, 376 (1999),
the jurisdictional nature of the time limit was not the basis for
our decision. Rather, we built upon a distinction that we had
earlier articulated in
Artuz v.
Bennett,
531 U. S. 4 (2000),
between postconviction petitions rejected on the basis of
“ ‘filing’ conditions,” which are not “properly filed” under
§2244(d)(2), and those rejected on the basis of “procedural bars
[that] go to the ability to obtain relief,” which are.
Pace,
supra, at 417 (citing
Artuz,
supra, at 10–11). We found that statutes of limitations
are “filing” conditions because they “go to the very initiation of
a petition and a court’s ability to consider that petition.”
Pace, 544 U. S., at 417. Thus, we held “that time limits,
no matter their form, are ‘filing’ conditions,” and that a
state postconviction petition is therefore not “properly filed” if
it was rejected by the state court as untimely.
Ibid.
(emphasis added).
In short, our holding in
Pace turned
not on the nature of the particular time limit relied upon by the
state court, but rather on the fact that time limits generally
establish “conditions to filing” a petition for state
postconviction relief. Whether a time limit is jurisdictional, an
affirmative defense, or something in between, it is a “condition to
filing,”
Artuz,
supra, at 9—it places a limit on
how long a prisoner can wait before filing a postconviction
petition. The fact that Alabama’s Rule 32.2(c) is an affirmative
defense that can be waived (or is subject to equitable tolling)
renders it no less a “filing” requirement than a jurisdictional
time bar would be; it only makes it a less stringent one. Indeed,
in
Pace we cited the very statute at issue in this case as
an example of such a “filing” requirement. See 544 U. S., at 417,
n. 7 (citing 2 Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2004–2005)).
Excluding from
Pace’s scope those
time limits that operate as affirmative defenses would leave a
gaping hole in what we plainly meant to be a general rule, as
statutes of limitations are often affirmative defenses. See,
e.g., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c);
Kirkland v.
State, 143 Idaho 544, 546, 149 P. 3d 819, 821 (2006)
(“The statute of limitations for petitions for post-conviction
relief is not jurisdictional. It ‘is an affirmative defense that
may be waived if it is not pleaded by the defendant’ ”
(quoting
Cole v.
State, 135 Idaho 107, 110, 15
P. 3d 820, 823 (2000); citation omitted));
People v.
Boclair, 202 Ill. 2d 89, 101, 789 N. E. 2d 734,
742 (2002) (holding that time bar for filing postconviction
petition is “an affirmative defense and can be raised, waived, or
forfeited, by the State”). What is more, whether a time limit is
jurisdictional or an affirmative defense is often a disputed
question, as the interpretive history of Rule 32.2(c) itself
illustrates, see
Ex parte Ward, No. 1051818, 2007 WL
1576054, *6 (Ala., June 1, 2007) (noting confusion in the Alabama
lower courts over whether Rule 32.2(c) is jurisdictional). Under
the Court of Appeals’ approach, federal habeas courts would have to
delve into the intricacies of state procedural law in deciding
whether a postconviction petition rejected by the state courts as
untimely was nonetheless “properly filed” under §2244(d)(2). Our
decision in
Pace precludes such an approach.
We therefore reiterate now what we held in
Pace: “When a postconviction petition is untimely under
state law, ‘that [is] the end of the matter’ for purposes of
§2244(d)(2).” 544 U. S., at 414 (quoting
Carey, 536 U. S.,
at 226; alteration in original). Because Siebert’s petition for
state postconviction relief was rejected as untimely by the Alabama
courts, it was not “properly filed” under §2244(d)(2). Accordingly,
he was not entitled to tolling of AEDPA’s 1-year statute of
limitations.
The petition for certiorari is granted. The
judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
* At the time Siebert’s petition was before
the Alabama courts, Rule 32.2(c) provided that “the court shall not
entertain any petition,” with certain exceptions not applicable
here, “unless the petition is filed … within two (2) years after
the issuance of the certificate of judgment by the Court of
Criminal Appeals.” The statute has since been amended to provide
for a 1-year limitations period, but is otherwise unchanged. See 1
Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2007–2008).
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