UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
01-31310
KERRY MYERS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
VERSUS
BURL CAIN, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Eastern District of Louisiana
(00-CV-2269-D)
December 16, 2002
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DUHÉ, and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:1
Kerry Myers appeals the dismissal of his petition for habeas
corpus as untimely, arguing that district court erred in refusing
to toll the statute of limitations during two time periods in
dispute. Finding the petition time-barred by the one-year
1
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under
the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
limitation period of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1),2 we affirm.
I. Background
AEDPA applies to all habeas corpus petitions filed after
April 24, 1996, AEDPA’s effective date. Kiser v. Johnson, 163 F.3d
326, 327 (5th Cir. 1999). Because his conviction became final in
1992,3 before AEDPA’s effective date (April 24, 1996), absent any
tolling, Myers was afforded until April 24, 1997, to file an
application for federal habeas relief. Flanagan v. Johnson, 154
F.3d 196, 202 (5th Cir. 1998).
The one-year time limitation on seeking relief under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244 is tolled by the pendency of “State post-conviction or other
collateral review.” 23 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). Myers did file three
state applications for post-conviction relief, which effected some
tolling, but not enough, as discussed below. Myers argues, first,
that a civil suit he filed was such an essential part of his quest
for post-conviction relief that, legally or equitably, additional
tolling should apply for that proceeding. Second, he argues that
equitable tolling should apply to a period following the denial of
2
Under AEDPA, “A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an
application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody
pursuant to the judgment of a State court.” 28 U.S.C. §
2244(d)(1).
3
The denial of 1appellate relief and certiorari following
Petitioner’s conviction for second degree murder is reported in
State v. Myers, 584 So. 2d 242 (La. App. 5th Cir. 1991), writ
denied, 588 So. 2d 105 (La. 1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 912, 112
S. Ct. 1945, 118 L. Ed. 2d 550 (1992).
2
relief in his third state application for post-conviction relief,
because neither he nor his counsel was notified that a decision had
been rendered. As explained below, we hold that the period during
Petitioner’s civil action did not toll the federal limitations
period, and that the second period fell after the limitations
period had already expired.
II. Tolling for the Civil Suit
We review de novo the denial of federal habeas corpus relief
on procedural grounds. Moore v. Cain, 298 F.3d 361, 364 (5th Cir.
2002). We review denial of equitable tolling for abuse of
discretion. Fisher v. Johnson, 174 F.3d 710, 713 (5th Cir. 1999),
cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1164, 121 S. Ct. 1124, 148 L. Ed. 2d 991
(2001).
Myers first asks us to toll a period of time spent pursuing a
civil action. The civil suit was related conceptually to his
efforts to obtain post-conviction relief, in that his first and
second state applications for post-conviction relief were based in
part on newly discovered evidence as a result of a book about the
homicide written by Joseph Bosco; the civil action sought to revoke
Bosco’s journalistic privilege against divulging his sources.
The case was not related procedurally, however. In
Petitioner’s first application for post-conviction relief, the
state court denied relief in part because Bosco refused to name his
sources. In the second application Myers included an affidavit
that the affiant had information from Bosco about prosecutorial and
3
judicial misconduct in Petitioner’s case. Myers argued that in
revealing information to his affiant, Bosco waived any privilege.
The state court denied relief, holding that the affidavit was not
competent, and further suggesting that revocation of privilege may
be obtained via a state court action. It was then that Myers filed
his civil action against Bosco seeking to revoke Bosco’s claim of
privilege.
Myers asks that we toll, equitably or legally, for his pursuit
of the civil action the period from November 4, 1997, to May 7,
1998. That time frame implies that the civil action was a
continuation of the post-conviction relief process, since those are
the dates, respectively, of the denial of relief on the second
application and of the filing of the third state application for
post-conviction relief. The actual dates of pendency of the civil
action were from December 10, 1997, the date it was filed, to
March 25, 1998, the date of judgment by default against Bosco.
Myers argues that the civil suit was an essential component of
the post-conviction relief “effectively demanded” by the state
district court. The state court’s remarks about waiver of
journalistic privilege were a suggestion and used permissive, not
injunctive, language.4 Nothing in the order supports the notion
4
The court stated,
While the affidavit is insufficient for an evidentiary
hearing, defendant Myers may file an action seeking to revoke
the reporter's privilege in Orleans parish. If his action is
successful in Orleans parish, then the evidence thereby
procured may be used as the basis for another post conviction
4
that this civil action was mandated by the judge or that it was
part of the ongoing state habeas petition. The judge indicated
that Myers “may” file the action, and that any evidence procured
“may” be used in “another” post-conviction proceeding.
A civil suit to obtain evidence needed for a state habeas
petition is not a collateral attack on a conviction which would
toll the statute of limitations. See Moore, 298 F.3d at 367
(holding that a mandamus application did not toll the one-year
period because it did not seek review of the judgment pursuant to
which the petitioner was incarcerated); see also Flanagan, 154 F.3d
at 198-199 (no statutory tolling while a petitioner gathers
evidence to support his petition when the factual predicate for
claim that the evidence supported was known to the petitioner at an
earlier date). We find no basis under § 2244(d)(2) to toll the
time the civil suit was pending as a continuation of the post-
conviction relief or as collateral review of the judgment of
conviction. Petitioner’s second state petition ceased to be
pending when relief was denied, and the one-year limitation did not
continue to be tolled for Petitioner’s civil suit to revoke the
reporter’s privilege.
Nor do we find grounds for equitable tolling during the same
time period. We have considered United States v. Patterson, 211
F.3d 927 (5th Cir. 2000), which allowed equitable tolling, and find
relief application in this court.
1 R. 268-69.
5
it distinguishable. First, Patterson was a pro se litigant who was
misled by the district court’s statement upon dismissal that he
could refile. Myers was represented by counsel who should have
realized that, with a dismissal of his second petition,
Petitioner’s one-year would continue to run while he was pursuing
the civil suit. Alternatively, counsel could have appealed in his
post-conviction proceedings while pursuing the civil suit in order
to continue tolling the one-year period. A further distinction is
the diligence of petitioner: while Patterson diligently pursued
his claims, the same cannot be said of Myers. Myers knew about his
claim of new evidence when he filed his first habeas petition in
1994, and received information after his first state application
was denied (November 1995) that Bosco had divulged information to
petitioner’s affiant and thereby waived his privilege. Yet Myers
did not pursue an action to revoke privilege until December 1997.
The doctrine of equitable tolling applies in “extraordinary
circumstances.” Fisher, 174 F.3d at 713. Gathering evidence to
support a state habeas claim is not an exceptional circumstance
worthy of equitable tolling, particularly where the claim was not
diligently pursued. Equitable tolling for such a reason would
“characterize as ‘rare and exceptional’ those circumstances that
countless other prisoners could claim as their own.” Felder v.
Johnson, 204 F.3d 168, 173 (5th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S.
1035 , 121 S. Ct. 622 , 148 L. Ed. 2d 532 (2000). Equity is for
6
those who diligently pursue their rights. See id. at 176; Coleman
v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 398, 403 (5th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 529
U.S. 1057, 120 S. Ct. 1564, 146 L. Ed. 2d 467 (2000). Therefore,
we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s refusal to
equitably toll the one-year limitation.
III. The Period of No Notice
Myers next claims that he received no notice of the court's
denial of the third state application for relief until August 23,
1999. Thus he contends that the time from January 25, 1999, the
denial of the third state court application, to August 23, 1999,
when his counsel first got word of that denial, should be equitably
tolled.
Any time Myers was unaware of the ruling on his third state
petition does not affect our decision, because Petitioner’s federal
petition is untimely regardless. As the magistrate judge
calculated in his Report and Recommendation, 204 days of
Petitioner’s one-year limit expired between AEDPA’s effective date
(April 24, 1996) and the date Myers filed his second state petition
(November 15, 1996).5 Since the time Myers spent pursuing his
civil suit did not toll the limitation period, Myers had only 161
days left after denial of his second petition (November 4, 1997).
Thus his one-year period ran out before he filed his third state
5
The first state application for post-conviction relief was
filed and concluded in 1995, before the effective date of AEDPA,
and so does not affect the limitation period.
7
petition (May 7, 1998) and well before he filed this federal habeas
petition (July 27, 2000, at the earliest).
The district court’s conclusion that this petition was time
barred by the one-year limitation period of AEDPA is well founded.
IV. Conclusion
There being inadequate grounds shown to toll the one-year
limitation period in this case, we find no error in the district
court’s dismissal of the petition as untimely under AEDPA.
AFFIRMED.
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