Dodd, Michael Donald v. U.S. (06/20/2005)

Questions presented: Does the one-year limitations period in 28 U.S.C. " 2255 ¶ 6(3) begin to run (i) when either the Supreme Court or the controlling circuit court has held that the relevant right applies retroactively to cases on collateral review (as the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 9th circuits hold), or instead (ii) when the Court recognizes a new right, whether or not it is made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review (as the 5th and 11th circuits hold, and the 2nd and 8th circuits have stated in dicta)?

BY KATE BARRETT, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

At the heart of a heated battle over 34 words in a federal law, prisoner Michael Dodd is waiting to find out what one sentence might mean for his freedom.

Dodd's legal entanglement began on June 25, 1993, when a federal grand jury in Florida said Dodd had knowingly committed several crimes. As a leader in a drug ring called the Spangler Posse, Dodd was accused of intending to distribute cocaine and marijuana, as well as using a passport he illegally obtained.

A jury found him guilty on July 28, 1995. Dodd was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and five years of supervised release. In May 1997, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

Two years later, however, outside events transpired that would later prove extremely influential in Dodd's case. On June 1, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Richardson v. U.S., holding that a jury must find a defendant guilty on each count separately and unanimously in order to convict. The jury in Dodd's case had not done so.

People who find themselves in fluctuating circumstances like Dodd's are given a second chance, according to federal law. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, they have a one-year statute of limitations period within which they can file a motion for their case to be reconsidered.

Specifically -- in a contentious 34-word phrase – the law says the one-year clock starts running from "the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review."

"The fundamental question is, ‘What do those 34 words mean?'" said Dodd's attorney Janice Bergman. "That's basically what it comes down to."

Indeed, the questions surrounding Dodd's case focus on the timeliness of his appeal. The sticking point stems from the fact that rather than requesting his case be reconsidered in the immediate wake of the Richardson ruling, Dodd waited.

On Oct. 25, 1999, Dodd was taken from the federal correctional center in Talladega, Alabama, to a detention center in Miami. His legal papers did not travel with him, and Dodd did not try to access those papers while he was away.

Dodd claimed he spent ample time trying to get ahold of the papers when he returned to Alabama in September 2000. But he said the government would not give him the needed legal information until he filed a Freedom of Information request.

Without ready access to his legal papers, Dodd claimed he was unable to file his motion any faster than he did.

On April 4, 2001, Dodd finally filed his petition with a federal magistrate, asking that his case be reconsidered. In doing so, Dodd's case began to work its way back up through the legal system a second time.

Despite Dodd's claim that his conviction violated the 6th Amendment and the Due Process Clause because the district court never informed the jury of its responsibilities, on Oct. 18, 2001, the magistrate recommended Dodd's petition be dismissed.

The magistrate said Dodd's petition was too late because it was not filed within the allotted one-year time frame, and said Dodd could have tried harder to access his papers while he was in Miami.

The district court adopted the magistrate's recommendation and dismissed Dodd's petition on Oct. 31, 2001.

A unanimous 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel did the same on April 16, 2004, calling Dodd's motion time-barred. Like the lower court, the appeals court said the events of Dodd's transfer were not extreme enough to warrant an exception and stop the clock.

"Dodd failed to demonstrate that the circumstances surrounding his late filing were extraordinary or could not have been overcome with due diligence," Judge Stanley Marcus explained in his opinion for the panel.

He added, "In doing so, we join those circuits which have concluded that the limitations period… is triggered on the date the Supreme Court initially recognizes a new right."

Nonetheless, the Circuit opinion acknowledged conflicting interpretations of the statute of limitations. The judges wrote that the day the clock begins to run is not set in stone nationwide.

The date has "generated a split among our sister Circuits," the opinion said

Indeed, interpretation of the statute of limitations varies throughout the country.

The 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 9th circuits hold that the one-year time window opens when the court applies the law retroactively, thereby affirming Bergman's argument on behalf of Dodd.

The 5th and 11th circuits hold (and the 2nd and 8th circuits imply) that the start date comes earlier, when the court initially recognizes a new right.

The 11th Circuit judges worried that a lack of uniformity would continue to plague the nation's legal system if they ruled in the other direction. The one-year time period would start on different dates depending on which circuit the case was decided in.

Interpretations vary precisely because of the 34-word language of the law. Not only does the law fail to adequately explain when the clock starts to tick, it also fails to determine who is allowed to make that decision.

The lack of clarification consequently left the 11th Circuit guessing what Congress may have meant when it wrote the law.

"It would not be logical for Congress to have enacted a strict one-year time limitation and then qualified that time frame by reference to ambiguous events," Judge Marcus concluded. "There is no other reason to believe that Congress intended this unequivocal phrase to mean anything other than what it says."

Nonetheless, Bergman maintains that her client filed his petition within the legal time frame.

She argues that the one-year window did not officially open until April 19, 2002, when the 11th Circuit made the Richardson decision retroactively applicable in Ross v. U.S. If that holds true, Dodd actions were well within bounds, because he would have had until April 19, 2003 to file his motion.

The 11th Circuit panel said one reason it did not to adopt this reasoning was because Dodd's petition was actually filed before the Ross case was decided. In turn, "Dodd's argument loses much of its force," the opinion explained, because Dodd did not appear to be waiting for the Ross decision to be determined.

On Nov. 29, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted review in the case and allowed Dodd to have his case heard without costs.

In oral arguments presented before the Court on March 22, 2005, justices grappled with the complexities implied in the language of the law.

"You don't know who's responsible for writing this, do you?" asked an exasperated Justice Antonin Scalia, prompting laughter from the gallery.

The Court also seemed particularly taken with figuring out who decides retroactivity. The justices explored the idea that if the highest court were the only one making that decision, uniformity would be achieved.

Bergman later acknowledged that the justices seemed very concerned with being the ones who should start the clock.

"The language is open," said Justice Stephen Breyer during oral arguments. He added, "You don't know which court you're talking about. People would be filing things all over the place. They'll be waiting. That—it's a mess."

Despite being bogged down in one sentence of the law, Justice Anthony Kennedy reminded the Court of the larger picture, bringing them back to why the statute of limitations was enacted in the first place.

"What interest does the Government have in holding somebody when the conduct for which he was convicted is no longer a crime?" Kennedy asked.

But for the meantime, Dodd's freedom remains on hold.

"We're never going to get there if the Court doesn't find his motion to be timely filed," Bergman said.

On June 20, 2005, a divided Court held 5-4 that Dodd didn't have a remedy. Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor concluded that the 1-year limitation period runs on the date the Court initially recognized the right, not on the date on which it was made retroactive.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented.