Pliler, Cheryl (Warden) v. Ford, Richard Herman (06/21/2004)

Questions presented: (1) Whether the dismissal of a ""mixed"" habeas corpus petition is improper unless the district court informs the petitioner about the possibility of a stay of the proceeding pending exhaustion of state remedies and advises the petitioner with respect to the statute of limitations in the event of any refiling? (2) Whether a second, untimely habeas petition may relate back to a first habeas petition, where the first habeas petition was dismissed and the first proceeding is no longer proceeding?

BY RANDY JAMES, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

It was one of the most notorious police scandals ever to hit the Los Angeles Police Department— two veteran officers dubbed the "Killer Cops" were convicted of killing a businessman in a murder-for-hire deal, plotting to torture and murder a stripper in a life insurance scam, and robbing a Los Angeles jewelry store of more than $140,000 in diamonds. After being tried separately in 1988, Richard Ford and Robert Von Villas were found guilty of a slew of murder, robbery and assault charges stemming from the 1982-1983 crimes. They were both sentenced to life in prison.

In the years that followed, Ford filed a series of challenges to his convictions. Each appeal on the state and federal level was denied. In April 1997, Ford filed two separate petitions for a writ of habeas corpus with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Acting as his own attorney, or pro se, Ford challenged his murder and attempted murder convictions on 11 grounds, complaining of a litany of procedural errors and constitutional violations during his trials.

Under federal law, a state prisoners application for a federal writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted unless the prisoner has exhausted all remedies available in the state courts. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the "exhaustion doctrine," holding that federal petitions containing a combination of exhausted and unexhausted claims are unacceptable. A prisoner hoping to file a "mixed petition" must choose between returning to state court to exhaust the claims or amending the petition to present only exhausted claims to the federal court.

Fords habeas petitions contained both exhausted and unexhausted claims. The federal magistrate reviewing the petitions issued orders giving Ford the choice of either dismissing the petitions and re-filing once the unexhausted claims had been pursued, or amending the petitions to remove the unexhausted claims. After Ford failed to reply to the orders, the petitions were dismissed.

Shortly after the dismissals, Ford filed state habeas petitions to the California Supreme Court, which were denied. In April 1998, Ford returned to federal court and filed a second pair of habeas petitions. Those petitions were dismissed for exceeding the statute of limitations created by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which mandated that all existing federal habeas petitions be filed within one year of the Acts effective date of April 24, 1996.

Ford appealed the second set of dismissals to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In September 2002, a 9th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that the dismissals should be vacated and remanded back to district court to be considered on the merits. The court affirmed the dismissal of two claims from one of the trials that were added to the second habeas petition but not included to the first.

The 9th Circuit found that the district court committed "prejudicial error" by failing to explain in greater detail to Ford the mechanics of the time limitations applicable to habeas petitions. As a pro se defendant, Ford should have been informed that his decision to pursue his state petitions jeopardized his federal petitions due to the AEDPA time limit, the court ruled. "The district courts failure fairly or fully to explain the consequences of the options it presented to Ford deprived him of the opportunity to make a meaningful choice," wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

Because the first habeas petitions were improperly dismissed, the appeals court held that the second petitions should not have been time-barred. Instead, citing a rule of civil procedure known as the "relation back doctrine," the court assigned to the second petitions the filing date of the first petitions, within the AEDPA limit.

Dissenting sharply, Judge Barry Silverman wrote that the habeas petitions were properly dismissed, and that by offering Ford the choice to amend his mixed petitions or delete the unexhausted claims, the district court had complied precisely with Supreme Court precedent. Silverman scolded the majority for "boldly going where no court has gone before" in creating new judicial requirements seemingly out of thin air for pro se defendants.

"It is one thing to construe a pro se petitioners pleadings liberally. It is quite another thing to require the district court judge to act as petitioners legal advisor," Silverman wrote.

Silverman also asserted that in most cases a district judge would not be able to offer the advice described by the majority, since calculating a statute-of-limitations deadline requires documents and information a judge usually doesnt see.

In his petition seeking review by the U.S. Supreme Court, California Deputy Attorney General Paul Roadarmel Jr. claimed that the 9th Circuit ruling disregards 20 years of Supreme Court precedent, imposes an onerous burden on the district courts, and clashes with rulings by at least six other circuit courts of appeals.

"What the 9th Circuit did is announce two new rules of law, and then said since the district court didnt comply with the rules, which werent even in existence, its dismissal of the petitions was improper," Roadarmel said, adding that pro se petitioners should be treated like all other petitioners before the courts.

Roadarmel also claimed that the 9th Circuits interpretation of the relation back doctrine effectively nullifies AEDPAs statute of limitations, threatening to allow habeas corpus petitions to extend indefinitely and reduce district courts to "a jurisdictional parking lot."

On Jan. 9, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case for review.