Roman v. Vaughn, 10th Cir. (2011)
Roman v. Vaughn, 10th Cir. (2011)
Roman v. Vaughn, 10th Cir. (2011)
v.
MARVIN VAUGHN, Warden
Respondent-Appellee.
In federal district court and before us, Mr. San Roman has been
represented in the instant habeas proceeding by counsel.
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offense. Following the hearing, the state court judge modified Mr. San Romans
sentence from fifteen years imprisonment to ten years imprisonment to be
followed by five years probation. On March 16, 2010, Mr. San Roman filed an
application for post-conviction relief in state court seeking to appeal his
revocation out of time. The state district court denied his application, and the
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) affirmed that denial on August
3, 2010.
On October 28, 2010, Mr. San Roman filed the instant federal habeas
petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254 alleging, inter alia, claims of ineffective
assistance of counsel, denial of his right to due process, and factual innocence.
His petition was referred to a magistrate judge, who issued a Report and
Recommendation, in which she recommended that the petition be dismissed as
time-barred pursuant to the one-year statute of limitations of the Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d). 2 On February
As the magistrate judge observed, Mr. San Roman did not file a
notice of appeal within ten days of the state district courts pronouncement
revoking his suspended sentence as is required under Oklahoma law. Aplt. App.
at 92 (Report and Recommendation, filed Jan. 26, 2011); see Okla. Stat. tit. 22,
ch. 18, app., Rule 2.5 (Within ten (10) days from the date the Judgment and
Sentence is imposed in open court or an order grants an appeal out of time, the
defendant must file with the trial court clerk a notice of intent to appeal . . . .).
Accordingly, the revocation of Mr. San Romans suspended sentence became final
ten days after the district courts decision on October 30, 2007that is, on
November 9, 2007. Mr. San Roman thus had one year from that dateuntil
November 9, 2008to file a timely habeas petition. See 28 U.S.C.
(continued...)
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17, 2011, the district court adopted the magistrate judges recommendation and
dismissed Mr. San Romans habeas action as time-barred. Mr. San Roman then
filed a motion for reconsideration, alleging that he had never received a copy of
the magistrate judges Report and Recommendation and wished to file an
objection. The district court granted his motion, and Mr. San Roman filed an
objection. On April 6, 2011, having considered both the magistrate judges
recommendation and Mr. San Romans objection, the district court issued another
order adopting the recommendation and dismissing Mr. San Romans habeas
petition as untimely. Mr. San Roman now seeks a COA from this court to appeal
the district courts dismissal of his 2254 petition.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A COA is a jurisdictional prerequisite to this courts review of a habeas
application. 28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(1)(A); accord Williams v. Jones, 571 F.3d 1086,
1088 (10th Cir. 2009). Accordingly, [w]e will issue a COA only if the
applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.
Allen v. Zavaras, 568 F.3d 1197, 1199 (10th Cir. 2009) (quoting 28 U.S.C.
2253(c)(2)). This means that the applicant must show that reasonable jurists
(...continued)
2254(d)(1)(A). Therefore, his petition, filed October 28, 2010, fell well beyond
this one-year period, and statutory tolling was not available in the interim because
his March 16, 2010, application for state post-conviction relief was also outside
the one-year window. See, e.g., Fisher v. Gibson, 262 F.3d 1135, 114243 (10th
Cir. 2001).
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could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have
been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to
deserve encouragement to proceed further. United States v. Taylor, 454 F.3d
1075, 1078 (10th Cir. 2006) (quoting Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484
(2000)).
In other words, the applicant must show that the district courts resolution
of the constitutional claim was either debatable or wrong. Id. (quoting Slack,
529 U.S. at 484). Furthermore, when the district court denies relief on
procedural grounds, the applicant faces a double hurdle. Not only must the
applicant make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, but he
must also show that jurists of reason would find it debatable . . . whether the
district court was correct in its procedural ruling. Coppage v. McKune, 534
F.3d 1279, 1281 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting Slack, 529 U.S. at 484). In
determining whether to grant a COA, this court conducts an overview of the
claims in the habeas petition and a general assessment of their merits. United
States v. Silva, 430 F.3d 1096, 1100 (10th Cir. 2005) (quoting Miller-El v.
Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
However, [t]his threshold inquiry does not require full consideration of the
factual or legal bases adduced in support of th[ose] claims. Miller-El, 537 U.S.
at 336.
DISCUSSION
In his opening brief in support of his request for a COA, 3 Mr. San Roman
concedes that his federal habeas petition was untimely. However, he argues that
the district court was obligated to equitably toll AEDPAs one-year limitations
period and consider his otherwise untimely petition because he is actually
innocent of the charges that led to the revocation of his suspended sentence. We
are not persuaded. We conclude that no reasonable jurist could debate the
correctness of the district courts determination that Mr. San Romans habeas
action is time-barred.
As the Supreme Court recently underscored, AEDPAs one-year statute of
limitations is subject to equitable tolling. See Holland v. Florida, 130 S. Ct.
2549, 2560, 2562 (2010). However, equitable tolling is warranted only in rare
and exceptional circumstances. Gibson v. Klinger, 232 F.3d 799, 808 (10th Cir.
2000) (quoting Davis v. Johnson, 158 F.3d 806, 811 (5th Cir. 1998)) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Generally, courts will consider the merits of an
otherwise untimely habeas petition only where the petitioner show[s] specific
facts, demonstrating (1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2)
that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way. Yang v. Archuleta, 525
Mr. San Roman has not formally filed an application for a COA.
However, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 22(b)(2), we treat Mr.
San Romans notice of appeal as a request for a COA.
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F.3d 925, 928 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting Lawrence v. Florida, 549 U.S. 327, 336
(2007)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Marsh v. Soares, 223 F.3d
1217, 1220 (10th Cir. 2000) (observing that equitable tolling is only available
when an inmate diligently pursues his claims and demonstrates that the failure to
timely file was caused by extraordinary circumstances beyond his control).
Where a petitioner does present the truly exceptional case in which he is
actually innocent, federal courts allow for an exception to [the] procedural
barriers for bringing constitutional claims, regardless of whether the petitioner
demonstrated cause for the failure to bring these claims forward earlier. Lopez
v. Trani, 628 F.3d 1228, 123031 (10th Cir. 2010). In other words, when a
habeas petitioner is seeking equitable tolling on actual innocence grounds, he
need not demonstrate that he diligently pursued his actual innocence claim. Id.
at 1231. But he must articulate a colorable claim of factual innocence; that is,
he must present new reliable evidencewhether it be exculpatory scientific
evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidencethat
was not presented at trial. Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 322, 324 (1995); see
also, e.g., Cramer v. Utah, No. 11-4036, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 15648, at *7
(10th Cir. July 29, 2011) (Although actual innocence can overcome procedural
default, the district court correctly observed that actual innocence must be shown
by newly available evidence and that [petitioners] showing is wholly
inadequate. (citation omitted)); Weibley v. Kaiser, 50 F. Appx 399, 403 (10th
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to him, was presented at the time of the actual revocation hearing.). Thus, the
testimony of the two men does not constitute new evidence that can support an
actual innocence claim. 4
Third and finally, Mr. San Roman contends that he is entitled to equitable
tolling because the state district court judge relied upon hearsay evidence at his
revocation hearing, in violation of his rights under the Confrontation Clause. 5
4
We also note that, even if Mr. San Roman had filed a timely 2254
habeas petition, AEDPA mandates that we presume a state courts findings to be
correct unless a petitioner can refute them by clear and convincing evidence. See
28 U.S.C. 2254(e)(1). As the magistrate judge noted, the state district court
judge concluded that the State had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that
Mr. San Roman had violated the terms of his probation. Aplt. App. at 97.
Moreover, the state judge explicitly noted that she found the recantation of Mr.
Botello to be unreliable, as he was a member of a rival gang who recanted
[his] prior testimony inculpating [Mr. San Roman] only after receiving
threatening recorded phone calls from the jail. Id. As Mr. San Roman offers
absolutely no evidence suggesting that these findings are erroneouslet alone
clearly erroneousthe state courts determination must stand.
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Mr. San Roman relies upon Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471
(1972), to support his argument that the state courts admission of hearsay
evidence at his revocation hearing was improper, at least without the court
making specific findings providing the good cause for denying him confrontation
of the witnesses at issue. Mr. San Roman, however, raised this Morrissey-based
argument for the first time in his objection to the magistrate judges Report and
Recommendation. See Aplt. App. at 115 (Objection to Report and
Recommendation, filed Mar. 21, 2011). Not surprisingly, then, the magistrate
judge did not discuss Morrissey or such an argument in its Report and
Recommendation. Under these circumstances, including the fact that Mr. San
Roman was represented by counsel in his proceedings before the district court,
see supra note 1, we decline to consider this Morrissey-based argument now.
See, e.g., United States v. Garfinkle, 261 F.3d 1030, 1031 (10th Cir. 2001) (In
this circuit, theories raised for the first time in objections to the magistrate
judges report are deemed waived.); Marshall v. Chater, 75 F.3d 1421, 1426
(continued...)
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Aplt. Br. at 17, 22. However, Mr. San Roman makes no attempt to explain how
his general hearsay argument has any bearing upon his factual innocence.
Moreover, this argument is at odds with the approach that Mr. San Roman himself
took before the state court in the revocation hearing; there, he urged the court to
credit the exculpatory out-of-court statements in Mr. Bloss affidavit. More
fundamentally, in the absence of any persuasive arguments by Mr. San Roman as
to how the allegedly impermissible admission of hearsay evidence could possibly
excuse his untimely filing or demonstrate his factual innocence, we reject Mr. San
Romans final argument.
Thus, in sum, Mr. San Roman presents no evidence of extraordinary
circumstances that prevented him from filing his habeas petition in a timely
manner, see Yang, 525 F.3d at 928, nor does he offer new and reliable evidence
demonstrating that he is factually innocent, see Schlup, 513 U.S. at 322, 324.
Accordingly, reasonable jurists could not debate that equitable tolling of
AEDPAs one-year limitations period was not warranted, and that the district
court properly dismissed Mr. San Romans petition as untimely.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we DENY Mr. San Romans application for a
(...continued)
(10th Cir. 1996) (Issues raised for the first time in objections to the magistrate
judges recommendation are deemed waived.).
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Jerome A. Holmes
Circuit Judge
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