Bryant v. Ford, No. 18-12264 (11th Cir. 2020)
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The Eleventh Circuit held that Paez v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 947 F.3d 649, 652–53 (11th Cir. 2020), is not controlling in this case and vacated the district court's dismissal of the petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. In Paez, the court held that the district court acted within its discretion when it sua sponte dismissed a habeas petition as untimely.
In this case, the district court, unlike in Paez, dismissed the petition based on a date that was neither in the record, nor provided by petitioner, nor expressly judicially noticed—a date that, even if properly judicially noticed, was the wrong one for purposes of calculating the timeliness of the petition. Therefore, the court held that the district court abused its discretion in sua sponte dismissing the habeas petition as untimely. The court remanded for the district court to determine the correct remittitur date and proceed accordingly.
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