Martin v. Fayram, No. 15-3523 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CasePetitioner was convicted in Iowa state court of first degree murder. After the district court dismissed his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition as untimely, the court granted a certificate of appealability on whether his petition was timely filed and, if not, whether he was entitled to equitable tolling. The court agreed with the district court that the petition was untimely filed where he filed the petition on August 22, 2014, 28 days after the Iowa Supreme Court's decision and 6 days after the one year limitations period had expired; petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling because he failed to establish that extraordinary circumstances prevented him from timely filing his habeas petition; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner's request to appoint independent counsel to advise him on whether to waive any arguments based on his counsel's conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Murphy, Author, with Loken and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Prisoner case - Habeas. Martin's conviction was the relevant judgment under 28 U.S.C. Sec.2244(d)(1)(A) and that conviction became final for determining the relevant AEDPA filing period at the conclusion of his direct appeal; all of the vital facts underlying Martin's claims were known to him before the conclusion of his direct appeal, and an argument that the factual predicate for his ineffective assistance of counsel claims arose during the state post-conviction proceedings, thereby triggering AEDPA's limitation period is rejected; this habeas was, therefore, untimely, and there were no extraordinary circumstances justifying equitably tolling the filing period; the district court did not err by requiring Martin to waive any claims against his counsel without providing independent counsel as any argument for tolling based on counsel's pre-filing conduct would have been close to frivolous. Judge Kelly, dissenting.
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