Coulter v. Kelley, No. 16-1488 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254 as time-barred. The court held that the state did not knowingly and intelligently waive its statute-of-limitations defense; the district court properly analyzed the state's motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) in analyzing whether to address the state's statute-of-limitations defense; the court rejected petitioner's claim that the district court incorrectly applied 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1)(A) as the trigger for his one-year limitations period; petitioner was not entitled to tolling under section 2244(d)(1)(B); the district court did not fail to toll the statute of limitations for any time during which petitioner's application was "pending" and thus his habeas petition was not timely filed under section 2244; and, whether or not the court applied the stop-clock approach, petitioner was not eligible for equitable tolling.
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Gruender and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Prisoner case - Habeas - Death Penalty. The district court did not err in dismissing Coulter's section 2254 petition as untimely as it was not filed within one year of the issuance of the Arkansas Supreme Court's mandate affirming denial of Coulter's post-conviction relief petition; the district court did not abuse its discretion by considering the statute-of-limitations defense as Coulter has failed to establish that the State waived the defense; the court did not abuse its discretion by permitting the State, under Rule 15(a)(2), to amend its response to include the defense; Coulter was not entitled to equitable tolling under Section 2244(d)(1)(B) based on the state court clerk's failure to send his counsel a copy of the judgment in his post-conviction proceeding; the district court correctly calculated all tolled time and the filing deadline for the habeas petition, and did not err in determining it was untimely; the district court did not err in determining Coulter had failed to diligently pursue the filing of this habeas and was not, therefore, entitled to equitable tolling of the statute of limitations. Judge Kelly, dissenting.
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