Harjo v. Tinsley

Summary

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma dismissed Richard Harjo’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition challenging his juvenile life-without-parole sentence as barred by the AEDPA statute of limitations. The court rejected Harjo’s relation-back, equitable-tolling, and actual-innocence arguments and held that the petition was untimely under both 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A) and (C). The court granted the respondent’s motion to dismiss, denied a certificate of appealability, and ordered a separate judgment of dismissal.

Holdings

1. Authorization by the Tenth Circuit to file a successive habeas petition did not alter the separate AEDPA timeliness inquiry, and Harjo's new Miller-based claim did not relate back to his 1999 petition for limitations purposes.
2. The petition was untimely under § 2244(d)(1)(A) because Harjo's judgment became final in February 1999, the one-year limitations period expired in February 2000, and his later federal and state post-conviction filings did not restart or toll an already expired limitations period.
3. The petition was untimely even under § 2244(d)(1)(C), because the limitations period began when Miller was decided, not when Montgomery later made Miller retroactive, and the period expired in November 2013 after statutory tolling.
4. Equitable tolling was unavailable because Harjo did not show that extraordinary circumstances prevented timely filing or that he diligently pursued his claims.
5. Harjo did not establish actual innocence sufficient to invoke the gateway exception to the AEDPA limitations bar.
6. No certificate of appealability should issue because reasonable jurists would not debate dismissal on statute-of-limitations grounds.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Harjo's authorized successive § 2254 petition was timely under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A).
2. Whether the Supreme Court's recognition and retroactive application of Miller made the petition timely under § 2244(d)(1)(C).
3. Whether Harjo's claim could relate back to his timely 1999 federal habeas petition.
4. Whether equitable tolling applied.
5. Whether Harjo established actual innocence sufficient to overcome the statute of limitations.
6. Whether a certificate of appealability should issue.

Disposition

dismissed