Hicks v. Lamarque
Hicks v. Lamarque
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM
Arthur Lee Hicks’s conviction became final on July 10, 1996. He petitioned the Superior Court of California for a writ of habeas corpus on August 15, 1996, which was denied January 10, 1997. He filed a mixed federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus on May 21, 1997, which was denied without prejudice on July 27, 1998. He filed another petition, this time in the Cali
Hicks’s task on appeal is to turn this almost four year period into less than one. His argument is that his year did not start running until he lost the second time in the California Supreme Court on April 26, 2000, because of tolling during the pendency of state exhaustion. He is wrong, because the state exhaustion was not pending throughout most of the period.
Hicks’s superior court petition, filed on August 15,1996, claimed a right to reduction of sentence under a California three-strikes case (not the federal constitution), People v. Superior Court (Romero).
Thus Hicks did not commence exhaustion of his claims asserted in his 2000 federal petition until his 2000 filing in state court. He was not exhausting these claims between 1997, when his conviction became final, and 2000. His year under 28 U.S.C. § 2244 elapsed during that time. Because Hicks had “abandoned his first full round of review and later simply embarked on a new and different one,”
Though Hicks’s federal petition was pending from May 21,1997 to July 27, 1998, a pending federal habeas petition does not toll the statute of limitations.
AFFIRMED.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
. People v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 Cal.4th 497, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 789, 917 P.2d 628 (1996).
. Welch v. Carey, 350 F.3d 1079, 1082 (9th Cir. 2003).
. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2); Welch, 350 F.3d at 1082.
. See id.
. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 181-82, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251 (2001).
. See James v. Giles, 221 F.3d 1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 2000).
. Pliler v. Ford, 542 U.S. 225, 124 S.Ct. 2441, 2446, 159 L.Ed.2d 338 (2004).
. See Pliler, 124 S.Ct. at 2447 (declining to address whether a district court's affirmative misleading of a pro se petitioner justifies equitable tolling).
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.