TAYLOR
v.
SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS (HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY)

M.D. Fla. | 2023-02-17
No. 8:12-cv-1169
District Court, M.D. Florida (2023)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court denied the application for a Certificate of Appealability because the petitioner failed to make a substantial showing that reasonable jurists would find debatable the court's determination that the habeas petition was untimely and not entitled to equitable tolling.


Facts & Procedural History

Petitioner, a state prisoner, sought a writ of habeas corpus challenging his murder conviction and death sentence. The district court dismissed the pe…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court

Alternatively, Taylor asserts entitlement to equitable tolling because there was a period of time when the limitation was running before he filed a state post-conviction motion and he had no appointed counsel. Citing , 566 U.S.1 (2012),

Taylor apparently believes that his not having an attorney excuses his allowing the federal limitation to expire. Taylor misinterprets , which holds that “[i]nadequate assistance of counsel at initial-review collateral proceedings may establish cause for a prisoner’s procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance at trial.” 566 U.S. at 9. created a narrow exception, inapplicable to Taylor. “What the decision did—and the only thing it did—was create a narrow, equitable exception to the general rule that a petitioner cannot rely on the ineffectiveness of collateral counsel to serve as cause for excusing the procedural default of a claim in state court, thereby permitting federal habeas review of the merits of that claim.” Chavez v. Secy, Dep't of Corr., 742 F. 3d 940, 945 (11th Cir. 2014) (citing Martinez, 132 $8. Ct. at 1315-20). Taylor conflates two separate equitable principles. Holland's application of equity applies to the tolling of time for a federal application that is filed untimely whereas Martinez’s application of equity applies to permit the review of the merits of a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel that was procedurally defaulted in the state courts. Matinez is inapplicable to a timeliness obstacle. See Arthur v. Thomas, 739 F. 3d 611, 630 (11th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he Martinez rule explicitly relates to excusing a procedural default of ineffective-trial-counsel claims and does not apply to AEDPA’s statute of limitations or the tolling of that period.”). Consequently, Taylor fails to show any basis for reasonable jurists to disagree regarding the denial of equitable tolling. Accordingly, Taylor’s “Application for Certificate of Appealability” (Doc. 93) is

DENIED.

ORDERED in Tampa, Florida, on February 17, 2023.

athryn’Kimball Mizelle United States District Judge

Footnotes
1 Although not binding, is persuasive on this point. 11th Cir. R. 36-2 (“Unpublished opinions are not considered binding precedent, but they may be cited as persuasive authority.”). Second, Taylor fails to show that jurists could disagree with this Court’s determination that he is not entitled to equitable tolling. Taylor recognizes that, as discussed in the earlier order, ordinary negligence fails to qualify for equitable tolling. (Docs. 91 at 9–10 and 93 at 8–9.) Taylor contends that his attorney’s miscalculation of the limitation deadline was not ordinary negligence but “a profound mistake of law.” (Doc. 93 at 9.) As discussed in the earlier order, Taylor’s contention is foreclosed by , 560 U.S. 631, 651–52 (2010) (explaining that a “garden variety claim of excusable neglect, such as a simple miscalculation that leads a lawyer to miss a filing deadline, does not warrant equitable tolling”) (internal citations omitted). Taylor identifies no egregious attorney misconduct, such as the attorney’s lying and abandonment that occurred in .

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw