Filed: Dec. 29, 2014
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: Case: 14-10508 Date Filed: 12/29/2014 Page: 1 of 5 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 14-10508 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-02270-MHS DERRON JACKSON, Petitioner–Appellant, versus BRUCE CHATMAN, Warden, Respondent–Appellee. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia _ (December 29, 2014) Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and JORDAN, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Derron Jackson, procee
Summary: Case: 14-10508 Date Filed: 12/29/2014 Page: 1 of 5 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 14-10508 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-02270-MHS DERRON JACKSON, Petitioner–Appellant, versus BRUCE CHATMAN, Warden, Respondent–Appellee. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia _ (December 29, 2014) Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and JORDAN, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Derron Jackson, proceed..
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Case: 14-10508 Date Filed: 12/29/2014 Page: 1 of 5
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-10508
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-02270-MHS
DERRON JACKSON,
Petitioner–Appellant,
versus
BRUCE CHATMAN, Warden,
Respondent–Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(December 29, 2014)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Derron Jackson, proceeding pro se under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenges his
Georgia convictions for armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the
Case: 14-10508 Date Filed: 12/29/2014 Page: 2 of 5
commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. 1 The
district court dismissed his petition as untimely under the § 2244(d) statute of
limitations. It granted Jackson a certificate of appealability on whether he could
benefit from the equitable exception to that statute of limitations created by
McQuiggin v. Perkins, — U.S. —, 133 S. Ct. 1924 (2013). He now appeals the
dismissal of his § 2254 petition, which we review de novo. See Hepburn v. Moore,
215 F.3d 1208, 1209 (11th Cir. 2000).
Those imprisoned pursuant to a state court judgment have one year to bring
a § 2254 petition challenging that judgment. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). For Jackson,
that one-year limitations period began to run on the date that his time to seek direct
review in the Supreme Court of Georgia expired. See id. § 2244(d)(1)(A). He had
ten days after the Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed his convictions to petition
the state supreme court for direct review. See Ga. Sup. Ct. R. 38(1); Pugh v.
Smith,
465 F.3d 1295, 1299–1300 (11th Cir. 2006). The court of appeals affirmed
his convictions on June 7, 2000. The tenth day after that date was a Saturday,
extending the filing deadline to the following Monday. See Ga. Sup. Ct. R. 11. So
1
Jackson named “Mr. Tools” as the respondent in his petition. Noting that the warden of
Georgia State Prison, Bruce Chatman, was the proper respondent, see 28 U.S.C. § 2242, the
district court sua sponte ordered that Chatman be substituted as the respondent. Cf. West v.
Louisiana, 478 F.2d 1026, 1029 (5th Cir. 1973) (holding that denial of a habeas petition for
failure to name the proper respondent “would give an unreasonably narrow reading to the habeas
corpus statute”), aff’d in relevant part en banc,
510 F.2d 363, 363 (5th Cir. 1975). (In Bonner v.
City of Prichard,
661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), we adopted as binding
precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down before October 1, 1981.)
2
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Jackson’s time for seeking direct review in the Supreme Court of Georgia expired
on June 19, 2000. Jackson had until June 19, 2001, to file a § 2254 petition. He
filed the petition that is the subject of this appeal on June 26, 2013. He missed
§ 2244(d)’s deadline by over a decade. 2
Jackson asks us to ignore that fact. He argues that he should benefit from
the equitable exception to the statute of limitations. See McQuiggin 133 S. Ct. at
1931. That exception would allow Jackson’s untimely § 2254 petition to proceed
if he could show that his incarceration is a “fundamental miscarriage of justice” —
in other words, that he is actually innocent. See
id. at 1931–32. To do that,
Jackson must establish that in light of new evidence it is more likely than not that
no reasonable juror would have convicted him.
Id. at 1933, 1935 (adopting the test
established by Schlup v. Delo,
513 U.S. 298, 329,
115 S. Ct. 851, 868 (1995)). If
Jackson makes that showing, he is not necessarily entitled to habeas relief, but he
may proceed with his untimely § 2254 petition. See
id. at 1931 (“We have not
resolved whether a prisoner may be entitled to habeas relief based on a
freestanding claim of actual innocence.”).
Jackson asserts that no reasonable juror could have convicted him in the face
of two documents that were not presented at trial. Those two documents appear to
2
Jackson does not benefit from the statutory provision that tolls the limitations period while
a properly filed application for state postconviction relief is pending, because he first filed for
state postconviction relief nearly seven years after the statute of limitations had run. See 28
U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2); Johnson v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 513 F.3d 1328, 1331 (11th Cir. 2008).
3
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be a police report and three nonconsecutive pages from a transcript of a judicial
proceeding. (Neither document bears any identifying marks other than a cryptic,
handwritten numbering system). Both documents contain statements by the
cashier Jackson robbed, saying that she never saw him with a gun. According to
Jackson, those two documents satisfy his burden under McQuiggin.
Even though the jury did not see those two documents, it did hear the
cashier’s testimony, which included her statement that she had seen no gun. But
the jury also heard the testimony of another witness who said that she had seen a
gun sticking out of Jackson’s waistband during the robbery. Jackson’s two
documents do nothing to impeach that other witness’s testimony. They merely
reiterate what the jury heard: The cashier herself never saw a gun. Because a
reasonable juror could read those two documents and still convict Jackson of
armed robbery based on the other witness’ testimony, Jackson has not met his
McQuiggin burden to show that in light of new evidence it is more likely than not
that no reasonable juror would have convicted him. McQuiggin 133 S. Ct. at 1933,
1935; cf. Rozzelle v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr.,
672 F.3d 1000, 1017 (11th Cir.
2012) (“[H]is claim still fails because his ‘new’ evidence is largely cumulative of
what the jury heard, and he has not made a sufficient showing that it is more likely
than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him . . . .”) (applying
4
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Schlup, 513 U.S. at 324,
327, 115 S. Ct. at 865, 867). The district court did not err
by dismissing his untimely § 2254 petition.
AFFIRMED.
5
