PER CURIAM.
This appeal raises questions of statutory construction and of the doctrine of precedent.
Petitioner was convicted in Florida state court and was sentenced to death. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Petitioner's conviction and sentence and later denied post-conviction relief. The District Court denied habeas relief but granted a certificate of appealability on the question of the habeas petition's timeliness. We vacate the District Court's decision and remand the case.
Petitioner Michael Duane Zack, III was convicted in 1997 in Florida state court for murder, sexual battery, and robbery. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Petitioner's conviction and sentence on direct review. Zack v. State, 753 So.2d 9 (Fla. 2000). On 2 October 2000, Petitioner's conviction and sentence became final when the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari. See Zack v. Florida, 531 U.S. 858, 121 S.Ct. 143, 148 L.Ed.2d 94 (2000).
On 26 December 2001, Petitioner filed his first state post-conviction motion, asking for an extension of time for filing a motion for collateral review. On 10 May 2002, Petitioner then filed a motion in state court to vacate his conviction and sentence. Both the December and May motions came more than one year after the conviction became final. When Petitioner's collateral review process was going on in state court, the United States Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335
Petitioner next turned to the federal courts for post-conviction relief, filing this habeas petition and raising multiple claims for relief, including a claim under Atkins. The District Court dismissed all of Petitioner's non-Atkins claims as untimely and denied the Atkins claim on the merits. The District Court then granted a certificate of appealability on the timeliness issue.
Petitioner's habeas petition is subject to the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (codified in scattered sections of Title 28 of the U.S. Code) ("the AEDPA"). The AEDPA imposes a one-year statute of limitations for the filing of section 2254 petitions. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). We review de novo a district court's determination that a habeas petition is time barred. Hepburn v. Moore, 215 F.3d 1208 (11th Cir.2000).
The AEDPA statute of limitation is expressed in section 2244(d):
28 U.S.C. § 2244(d) (emphasis added).
The District Court analyzed each of Petitioner's habeas claims separately for timeliness. The District Court found that more than one year had run from the time Petitioner's conviction became final until he filed his federal habeas petition but that less than one year (taking tolling into account) had run from the Supreme Court's Atkins decision until he filed the petition. Zack v. Crosby, 607 F.Supp.2d 1291, 1295 (N.D.Fla.2008). Based on these findings, the District Court concluded that the non-Atkins claims were time barred; but the District Court concluded that the Atkins claim was timely under section 2244(d)(1)(C) because Atkins recognized a new right and was retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review.
Petitioner does not contend that he filed a motion sufficient to toll the running of the statute of limitations on his non-Atkins
In Walker v. Crosby, 341 F.3d 1240 (11th Cir.2003), this Court laid down the rule for analyzing timeliness of a petition. The Walker court addressed a habeas petition that included one claim that was timely and some other claims that—viewed in isolation—were untimely. The Walker court said this question was then before the court for decision: "whether individual claims within a single habeas petition may be reviewed separately for timeliness, in light of Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U.S. 4, 121 S.Ct. 361, 148 L.Ed.2d 213 (2000)." Walker, 341 F.3d at 1242.
The petition in Walker involved a resentencing and was determined to be timely under section 2244(d)(1)(A). But the decision of Walker, interpreting section 2244(d), reaches beyond the circumstance of a resentencing. Given the arguments made to the Walker court and the process of reasoning set out in its opinion, the Walker court decided—as a principle of law—that a single limitation period applies to a whole petition and that the limitation period for the whole petition runs one year from the latest of the triggering events established in section 2244(d)(1)(A)-(D). Id. at 1245. The rule from the Walker decision was stated in the opinion this way:
In the light of this rule, the entire petition in Walker qualified, in fact, as timely because the resentencing activated a one-year-limitation period under section 2244(d)(1)(A), given that the Walker petition included a challenge to the resentencing; but, in law, the existence of any of the other triggering events in section 2244(d)(1)(B)-(D) would have equally made the entire Walker petition timely as long as the petition included a timely claim under one of those other triggering provisions.
Given the approach taken by the Walker court, the existence of a resentencing was not, in itself, viewed as the material fact. To the Walker court, the evident material fact—that is, the legally relevant thing— was the existence of any one of the kind of triggering events listed in the pertinent limitations statute.
Walker binds us in the present case. Section 2244(d)(1) has in no way been amended since Walker was decided. No Supreme Court holding or en banc holding from this Court has superseded the Walker decision on the manner to analyze timeliness in a habeas petition.
The District Court, as a matter of law, erred in applying the statute of limitation separately to each claim in the petition and in dismissing any claim in the petition in this case on the grounds of untimeliness.
VACATED and REMANDED.
The precise bounds of most decisional rules are uncertain. But we feel obliged to follow the Walker rule. Given the way the case was argued to the Walker court, and the manner in which the Walker case was decided, we cannot accept the contention that the Walker decision here is only persuasive authority: that is, not binding authority—except for habeas applications in which one claim, at least, is tied to the circumstance of a resentencing.