REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:
Taniko Smith was convicted of first degree murder, attempted murder, two counts of robbery, and attempted robbery in a Nevada superior court on March 28, 1997. Following the conclusion of direct appeal, he filed a series of state and federal habeas petitions between 1999 and 2006, all of which were denied.
The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the state trial court in 2009, concluding that Smith's petition was untimely and that Smith had not shown good cause to excuse the procedural defect. It remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to reinstate Smith's murder and attempted murder convictions and sentences by entering a Second Amended Judgment of
On May 22, 2012, Smith filed pro se a federal habeas petition challenging his conviction and sentence under the Second Amended Judgment. The district court dismissed the petition as untimely, reasoning that the statute of limitations ran from the time of Smith's initial conviction in 1997 because the amended judgment created no new issues for petitioner to appeal. In part, the district court relied on United States v. Colvin, 204 F.3d 1221, 1225 (9th Cir. 2000), which held that an amended federal judgment of conviction doesn't become final for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f) until the time for appealing the amended judgment has passed but limited its holding to cases in which the trial court "either partially or wholly reverse[s] a defendant's conviction or sentence, or both, and expressly remand[s] to the district court," stating that it need not reach a conclusion for cases that did not present the same procedural history. Colvin, 204 F.3d at 1225. The district court assumed that Colvin's limited holding would apply to an amended state court judgment of conviction, which is controlled by 28 U.S.C. § 2241(d)(1)(A), and determined that the statute of limitations had never restarted because Smith's case was never reversed and expressly remanded to the state trial court. This assumption is incorrect for the reasons we will explain in this opinion.
We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a habeas petition as untimely under AEDPA. Stancle v. Clay, 692 F.3d 948, 952-53 (9th Cir. 2012).
Under AEDPA, prisoners "in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court" have a one-year statutory period to file a federal application for writ of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). This period generally runs, as it does in this case, from "the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review." Id. § 2244(d)(1)(A).
Statutory interpretation "begins with the plain language of the statute." Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 118, 129 S.Ct. 681, 172 L.Ed.2d 475 (2009).
Habeas relief for prisoners convicted under state law is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, but the procedural rules governing § 2254 petitions are contained in 28 U.S.C. § 2244. The text of § 2244 establishes that the one-year statute-oflimitations period for state prisoners runs from the date on which the judgment pursuant to which the prisoner is being held became final. The statute, by its terms, applies to "a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court" and states that the statute of limitations runs from "the date on which the judgment" became final. Id. § 2244(d)(1) (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court reached this same conclusion when determining how to decide whether a petition challenging a prisoner's state conviction is second or successive under AEDPA in Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 332-33, 130 S.Ct. 2788, 177 L.Ed.2d 592 (2010). There, the Court held that when a defendant is resentenced, he has received a new judgment that renders a new, numerically second petition "not `second or successive'" because it is the first petition challenging the new judgment. Id. at 341-42, 130 S.Ct. 2788. The Court concluded that the only relevant judgment for a habeas application is the one pursuant to which a prisoner may be incarcerated: "A § 2254 petitioner ... `seeks invalidation (in whole or in part) of the judgment authorizing the prisoner's confinement.'" Id. at 332, 130 S.Ct. 2788 (quoting Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 83, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253 (2005)); see also id. ("The reference to a state-court judgment in § 2254(b) is significant because the term `application' cannot be defined in a vacuum."). Thus, whenever there is a new judgment by the state court, the procedural limitation on second or successive habeas petitions under AEDPA applies anew. As the Supreme Court held in Magwood, "[W]here ... there is a `new judgment intervening between the two habeas petitions,' an application challenging the resulting new judgment is not `second or successive' at all." Id. at 341-42, 130 S.Ct. 2788 (citation omitted).
Magwood compels the conclusion that the judgment from which the AEDPA statute of limitations runs is the one pursuant to which the petitioner is incarcerated. Magwood's analysis relied on the language of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1), in which Congress explicitly refers to "[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." See 561 U.S. at 333, 130 S.Ct. 2788 ("The requirement of custody pursuant to a state-court judgment distinguishes § 2254 from other provisions authorizing relief from constitutional violations...."). The section of AEDPA establishing the statute of limitations for prisoners convicted of a violation of state law uses identical statutory language to indicate that the relevant judgment is the one pursuant to which the petitioner is incarcerated. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1) ("A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court."). It is well-established that "[a] term appearing in several places in a statutory text is generally read the same way each time it appears." Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 143, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994).
The state's argument that the statute of limitations runs from the original judgment rather than the new judgment is not only contrary to the language of
Accordingly, it is clear that Smith's federal petition was timely filed. After March 14, 2012, Smith was in custody pursuant to the Second Amended Judgment entered by the state trial court. The Nevada trial court appears to have clearly understood that such was the judgment that controlled his incarceration, as it titled its order a "Second Amended Judgment."
It is of no moment that the Second Amended Judgment reinstated counts on which Smith had originally been convicted rather than adding new counts of conviction. In Wentzell, the court considered an amended judgment that had dismissed one of the counts of the judgment of conviction while leaving the other two counts untouched. 674 F.3d at 1125. Like the Second Amended Judgment here, the amended judgment in Wentzell did not add anything to the judgment that would give rise to a new claim by the petitioner. See id. at 1127. Nevertheless, we held that a new intervening judgment occurred because "a new, amended judgment was entered by the state trial court." Id. So too here: the state trial court entered an amended judgment. This was a new judgment, starting a new one-year statute of limitations.
United States v. Colvin, 204 F.3d 1221 (9th Cir. 2000), relied on primarily by the state, is irrelevant to this case for two reasons. First, its holding has no application to habeas petitions brought by state prisoners. Colvin concerned 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f) — the portion of AEDPA concerning the statute of limitations for federal prisoners — and was about determining Congress's intent regarding an ambiguous portion of the statute: "when the `judgment of conviction becomes final' for purposes of the statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. § 2255." 204 F.3d at 1222.
Second, the opinion in Colvin in no way stands for the proposition it is cited for by the state that only cases that are reversed in part and expressly remanded begin a new statute-of-limitations period. To the
Because we conclude that the Second Amended Judgment started a new one-year statute of limitations, Smith's petition in May 2012 was timely. We therefore have no occasion to decide whether Smith could overcome the time bar by proving actual innocence. There is no procedural hurdle to Smith's making his Sharma claim on the merits. If the district court rejects that claim on the merits, Smith will then have the opportunity to appeal that decision.
The district court's dismissal of the petition for habeas corpus as untimely is REVERSED, and the case is REMANDED to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Id. (emphasis added).
Id. at 1225 (emphasis added).