ORDER OF DISMISSAL
RICHARD SEEBORG, District Judge.
INTRODUCTION
Petitioner seeks federal habeas relief from his state convictions. Respondent moves to dismiss as untimely the petition for such relief. (Docket No. 19.) Petitioner has not filed any response to the motion. For the reasons discussed herein, respondent's motion is GRANTED. The petition is DISMISSED.
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
Federal habeas petitions must be filed within one year of the latest of the date on which: (1) the judgment became final after the conclusion of direct review or the time passed for seeking direct review; (2) an impediment to filing an application created by unconstitutional state action was removed, if such action prevented petitioner from filing; (3) the constitutional right asserted was recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right was newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactive to cases on collateral review; or (4) the factual predicate of the claim could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). "[W]hen a petitioner fails to seek a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court, the AEDPA's one-year limitations period begins to run on the date the ninety-day period defined by Supreme Court Rule 13 expires." Bowen v. Roe, 188 F.3d 1157, 1159 (9th Cir. 1999).
Relief from this one year deadline is available in the form of statutory and equitable tolling. For purposes of statutory tolling, the time during which a properly filed application for state post-conviction or other collateral review is pending is excluded from the one-year limitations period. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).
A petitioner is entitled to equitable tolling "only if he shows `(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way' and prevented timely filing." Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010) (quoting Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408 (2005)); Miles v. Prunty, 187 F.3d 1104, 1107 (9th Cir. 1999) ("When external forces, rather than a petitioner's lack of diligence, account for the failure to file a timely claim, equitable tolling of the statute of limitations may be appropriate.") Equitable tolling is not granted as a matter of course. In fact, it is "unavailable in most cases." Miranda v. Castro, 292 F.3d 1063, 1066 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Miles, 187 F.3d at 1107). "[T]he threshold necessary to trigger equitable tolling [under AEDPA] is very high, lest the exceptions swallow the rule." Id. (citation omitted).
B. Timeliness of the Petition
In 2010, petitioner was convicted in state court of second degree robbery. In 2011, he was sentenced to 13 years in state prison for that conviction. (Mot. to Dismiss ("MTD"), Ex. 1 at 5.). On March 29, 2012, the state appellate court affirmed his conviction. On June 13, 2012, the state supreme court denied his petition for review. On September 11, 2012, his conviction became final because the 90 days in which he could have filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court had passed. At that point, petitioner had one year, that is, until September 12, 2013, to file a timely federal habeas petition. The petition he filed on June 14, 2013,1 nearly two months before the deadline, was timely.
The action was dismissed on August 15, 2013, however, because petitioner failed to pay the filing fee or file an application to proceed in forma pauperis ("IFP"). On September 25, petitioner filed a motion to reopen and an amended petition. On October 10, the Court denied the motion because the petition was not signed. After two years of silence, petitioner filed a signed amended petition and an IFP application on December 4, 2015. On December 14, the Court reopened the action, denied the IFP application, and directed the petitioner to pay the filing fee. On January 21, 2016, the Court dismissed the action because petitioner failed to pay the filing fee by the deadline. On February 2, the Court reopened the action at the request of petitioner, and set a new payment deadline. Petitioner timely paid the filing fee and the Court issued an order to show cause to respondent, who filed the present motion to dismiss.
The petition will be dismissed as untimely. There was no operative petition from October 2013 to December 2015. During that time, the federal limitations clock started ticking. By December 2015, the federal filing deadline had passed.
Tolling will not save the petition. Statutory tolling is not available. Such tolling is available for the time during which an application for state post-conviction or other collateral review is pending. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 181-82 (2001). Because petitioner filed no such application, there is no tolling period to consider. The Court notes that federal petitions, such as the ones filed and dismissed during this action, do not qualify as applications for state post-conviction or other collateral review, and therefore they cannot toll the statutory period. Id.
Equitable tolling will not save the petition. First, petitioner filed no response to the motion to dismiss. Therefore, he has failed to show he is entitled to equitable tolling. Second, while the Court might grant equitable tolling for the short gaps in between case dismissals and reopenings, there is no present reason to grant it for the lengthy, unexplained two-year gap between October 2013 and December 2015. In that time, petitioner filed nothing and did not communicate with the Court. The petition will be dismissed.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, respondent's motion to dismiss the petition as untimely (Docket No. 19) is GRANTED. The petition is DISMISSED.
A certificate of appealability will not issue. Petitioner has not shown "that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling." Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). The Clerk shall terminate Docket No. 19, enter judgment in favor of respondent, and close the file.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
