Wade Johnson v. Roy L. Hendricks, Attorney General of the State of New Jersey
Docket: 00-3633
Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; December 29, 2002; Federal Appellate Court
The case of Wade Johnson v. Roy L. Hendricks addresses the issue of whether equitable tolling of the statute of limitations for a habeas corpus petition is permissible when a prisoner acts based on erroneous advice from counsel regarding the filing deadline. Johnson was convicted of murder in 1993 and subsequently denied post-conviction relief by state courts. He erroneously believed he had one year from March 30, 1999, to file a federal habeas petition, based on his counsel's incorrect advice. Johnson filed his petition on March 28, 2000, which the State sought to dismiss as untimely under 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1). The District Court dismissed the petition as time-barred, rejecting Johnson's argument for equitable tolling due to the miscalculation by his attorney. The appellate court determined that the relevant statute requires a petition to be filed within one year after a conviction becomes final, and affirmed the dismissal, concluding that equitable tolling is not available under these circumstances. The court's jurisdiction was based on 28 U.S.C. 1291 and 2253, and it applied a plenary standard of review to the dismissal.
The statute of limitations for Johnson's habeas petition was initially set at one year, of which 222 days elapsed before he filed for post-conviction relief on April 1, 1997, tolling the time under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). The tolling period continued until March 30, 1999, when the New Jersey Supreme Court denied his certification petition, leaving Johnson with 143 days to file his habeas petition, which was due by August 20, 1999. Johnson filed his habeas petition on March 28, 2000.
He argues for equitable tolling based on a letter from his former attorney, Diane Toscano, dated March 31, 1999, which inaccurately stated the deadline for filing a habeas petition. The letter indicated that the petition must be filed within one year from the New Jersey Supreme Court's order, which Johnson claims misled him regarding the timeline.
Equitable tolling is acknowledged to apply to the one-year filing deadline under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1) but only under specific circumstances: if the defendant actively misled the plaintiff, if the plaintiff was prevented from asserting rights in an extraordinary way, or if the plaintiff mistakenly filed in the wrong forum. Johnson concedes that he was not actively misled by the State and bases his claim solely on the second circumstance, arguing that his attorney's error constituted an extraordinary prevention of asserting his rights. The District Court, however, rejected this claim, citing precedents from the Fourth and Seventh Circuits, which require circumstances beyond the prisoner's control to warrant equitable tolling.
Johnson argues that his situation should be differentiated from previous cases because his counsel's error was external to his actions and he relied detrimentally on that erroneous advice. He claims that the extraordinary circumstances stem from this reliance and emphasizes that he exercised reasonable diligence in following his attorney's guidance. Johnson presents his attorney’s letter as evidence of the wrongful advice. However, other appellate courts have rejected similar arguments, stating that an attorney's mistake regarding the deadline for filing a habeas petition does not qualify as extraordinary circumstances for equitable tolling. Courts cited include Miranda v. Castro, Helton v. Sec'y for the Dep't of Corr., Smaldone v. Senkowski, and Kreutzer v. Bowersox. Johnson has not provided any further justification for equitable tolling beyond the attorney’s error. Additionally, in the case of Fahy, it was recognized that attorney error in non-capital cases does not meet the extraordinary circumstances threshold for equitable tolling. Therefore, the court agrees with the District Court’s conclusion that Johnson has not demonstrated extraordinary circumstances to warrant equitable tolling of the AEDPA statute of limitations, affirming the dismissal of his habeas corpus petition as time-barred.
