February 04th, 2020

Leonard v. Deville

Docket: 18-30374
Opinion Date: February 3, 2020
Judge: Stuart Kyle Duncan
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

When a state prisoner is implicitly granted extra time to seek supervisory writs from the denial of his state post-conviction application—and he does so within that time—his initial application therefore remains "pending" under the tolling provision in 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(2). The Fifth Circuit relied on its own precedents and by the Supreme Court's teaching that a state post-conviction application remains pending for statutory tolling purposes as long as the ordinary state collateral review process is in continuance. The court vacated the district court's dismissal of a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition as time-barred and held that petitioner was entitled to statutory tolling and thus his petition was not time-barred.

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