Michael Natson v. USA

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Michael Antonio Natson. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Signed.

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Date Filed: 09/04/2012

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
_____________________________
No. 10-13045
_____________________________
D. C. Docket Nos. 4:09-cv-90064-CDL-GMF ; 4:05-cr-00021-CDL-GMF-1
MICHAEL ANTONIO NATSON,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
_________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
_________________________________________
(September 4, 2012)
Before PRYOR and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and BOWDRE,* District
Judge.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

*

Honorable Karon O. Bowdre, United States District Judge for the Northern District of
Alabama, sitting by designation.

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This case raises the question of the timely filing by a pro se prisoner of a
section 2255 motion. Natson (serving a term of imprisonment without the
possibility of parole) had until 4 September 2009 to file a timely motion. His
motion -- which he signed and he dated 3 September 2009 -- was not received by
the district court until 23 September 2009.
In Houston v. Lack, 108 S. Ct. 2379 (1988), the Supreme Court decided pro
se prisoner notices of appeal to federal courts of appeals are to be considered filed
at the moment the notice is delivered to prison authorities for forwarding to the
courts.1 No one in this case disputes this point of law: the law is certain. And in
cases like Washington v. United States, 243 F.3d 1299 (11th Cir. 2001), this Court
extended the Houston time-of-filing rule to pro se prisoner motions to vacate: 28
U.S.C. § 2255. No one in this case disputes this point of law either; the law is
certain.
In the Houston opinion (Houston, by the way, involved a state prisoner), the
Supreme Court wrote that prison authorities “have well-developed procedures for
1

In Houston, the Supreme Court described the question that the Court was then deciding this
way:
The question we decide in this case is whether under Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 4(a)(1) such notices are to be considered filed at the moment of
delivery to prison authorities for forwarding or at some later point in time.
Id. at 2381 (emphasis added).
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recording the date and time at which they receive papers for mailing.” Houston,
108 S. Ct. at 2384-85. To us, this observation in the opinion -- part of the policy
grounds suggested to explain the decision to allow delivery to prison officials as a
filing -- is a statement of a fact making up the case then before the Houston court.2
We do not read these quoted words to have been a legal order commanding that
the Federal Executive Branch’s Bureau of Prisons must create or maintain a
specific kind of record: a contemporaneous mail-received-from-prisoner log for
each and all federal places of incarceration.
We also do not understand Houston to have held (or said) that an inquiry
about the time -- the specific date -- of delivery to prison officials is something
other than a question of fact. Nor do we understand Houston to hold (or say) that
no evidence would be competent to establish the fact of time of delivery, except a
contemporaneous mail-received-from-prisoner log (or that such logs could never
be disputed). Most important, we do not understand the Supreme Court in
Houston to hold (or say) that factual representations, about timing, by convicted

2

The opinions of the Supreme Court are not the United States Code. Every sentence in a
Supreme Court opinion is not law. Only the holdings of Supreme Court decisions are law. And
the reasoning of Supreme Court opinions is not the holding of the Supreme Court decision.
“There is, of course, an important difference between the holding in a case and the reasoning that
supports that holding.” Crawford-El v. Britton, 118 S. Ct. 1584, 1590 (1998). For background,
see Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 399-400 (1821) (Marshall, CJ.).
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felons must be accepted -- as a matter of law -- as accurate, unless the Executive
Branch has one particular piece of evidence in hand to refute the prisoner’s claim.3
The legal position we express today does not oppose our Circuit’s
precedent. In Washington v. United States, a case relied on by Petitioner, our
Court faced a case in which the Government offered “no evidence to support a
conclusion that” the pertinent 2255 motion was delivered to prison authorities at a
date later than the prisoner-petitioner said and signed. Washington, 243 F.3d at
1301. Thus, Washington decided nothing -- could decide nothing, really -- about
what kinds of evidence could be lawfully used to determine a contest about when a
petition had, in fact, been delivered to prison authorities. In the Washington
opinion, we wrote (and we accept today) that the Government had the burden to
prove the date a petition was delivered was a date other than the date claimed by
the prisoner-petitioner; we then added that “[a]bsent evidence to the contrary in
the form of prison logs or other records, we will assume that” the prisoner’s

3

There was no question of these issues presented in Houston.
Per Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(c)(1) and the Rules Governing Section 2254
Cases and 2255 Proceedings, we accept that the inmate’s declaration (or notarized statement) is
competent evidence to support a judicial finding of timeliness. But we do not understand such
declarations, in themselves, to be entirely controlling -- as a matter of law -- for the question of
timeliness, when the substance of the declaration is challenged by other parties and other
evidence.
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motion was delivered to prison officials the day the Petitioner says he signed it.4
Id. (emphasis added).
In the present case (unlike Washington), the Government did present, in
district court, evidence to support a conclusion that the motion was delivered at a
later date than Petitioner claims. The evidence was competent to establish
untimely filing. Although the Government did not present a log of when the
motion was delivered to prison authorities, the Government’s evidence includes
prison mailing records. Given the evidence -- including records, the district court
found that, in fact, the motion was not delivered to prison officials when Petitioner
represents that it was, but later. The petition was dismissed as untimely. We see
no reversible error.
In support of its motion to dismiss, the Government presented a declaration
from M.P., supervisor of the pertinent prison’s mailroom. M.P. gave evidence of
the prison’s routine practice. M.P. declared (under penalty of perjury) that,
pursuant to prison procedure, prison staff brought outgoing mail to the post office

4

In Garvey v. Vaughn, 993 F.2d 776 (11th Cir. 1993), we extended the Houston rule to
Federal Tort Claims Act cases and to section 1983 cases, that is, the complaints are deemed filed
when delivered to prison officials by a pro se prisoner. Garvey decided nothing about what kinds
of evidence are competent or are not competent to establish, in fact, when the complaints were
delivered. Nothing in the appellate opinion indicates that the pertinent governments actually
challenged the date that the prisoners contended were the dates that they delivered the
complaints.
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for mailing within 24 hours of receipt from a prisoner. Because Natson’s motion
was delivered to the post office on 18 September, M.P. inferred that Natson must
have given it to prison staff no earlier than 17 September. Prison records also
demonstrated that prison staff delivered certified mail from other prisoners to the
post office nine times between 3 September and 18 September.
Based on the records and on the prison’s mailing-within-24-hours routine
practice, M.P. indicated that -- contrary to Natson’s signature date -- Natson did
not give his motion to prison staff to be mailed on 3 September. Beyond Natson’s
own certification of time about his motion, Natson presented no evidence; for
example, he did not offer evidence that the customs and practices in September
2009 for, or records of, forwarding prisoner mail were incorrectly described by the
prison staff. On this record, the motion to dismiss was granted.
We accept that, at the moment prison authorities received Petitioner’s 2255
motion, the motion was filed; that principle is the bright line legal rule of Houston.
But in the light of all the evidence, we see no clear error in the district court’s
factual determination that Natson delivered his motion to prison authorities
sometime after 4 September 2009. Thus, the district court properly dismissed

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Natson’s motion as untimely.
AFFIRMED.5

5

To help avoid future disputes of this nature, we strongly encourage prison authorities to
adopt procedures to make a record of the date a prisoner delivers outgoing mail to prison staff for
mailing. Petitioner says such a procedure was adopted after September 2009 at his place of
imprisonment. We understand, of course, that it is highly improbable any record can be made
which could not contain an error or which could not be improperly manipulated by someone
under some set of circumstances. So, mail logs are inherently just evidence of a date; to us, even
a contemporaneous mail-received-from-prisoner log would not necessarily be, as a matter of law,
conclusive proof in every case. (We appreciate that -- as a practical matter -- actual contests
about the accuracy of dates set out in such a log might be uncommon.)
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BOWDRE, District Judge sitting by designation, dissenting:

I respectfully dissent. The majority views the issue as a factual
determination; I view it as a question of the appropriate legal standard required to
rebut the presumption that the date a pro se prisoner signed his § 2255 motion is
the date he delivered it for filing. Because the district court failed to follow the
legal standard that requires proof of the actual date Natson delivered his motion to
the prison officials when finding it untimely filed, the decision should be reversed.
The district court failed to adhere to the bright-line rule for determining the
filing date for pro se prisoners expressed by the United States Supreme Court
when it established the mailbox rule in Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988). By
affirming the district court’s decision, the majority opinion accepts legally
insufficient evidence based on an affidavit that provides information about general
prison procedures and a log of when the prison official mailed other prisoners’
filings, but that is totally devoid of proof of when Natson actually delivered his
motion to the prison for mailing. In so doing, the majority appears to replace the
Houston bright-line test with an uncertain one.
Instead of enforcing the burden placed on prison officials to prove the
actual date of prisoner delivery to the prison for filing with evidence in the form
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of “prison logs or other records” as required by Washington v. United States, 243
F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir. 2001), the district court improperly shifted the burden
to the pro se prisoner who, as the Supreme Court recognized, is “unlikely to have
any means of proving it” and for whom any evidence “will be hard to come by
[while] confined to his cell.” See Houston, 487 U.S. at 271, 276. The majority
perpetuates this error in noting that Natson failed to present evidence rebutting the
M.P. declaration. Such burden shifting turns Houston upside down.
Bright-line Rule Requires Record of Receipt of Prisoner Mail
The Supreme Court decision in Houston established the date the pro se
prisoner delivers his document to the prison official for mailing as the “brightline” mailbox rule for filing purposes. 487 U.S. at 275. The evidentiary standard
necessary to prove or disprove that date lies at the heart of this appeal. Since
Houston, procedural rules and case law have fleshed out in part how a pro se
prisoner can establish the date of delivery. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(c)(1); Rules
Governing § 2254 Cases, Rule 3(d), 28 U.S.C.A. foll. § 2254; Washington, 243
F.3d at 1301.
In its “bright-line” focus on the date of delivery to prison officials as the
date of filing for pro se prisoners, the Supreme Court noted that prison authorities

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have well-developed procedures for recording the
date and time at which they receive papers for
mailing and . . . can readily dispute a prisoner’s
assertions that he delivered the paper on a different
date. Because reference to prison mail logs will
generally be a straightforward inquiry, making filing
turn on the date the pro se prisoner delivers the
notice to prison authorities for mailing is a brightline rule, not an uncertain one.
Houston, 487 U.S. at 275 (emphasis added).
The expectation that prisons would have “well-developed procedures” with
mail logs for prisoner mail expressed in Houston in 1988 was not a new idea for
the Supreme Court and was not limited to its evaluation of the state prison system.
Indeed, in 1964 when the Supreme Court made “the jailer . . . in effect the clerk of
the District Court,” Justice Stewart noted in his concurring opinion that
government counsel had advised at oral argument “that procedures have now been
inaugurated at the federal prisons to make certain that the exact time of receipt
will be marked on all papers that are filed with the authorities for mailing.” Fallen
v. United States, 378 U.S. 139, 144–45 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring) (emphasis
added).1
1

Fallen involved a federal prisoner’s timely-dated but late received letter requesting an
appeal. The letter bore the date two days before the expiration of the time to file an appeal, but it
was received by the clerk of court four days late. The envelope bore no postmark “nor any
indication of the time at which the envelope came into the hands of the prison officials.” 378
U.S. at 144. The Court found that the prisoner “had done all that could reasonably be expected to
get the letter to its destination” on time, refused to “read the Rules so rigidly as to bar a
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This Court in Washington recognized the presumption of the mailbox rule
that the prisoner delivered the motion to prison authorities on the date he signed
it— “[a]bsent evidence to the contrary in the form of prison logs or other records.”
243 F.3d at 1301. The Court placed the burden squarely on the “prison authorities
to prove the date a prisoner delivered his documents to be mailed.” Id. (citing
Garvey v. Vaughn, 993 F.2d 776, 781 (11th Cir. 1993) (emphasis added)).
Although the Court did not elaborate on precisely what “prison logs or other
records” can refute the presumption afforded the pro se prisoner’s signature date,
the Supreme Court’s reasoning concerning the purpose of the mailbox rule, as well
as its historical development within this Circuit, demonstrate that the proffered
evidence should directly address the point at issue: when did the pro se prisoner
actually deliver the paper to the prison authorities for filing? The Garvey decision
of this Circuit recognized that “Houston places the burden of proof for the pro se
prisoner’s date of delivering his document to be filed in court on the prison
authorities, who have the ability to establish the correct date through their logs.”
993 F.2d at 781 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).
The effectiveness of the bright-line mailbox rule requires prisons to use
procedures by which they log or otherwise record receipt from pro se prisoners of

determination of his appeal on the merits,” and reversed the dismissal of the appeal. Id.
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outgoing mail. The critical date hinges on that receipt from the prisoner—not the
date the prison delivers the mail to the post office, but the date the prisoner
delivers the mail to the prison for filing.
Prison authorities bear the burden to prove the date the prisoner delivered
the document to them. Such proof should be of the kind the Supreme Court
contemplated when it discussed the reasons for creating the mailbox rule:
contemporaneous logs or records of the date the prisoner entrusted his papers to
the prison to be mailed. The logical record or log to establish the date the prisoner
delivered his document would be a mail receipt log or other record documenting
the actual delivery date. Evidence based only on general procedures, speculation,
and inferences eviscerates the bright-line rule the Supreme Court intended the
mailbox rule to be. See Houston, 487 U.S. at 275 (“Because reference to prison
mail logs will generally be a straightforward inquiry, making filing turn on the
date the pro se prisoner delivers the notice to prison authorities for mailing is a
bright-line rule, not an uncertain one.”); see also Garvey, 993 F.2d at 780
(explaining that Houston establishes a bright-line rule that “states an equitable,
standardized method for measuring time restrictions so that requisite time
limitations for filing do not preclude the incarcerated petitioner’s equal access to
the courts”) (footnote omitted).
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The government in its brief admitted that it had “no records showing the
date of receipt of Natson’s mailing.” Without such records to verify the date
Natson actually delivered his motion for mailing, the prison officials failed to meet
their burden to overcome the presumption that the date he signed it was the date he
delivered it for filing purposes. See Washington, 243 F.3d at 1301. The evidence
proffered in this case falls short of the legal standard required to establish the date
Natson entrusted his motion to the prison officials for filing.
A declaration that relies on the date of the certified mail stamp affixed by
the Post Office, the outgoing mail log, and general prison procedures to infer that
Natson’s motion “would have been provided to BOP staff . . . no earlier than
September 17, 2009”2 fails to meet the legal standard to establish when Natson
actually delivered his motion to prison officials. Accepting such backward

2

M.P.’s declaration was equivocal at best, full of speculation and inferences. After stating
that the certified mail log showed that Natson’s parcel “was taken to the United States Post
Office for mailing on September 18, 2009” and reciting the standard procedure for posting mail
within twenty-four hours of receipt, he then concluded:
Therefore, the certified mail which was posted by Petitioner on
September 18, 2009, would have been provided to the BOP staff
(by Petitioner’s dropping it in the inmate outgoing mail
depository) no earlier than September 17, 2009. Had Petitioner
provided his mail to BOP staff on September 3, 2009, as the date
he provided on his petition would suggest, it would have gone out
on September 4, 2009.
(emphasis added).
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reasoning as legally sufficient proof of the date the pro se prisoner delivered his
motion creates uncertainty and perpetuates the opportunity for manipulation and
delay by prison officials—the very concerns that led the Supreme Court to adopt
the mailbox rule in the first place. See Garvey, 993 F.2d at 780 (“As defendants in
a pro se prisoner’s civil rights action, prison officials ‘may have every incentive to
delay,’ and even if he suspects delay by prison authorities, the pro se prisoner is
helpless to investigate or prove such dilatoriness.” (quoting Houston, 487 U.S. at
271)); see also Sanders v. United States, 113 F.3d 184, 187 (11th Cir. 1997)
(recognizing the ability of prison officials to block a pro se prisoner’s access to
court by manipulating mail as “one of the main concerns” addressed in Houston).
Even without any bad intent, prisoner mail can get misplaced or dropped, or any
number of events beyond the control or knowledge of the prisoner can result in the
mail not being timely posted by the prison officials after a prisoner relinquishes
control over the document.
The beauty of the mailbox rule envisioned by the Supreme Court lies in its
straightforward application as it has evolved: in his notice of appeal or § 2255
petition, the pro se prisoner certifies under penalty of perjury the date the
document was placed in the prison mailing system. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(c)(1);
Rules Governing § 2254 Cases, Rule (3)(d), 28 U.S.C.A. foll. § 2254. That date
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becomes the presumptive date of filing unless the prison officials can prove the
prisoner actually delivered it on some other date by producing a log or other
record reflecting the date of actual delivery. The majority opinion converts this
simple bright-line test into hazy shades of gray by accepting as legally sufficient
evidence something less than a record of the actual date Natson delivered his
motion into the custody of the prison.
Burden of Proof Does Not Shift to Pro Se Prisoner in His Cell
The district court and the majority opinion erroneously expected Natson to
rebut the evidence presented in M.P.’s declaration. The majority opinion hints
that the burden shifts to the prisoner without citing any authority. Expecting an
incarcerated prisoner to be able to offer evidence refuting a prison official’s
recitation of customs and practices for posting prisoner mail creates an
unprecedented and virtually impossible burden in stark contrast to the rationale
expressed by the Supreme Court when it adopted the mailbox rule.
The Supreme Court recognized the unique situation of pro se prisoner
litigants in Houston. Unlike other litigants, they cannot personally deliver their
legal documents to the court clerk or even to the Postal Service; they cannot
follow through on their delivery, or take any precautions to ensure the court
receives them. 487 U.S. at 270–71.

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Worse, the pro se prisoner has no choice but to
entrust the forwarding of his notice of appeal to
prison authorities whom he cannot control or
supervise and who may have every incentive to delay.
No matter how far in advance the pro se prisoner
delivers his notice to the prison authorities, he can
never be sure that it will ultimately get stamped
“filed” on time. And if there is a delay the prisoner
suspects is attributable to the prison authorities, he is
unlikely to have any means of proving it, for his
confinement prevents him from monitoring the
process sufficiently to distinguish delay on the part of
prison authorities from slow mail service or the court
clerk’s failure to stamp the notice on the date
received. Unskilled in law, unaided by counsel, and
unable to leave the prison, his control over the
processing of his notice necessarily ceases as soon as
he hands it over to the only public officials to whom
he has access -- the prison authorities -- and the only
information he will likely have is the date he
delivered the notice to those prison authorities and the
date ultimately stamped on his notice.
Houston, 487 U.S. at 271–72 (italics in original; underline added).
The Supreme Court’s recognition of the pro se prisoner’s lack of control and
of his inability to prove the reason for any delay demonstrates that shifting the
burden to the prisoner to rebut the prison’s proffered evidence contravenes the
intent of Houston.
Of course, if the majority adhered to the bright-line rule of Houston, it
would have no reason to suggest that a pro se prisoner needs to refute an affidavit

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based on general prison procedures, a log of outgoing mail, and inferences. As the
Supreme Court noted:
The prison will be the only party with access to at
least some of the evidence needed to resolve such
questions-one of the vices the general rule is meant
to avoid-and evidence on any of these issues will be
hard to come by for the prisoner confined to his cell,
who can usually only guess whether the prison
authorities, the Postal Service, or the court clerk is
to blame for any delay.
Houston, 487 U.S. at 276.
Shifting the burden to the pro se prisoner to rebut evidence that does not
even meet the legal standard created by the bright-line mailbox rule stands the
rationale of Houston on its head.
Because the district court did not require proof in the form of a log or other
record of the actual date Natson delivered his motion to the prison for mailing and
improperly shifted the burden back to him, it deviated from the bright-line test
established in Houston. I would reverse.

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