HILL v. ROBINSON et al

Filing 6

MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Claire C. Cecchi on 05/25/2018. (sms)

Case 2:17-cv-05491-CCC Document 6 Filed 05/29/18 Page 1 of 3 PageID: 31

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

$PILLERMAN HILL,

Civil Action No. 17-5491 (CCC)
Petitioner,

v.

:

MEMORANDUM OPINION

GEORGE ROBINSON, et a!.,
Respondents.

CECCHI, District Judge.
Pro se Petitioner Spillerman Hill, a prisoner confined at the Northern State Prison in

Newark, New Jersey, seeks to file a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 2$ U.S.C.

§

2254. The Court screened the Petition and dismissed it as untimely, but allowed Petitioner to
amend the Petition to make appropriate tolling arguments. (ECF No. 4.) Presently before the
Court is Petitioner’s “amended petition,” which is essentially a brief arguing for equitable tolling.
(ECF No. 5.)
The Court has reviewed Petitioner’s latest submission, and rejects his arguments for
equitable tolling. In his brief, Petitioner raises two arguments: (1) that his challenge to the sentence
at issue affects the sentence he may receive for an ongoing criminal prosecution, so therefore it is
timely because the violation is “ongoing”; and (2) that he diligently pursued his challenges to the
sentence at issue.

The first of his arguments is irrelevant, because although such collateral

consequences may give this Court jurisdiction over his habeas challenge, it says nothing about the
timeliness of the challenge. Federal law requires a federal habeas challenge to be brought within
one year after the challenged decision becomes final, 28 U.S.C.

§

2244(d)(l)(A), regardless of

Case 2:17-cv-05491-CCC Document 6 Filed 05/29/18 Page 2 of 3 PageID: 32

whether the violations are “ongoing”—indeed, in most

2254 petitions, the violations are

§

“ongoing” simply because the vast majority of the petitioners are still incarcerated under the
challenged sentences. Petitioner’s argument would eviscerate the one-year limitations period
altogether, a proposition unsupported by any case law.
The Court also rejects Petitioner’s contention that he was diligent in pursuing his claim. In
his brief, Petitioner acknowledges that his sentence became final on February 11,2013. (ECF No.
5 at 2.) He then filed a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C.

§

1983, presumably challenging the

sentence at issue, on March 15, 2013. Id. That action was dismissed on July 1,2013. Id. He then
filed a federal habeas challenge, which was terminated on March 1$, 2014. Id. He mentions
another state criminal matter where he was sentenced on May 1, 2015, when he presumably
brought up the issues with his previous sentence again. Id. Even if the court accepts all of these
allegations, and construes these various actions as challenges to the sentence, they do not show
due diligence, because (1) between March 18, 2014, when his previous habeas petition was
terminated, and May 1, 2015, when he supposedly brought up the issue again in state court, more
than one year had passed; and (2) having realized on May 1, 2015 that his previous sentence would
adversely affect his future sentences. Petitioner nevertheless did not file the instant Petition until
July 26, 2017, more than two years after that realization. Either of those delays would have
exceeded the one-year statute of limitations under federal law, yet Petitioner argues that he was
“diligent” in pursuing his claim, a contention the Court rejects. Accordingly, having raised no
valid tolling argument, for the reasons articulated by the Court in its September 25, 2017 opinion,
(ECF No. 3), the Court dismisses the Petition with prejudice as untimely.
Lastly, the Court denies a certificate of appealability. Federal law provides that an appeal
may not be taken to the court of appeals from a final order in a

2

§

2254 proceeding unless a judge

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issues a certificate of appealability on the ground that “the applicant has made a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C.

§ 2253(c)(2). In Slack v. McDaniel, 529

U.S. 473, 484 (2000), the United States Supreme Court held that “[w]hen the district court denies
a habeas petition on procedural grounds without reaching the prisoner’s underlying constitutional
claim, a COA should issue when the prisoner shows, at least, 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.” Here, the court denies a certificate of appealability pursuant to 2$ U.S.C.

§ 2253(c)

because jurists of reason would not find it debatable that dismissal of the Petition is correct.
A,

Claire C. Cecchi
United States District Judge

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Date: MAN

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