What is a Reasonable Time, and What Does a Silent Decision Say About It?

Evans v. Chavis

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) allows a prisoner to seek habeas corpus review within one year after their conviction becomes final. It also extends this period for any duration of time "during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction review is ... pending," which includes the time between when the conviction became final, and a timely application for post-conviction review is filed. Whereas other states specify the time a prisoner has to file such an application (i.e. 30 days, 60 days), California defines an application as timely if it is submitted within a "reasonable time." The question here is whether or not Chavis' application to California's Supreme Court, submitted three years after his conviction became final, was submitted within a "reasonable time." (It does not bode well for Chavis that the Court put "three years" in italics)

The Court, when hearing the case previously, had instructed the Ninth Circuit that a lower court’s denial "on the merits and for lack of diligence" did not decide the question, because (a) the court may have decided to address the merits even if the petition was untimely, and (b) the "lack of diligence" could have been a reference to a different and irrelevant delay. The Court also cited case where the Ninth Circuit found a petition to be timely when it was submitted 4 years after the lower court's decision as an "incorrect approach." The Ninth Circuit held that because Chavis' application was denied "without citation or comment" the lower court had reached the merits of the case, implying that it was considered timely (presumably if it were not that would be the grounds on which the lower court would have denied the petition).

The Court asserts that the absence of the words "on the merits" "makes it less likely, not more likely that the California Supreme Court believed [the delay] was reasonable." The Court also suggested that if the allowable delay was substantially different than other states the AEDPA's "tolling" would not apply. The Court then concludes that during the contested time, between prison lockdowns and conflicts between Chavis' job and the prison library's hours, there remains a "totally unjustified" delay of 6 months, and comparing that period to determinate periods of delay allowed by law, concludes that 6 months is unreasonable.

The concurrence argues that if the Court had rejected the idea that a denial on the merits that does not comment on timeliness "the Court should now endorse [the presumption] because it is both eminently sensible as a matter of judicial administration and entirely sound as a matter of law." The concurrence also argues this should be extended so that any unexplained order before 6 months should be presumed timely, and any unexplained order after 6 months should be presumed to be a ruling on timeliness (6 months being "the only specific time period mentioned in California’s postconviction jurisprudence"). Justice Stevens uses this presumption to determine (for the concurrence) that "the California Supreme Court actually decided - not once, but twice - that the petitions filed by respondent in that court were untimely."

P.S: Here is someone that thinks Stevens was right