Freddy Curiel v. Amy Miller

We must decide whether a California prisoner’s state habeas petition was timely filed under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

I

In 2006, Freddy Curiel was convicted by a California Superior Court jury of first-degree murder and street terrorism. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus twenty-five years. Id.

Curiel appealed his conviction to the California Court of Appeal and, thereafter, to the California Supreme Court, which denied his petition for review on June 11, 2008. On May 12, 2009, Curiel filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the Orange County Superior Court, which was denied on the “separate and independent grounds” that it was untimely and unmeritorious. Curiel filed a further petition with the California Court of Appeal on July 7, 2009, but that court summarily denied it without comment or citation to. authority. On September 7, 2009, Curiel filed a thicd petition, this time with the California Supreme Court, which was denied in a two-line decision.

Six months later, on March 8, 2010, Curiel filed his federal habeas petition in district court, which dismissed it with prejudice on the ground…