Julio Navas v. James Baca

MEMORANDUM

Julio Navas appeals the district court’s dismissal of his amended federal habeas petition, containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. ' The district court denied his motion to stay proceedings and hold Nava’s petition in abeyance while Na-vas pursued state court relief. The district court instead dismissed his petition without prejudice, concluding that Navas had not shown good cause for failure to exhaust his state claims under Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 , 125 S.Ct. 1528 , 161 L.Ed.2d 440 (2005). The district court held that Navas was required to show that his pending state habeas proceedings presented “an actual significant timeliness issue” before he was entitled to a stay.

The district court erred when it required Navas to show an “actual significant timeliness issue.” As the Supreme Court stated in Pace v. DiGuglielmo, “[a] petitioner’s reasonable confusion about whether a state filing would be timely will ordinarily constitute ‘good cause’ for him to file in federal court.” 544 U.S. 408, 416 , 125 S.Ct. 1807 , 161 L.Ed.2d 669 (2005). Moreover, as Pace indicates, the district court should have assessed whether Navas had good cause at the moment Navas…