Salvador Martinez v. Joe Klauser, Warden

ORDER AND OPINION

ORDER

This court’s Memorandum disposition, filed June 5, 2001, is hereby withdrawn. The attached Opinion is filed in its place.

The petition for rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc, filed June 29, 2001, are denied as moot.

OPINION

Salvador Martinez appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . The district court dismissed the petition on grounds of procedural default based on Martinez’s untimely filing of his petition for post-conviction relief in Idaho state court. Because we hold that the state court dismissed Martinez’s post-conviction petition pursuant to a state procedural rule that was not “clear, consistently applied, and well-established,” we reverse the district court.

On June 12, 1990, an Idaho state court jury found Martinez guilty of several crimes under Idaho law. The Idaho Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed Martinez’s convictions and sentence. See State v. Martinez, 122 Idaho 193 , 832 P.2d 764 (Ct.App.1992). On June 21, 1995, Martinez filed in Idaho trial court a petition for post-conviction relief under Idaho’s Uniform Post-Conviction Procedure Act, Idaho Code §…