Joseph Murl Bennett v. Glen Mueller, Warden Terhune, Director Attorney Generalof the State of California

Joseph Murl Bennett (“Bennett”) appeals the district court’s order adopting the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation denying his Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus on the state procedural ground of untimeliness. We must decide whether the district court erred in concluding that the California Supreme Court’s denial of Bennett’s petition “on the merits and for lack of diligence” constituted an independent and adequate state ground so as to render his habeas petition procedurally defaulted. In so doing, we must determine whether the state court’s rebanee upon In re Clark, 5 Cal.4th 750 , 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 509 , 855 P.2d 729 (Cal.1993) and In re Robbins, 18 Cal.4th 770 , 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 153 , 959 P.2d 311 (Cal.1998) for untimeliness is free from entanglement with federal law and based upon a well-established and consistently applied rule. We agree with the district court that reb-anee upon Clark and Robbins constitutes an independent and adequate state ground. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 2253, and we affirm.

I. Background

In 1986, Bennett pled guilty to first-degree burglary in Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. A468635. In the guilty plea form,…