Reginald Chavis v. Anthony Lemarque, Warden

In 1991, Reginald Chavis was convicted of attempted first degree murder with the use of a weapon in Sacramento County-Superior Court. He unsuccessfully challenged his conviction on direct appeal in California state courts and then filed two rounds of state habeas petitions. All of Chavis’s state petitions were denied, and he filed a federal habeas petition on August 30, 2000. The issue before us is whether Chavis’s federal petition was filed within the one-year statute of limitations provided by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”). The district court dismissed the petition as untimely. We reverse.

I. Background

The timeliness of Chavis’s federal petition depends on whether he is entitled to statutory tolling for each of his state habe-as petitions. 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (d)(2) (allowing tolling for “properly filed” state habeas petitions while such petitions are “pending”). We therefore set forth in detail the procedural history of his case.

A.Conviction and Direct Appeal

On July 29, 1991, a jury convicted Chav-is of attempted murder for the shooting of Katrina Haines. Chavis was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. Chavis appealed the…