Martin

MEMORANDUM **

Martin’s conviction became final November 27, 2001, so he had one year from that date to file this federal habeas petition, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (d)(1)(A), unless statutory tolling under 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (d)(2) or equitable tolling applied. Martin waited approximately eight months after his conviction was final before hiring a lawyer to seek post-conviction relief. The lawyer took four months to prepare the petition (not an unreasonable time for such a matter) and filed Martin’s first state habeas petition on November 27, 2002, the final day of the federal limitations period. Martin unsuccessfully pursued state habeas relief, switching attorney’s along the way because his first one turned out to be unreliable and uncommunicative. The California Supreme Court ultimately denied Martin’s petition for review on July 13, 2005, and his second attorney filed this federal petition for habeas corpus the next day, on July 14, 2005.

Even if statutory tolling were applied during pendency of Martin’s petition in the California Supreme Court, a heroic assumption in the face of that court’s citation to the timeliness rules in In re Robbins, 18 Cal.4th 770, 780 , 77 Cal.Rptr.2d…