Derrick Steilman v. Reginald Michael ( 2021 )


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  •                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JUN 14 2021
    MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
    U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    DERRICK E. STEILMAN,                            No.    20-35103
    Petitioner-Appellant,           D.C. No. CV 19-38-BU-BMM
    v.                                             MEMORANDUM*
    REGINALD D. MICHAEL, Director,
    Montana Department of Corrections;
    TIMOTHY C. FOX, Montana Attorney
    General,
    Respondents-Appellees.
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the District of Montana
    Brian M. Morris, District Judge, Presiding
    Submitted June 10, 2021**
    Seattle, Washington
    Before: GILMAN***, GOULD, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
    *
    This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
    except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
    **
    The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for
    decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
    ***
    The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for
    the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
    This case involves Derrick E. Steilman’s petition for habeas relief under 
    28 U.S.C. § 2254
    . Steilman filed a § 2254 petition challenging the legality of his
    110-year-sentence without the possibility of parole for a Montana homicide that he
    committed when he was 17 years old. The district court dismissed the petition as
    untimely. We agree with the district court that Steilman’s petition was untimely
    because he failed to seek relief within one year of the Supreme Court’s decision in
    Miller v. Alabama, 
    567 U.S. 460
     (2012), and because he is not entitled to equitable
    tolling.
    1. Shortly before turning 18, Steilman committed a murder in Butte,
    Montana. He pleaded guilty in October 1999.
    2. Steilman filed an earlier petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the
    Montana Supreme Court in May 2016, wherein he claimed that his sentence was
    unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment because the sentencing judge did
    not sufficiently account for his youth per the new rule announced in Miller and
    made retroactive in Montgomery v. Louisiana, 
    577 U.S. 190
     (2016). The Montana
    Supreme Court held that “[t]he combination of the good-time credit to which
    Steilman is eligible and the amount of his sentence that will be discharged while
    serving a sentence on a wholly unrelated crime” meant that Steilman’s sentence
    was not a de facto life sentence. Steilman v. Michael, 
    407 P.3d 313
    , 320 (Mont.
    2017); see also Steilman v. Michael, No. CV 19-38-BU-BMM-KLD, 
    2019 WL 2
                                          20-35103
    8017793, at *1 (D. Mont. Nov. 21, 2019), report and recommendation adopted in
    part, rejected in part, No. CV 19-38-BU-BMM, 
    2020 WL 359212
     (D. Mont. Jan.
    22, 2020) (noting that the Montana Supreme Court “observed that Steilman’s
    Montana sentence ran concurrently to a Washington state sentence for a separate
    homicide, which would result in Steilman potentially serving [about] 31 years [for]
    the Montana homicide.”).
    3. We need not decide whether the Montana Supreme Court’s decision on
    the merits was contrary to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Miller
    because Steilman’s federal habeas corpus petition was untimely. A state petition
    for habeas corpus that is based upon the recognition of a new right must be filed
    within one year of “the date on which the constitutional right asserted was initially
    recognized by the Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the
    Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review.”
    
    28 U.S.C. § 2244
    (d)(1)(C). Steilman filed his petition within one year of
    Montgomery, but four years after the decision in Miller.
    4. Unfortunately for Steilman, the decision that triggers the one-year statute
    of limitations is Miller, not Montgomery. Miller recognized a new right under the
    Eighth Amendment (the right to an individualized hearing for juvenile offenders
    before they can be sentenced to life without parole). 
    567 U.S. at 480
    . The
    Supreme Court’s recent decision in Jones v. Mississippi, 
    141 S. Ct. 1307
     (2021),
    3                                    20-35103
    reiterated that Montgomery simply held “that Miller applied retroactively to cases
    on collateral review.” 
    Id. at 1314
    ; see also 
    id. at 1316
     (“Montgomery did not
    purport to add to Miller’s requirements.”). Furthermore,
    in making the [Miller] rule retroactive, the Montgomery Court . . .
    declined to impose new requirements not already imposed by Miller.
    As Montgomery itself explained, the Court granted certiorari in that
    case not to consider whether the rule announced in Miller should be
    expanded, but rather simply to decide whether Miller’s “holding is
    retroactive to juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences were
    final when Miller was decided.”
    
    Id. at 1317
     (quoting Montgomery, 557 U.S. at 194). This leaves Steilman’s
    timeliness argument based on Montgomery meritless because, as the Supreme
    Court decided in Dodd v. United States, 
    545 U.S. 353
    , 357 (2005), the date that a
    right is made retroactive is irrelevant for statute-of-limitations purposes.
    5. Moreover, Steilman is not entitled to equitable tolling. His argument
    turns on an unsubstantiated, vague allegation that “his attorney abandoned him and
    gave him improper advice as to how much time he had remaining on the statute of
    limitations.” He says that because he was “unable to present his claim to equitable
    tolling in the district court[,] . . . [t]his Court should . . . reverse and remand this
    case and give Steilman a chance to establish that he is entitled to equitable tolling.”
    6. But equitable tolling of the one-year limitations period created by 
    28 U.S.C. § 2244
    (d)(1)(C) is rarely granted. Miranda v. Castro, 
    292 F.3d 1063
    ,
    1066–67 (9th Cir. 2002). To benefit from equitable tolling, a petitioner must show
    4                                      20-35103
    that he has “pursu[ed] his rights diligently” and was hindered by an “extraordinary
    circumstance.” Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 
    544 U.S. 408
    , 418 (2005). Before the
    district court, Steilman proffered several reasons for equitable tolling, including
    attorney malpractice, legal ignorance, and insufficient access to Montana legal
    materials while incarcerated in the state of Washington. Steilman, 
    2019 WL 8017793
    , at *3–4.
    7. Although Steilman put forth several reasons before the district court in
    attempting to establish an “extraordinary circumstance,” he proffers on appeal only
    that his attorney misadvised and “abandoned him.” But Steilman provides no
    evidence to substantiate his argument, and this single reason does not constitute an
    “extraordinary circumstance.” See Frye v. Hickman, 
    273 F.3d 1144
    , 1145–46 (9th
    Cir. 2001) (holding that counsel’s general negligence did not warrant equitable
    tolling); see also Ford v. Pliler, 
    590 F.3d 782
    , 786 (9th Cir. 2009) (noting that the
    petitioner had given the lower court no evidence that an “attorney’s conduct had
    made it impossible . . . to file a timely federal habeas petition”). In any event, the
    attorney misconduct that Steilman alleges apparently occurred after the statute of
    limitations had already lapsed, so it could not change the result in this case. See
    Ferguson v. Palmateer, 
    321 F.3d 820
    , 823 (9th Cir. 2003).
    AFFIRMED.
    5                                    20-35103