Clemente v. Lee, No. 21-279 (2d Cir. 2023)
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On April 10, 2008, Petitioner was convicted of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree by a New York state-court jury. The court sentenced him to concurrent indeterminate prison terms of twenty years to life for the murder count and five to fifteen years for the weapon possession count. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Respondent, the Warden of the facility in which Petitioner is imprisoned, moved to dismiss a subset of the claims in the petition on the ground that they were time-barred under 28 U.S.C. Section 2244(d)(1). The district court agreed and entered an order supported by a memorandum decision granting the motion. Petitioner filed a notice of appeal and sought a certificate of appealability. The Second Circuit granted a certificate of appealability. Petitioner contends that under Section 2244(d)(1), all the claims raised in his petition were timely because at least one claim asserted therein was timely filed within the applicable one-year limitations period.
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s order. The court concluded that Section 2244(d)(1)’s statute of limitations requires a claim-by-claim approach. The court explained that Petitioner’s sole argument in support of his entitlement to equitable tolling is that his lawyer told him the wrong deadline for filing a habeas petition that included the arguments that he advanced in his direct appeal. But this argument has been squarely foreclosed by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, the district court correctly determined that Petitioner was not entitled to equitable tolling and properly dismissed his claims as time-barred.
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