IBRAHIM v. KERNAN (2019)

MEMORANDUM ***

Petitioner Hussein Ibrahim is a California state inmate appealing the district court’s dismissal of his habeas corpus petition as untimely. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), a state prisoner is required to file a federal habeas petition within one year of the date on which the conviction became final, unless the time is tolled by a timely filed state petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2254; 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).

Petitioner’s conviction became final in state court on August 30, 2015. A California state appellate court denied his petition as untimely on December 14, 2016. Thereafter, the California Supreme Court summarily denied his petition on March 29, 2017. Petitioner filed his federal habeas petition on April 5, 2017.

The district court did not err in dismissing the petition as untimely. The district court properly “looked through” the California Supreme Court’s summary denial to the last reasoned state court opinion, which had found the petition untimely. See Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803, 111 S.Ct. 2590, 115 L.Ed.2d 706 (1991) (“Where there has been one reasoned state judgment rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground.”); see also Wilson v. Sellers, ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1194–95, 200 L.Ed.2d 530 (2018) (affirming that Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) did not abrogate the Ylst look-through doctrine). The district court correctly denied the petition.

AFFIRMED.