John Alexander v. THOMAS BIRKETT, Warden

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 07a0264n.06
Filed: April 9, 2007
No. 06-1662
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
JOHN ALEXANDER,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
THOMAS BIRKETT, Warden,
Respondent-Appellee.
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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
Before: COLE, SUTTON, and COOK, Circuit Judges.
COOK, Circuit Judge. John Alexander appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition
for habeas corpus as untimely. We agree that the petition was untimely and thus affirm.
I
Michigan convicted Alexander of second-degree murder and sentenced him to life with the
possibility of parole on March 25, 1981. At that time, Michigan parole policy would permit a
prisoner sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole to be eligible for parole in as few
as ten years. But according to Alexander’s federal petition, that parole policy stiffened thereafter.
In 1992, responding to highly publicized violent crimes committed by parolees, Michigan
reorganized its parole board in an effort to boost its political accountability. The new board cracked
down on parole for life sentences, adopting a philosophy that life in prison means life. In 1999, the

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Michigan legislature eliminated a requirement that the parole board interview prisoners sentenced
to life every five years. Also in 1999, the chairman of the parole board testified that the new board
had a “longstanding philosophy” that “a life sentence means just that—life in prison.” In 2001, the
spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) publicly stated that “life means
life.” Also in 2001, MDOC distributed a document to the Michigan Judges Association explaining
that the “parole board believes a life sentence means life in prison.”
Pertinent to the timeliness issue here is Alexander’s November 26, 2002, filing of his third
motion for relief from judgment in state court, arguing that 1) the parole board’s life-means-life
policy violates the Ex Post Facto Clause as applied to him, and 2) he was deprived of due process
because the trial judge sentenced him under a misconception that he would be parolable. Some four
months later, on March 13, 2003, Judge Sapala, the trial judge who sentenced Alexander in 1981,
held a hearing and granted Alexander’s motion. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed Judge
Sapala shortly thereafter, on July 15, 2003, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal
on March 25, 2004. Alexander then sought federal review by filing his habeas petition on October
8, 2004. The district court granted the warden’s motion for summary judgment, holding that
Alexander’s petition was untimely. Following the denial of his motion for reconsideration,
Alexander appealed.
II

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We review de novo both the grant of and the denial of a motion to reconsider summary
judgment. Smith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 167 F.3d 286, 289 (6th Cir. 1999).
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) requires a prisoner to file his
federal habeas petition on or before one year after “the date on which the factual predicate of the
claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” 28
U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(D). Furthermore, the statute of limitations is tolled during the time “which a
properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the
pertinent judgment or claim is pending.” Id. § 2244(d)(2). For both Alexander’s Ex Post Facto
Clause and Due Process Clause claims, the factual predicate is the alleged change in the parole
board’s policy.
To measure the petition’s timeliness, we count backward from the date Alexander filed his
federal habeas petition, October 8, 2004. And tolling precludes charging him with the time during
which his third state petition for relief was pending, from November 26, 2002, to March 25, 2004.
Working backward from October 8, if Alexander could have discovered the factual predicate for his
claim on or before June 11, 2002, it is time-barred. (We count 168 days between June 11, 2002, and
November 26, 2002; 197 days between March 25, 2004, and October 8, 2004; and 197 + 168 = 365.)
If he could not have discovered the factual predicate until after June 11, 2002, the statute of
limitations had not expired by October 8, 2004.

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Alexander insists that he could not have discovered the factual predicate for his federal
claims until he heard Judge Sapala say at his hearing on March 13, 2003, “it’s only now that we see
what the Parole Board is doing.” Belying his stance, however, is the plain fact that Alexander set
forth these same Ex Post Facto Clause and Due Process Clause claims in his November 2002 motion
in state court. And even if we assume Alexander did not actually know of his claims until he filed
them in November 2002, as his counsel stated at oral argument, actual knowledge is not the test
under § 2244(d)(1)(D). Rather, under this section, a federal habeas claim accrues when a petitioner
could have discovered it through the exercise of due diligence. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(D); see also
Souter v. Jones, 395 F.3d 577, 586-87 (6th Cir. 2005).
The litany of facts going back to 1992 included in Alexander’s habeas petition convinces us
that his petition was untimely. The petition details the changes in parole policy forming the basis
for his claim: the 1992 reorganization of the parole board, the 1999 elimination of five-year review,
the 1999 testimony by the chairman of the parole board, the 2001 statement by the MDOC
spokesman, the 2001 official materials stating that life means life, and various statistics showing that
life-eligible prisoners were paroled much less frequently in the 1990s than before. We need not peg
with certainty the exact date on which Alexander’s claims accrued. But we can say, as evidenced
by his own habeas petition, that Alexander could have discovered, through the exercise of due
diligence, the factual predicate for his claims before June 2002. His October 2004 petition was
untimely.

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III
For these reasons, we affirm.

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