Hatch v. Warner
This text of Hatch v. Warner (Hatch v. Warner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
1 THE HONORABLE BARBARA J. ROTHSTEIN
6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 7 AT TACOMA
8 DANIEL DUANE HATCH, 9 Petitioner, No. 3:24-CV-5900-BJR-DWC 10 v. ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND 11 RECOMMENDATION JACK WARNER, 12 Respondent. 13
15 I. INTRODUCTION
16 Petitioner Daniel Duane Hatch, proceeding pro se, filed this federal habeas petition
17 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, seeking relief from his state court conviction and sentence.
18 Currently before the Court is the report and recommendation of United States Magistrate
19 Judge David W. Christel (“R&R”) recommending that this Court dismiss this action with
20 prejudice as time-barred in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). Petitioner timely filed
21 objections to the R&R. Having reviewed the R&R, Petitioner’s objections thereto, the record
22 of the case, and the relevant legal authority, the Court will adopt the R&R and dismiss this
23 case with prejudice. The reasoning for the Court’s decision follows. 1 II. BACKGROUND
2 Petitioner is currently confined at Monroe Correctional Complex pursuant to a
3 judgment of conviction and sentence entered in State of Washington v. Daniel Duane Hatch,
4 Superior Court of Washington for Pierce County Case No. 18-1-03968-3. Following a jury
5 trial before the Superior Court of Washington for Pierce County, Petitioner was found guilty
6 of one count of second-degree murder. On May 20, 2022, the trial court sentenced Petitioner
7 to a term of 224 months in confinement followed by 36 months in community custody.
8 There is a lengthy procedural history related to Petitioner’s direct and collateral
9 appeals in state court that this Court will not restate here. It is sufficient to state for purposes
10 of the instant habeas petition that Petitioner alleges that his attorney failed to file a timely
11 notice of direct appeal with the Court of Appeals of the State of Washington, and instead
12 filed the notice three days late. As such, the Appellate Court deemed the notice untimely.
13 Petitioner’s attorney then sought an extension of time within which to file the notice of
14 appeal, which the Appellate Court granted. However, the Appellate Court later dismissed the
15 appeal for want of prosecution after Petitioner failed to pay the filing fee or obtain an order
16 of indigency within the required deadline.
17 III. DISCUSSION
18 A. Petitioner’s Habeas Claim
19 Petitioner initiated this habeas petitioner on October 24, 2024, raising the following
20 ground for relief: “Ineffective assistance of counsel—did not file appeal when he said he
21 would.” Dkt. No. 7 at 5. The Magistrate Judge reviewed the record and determined that
22 AEDPA’s one year limitation period began to run on December 9, 2022, and expired on
23 December 11, 2023. Because Petitioner did not file this petition until October 2024, the 1 Magistrate Judge concluded that the petition is untimely. The Magistrate Judge also
2 concluded that Petitioner is not entitled to statutory or equitable tolling; therefore, he
3 recommends that this action be dismissed with prejudice. Petitioner objects to the foregoing
4 recommendation. He does not dispute that his habeas petition is untimely; instead, he argues
5 that he is entitled to equitable tolling because his attorney filed the notice of direct appeal
6 three days late.
7 This Court agrees that Petitioner is not entitled to equitable tolling for his habeas
8 petition. In order to receive equitable tolling, a petitioner must show “‘(1) that he has been
9 pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way’
10 and prevented timely filing.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010) (quoting Pace v.
11 Diguglielmo, 544 U.S. 408 (2005)). Here, Petitioner alleges that the “extraordinary
12 circumstance” in this case is his attorney’s failure to timely file his direct appeal. Petitioner
13 has not demonstrated a causal connection between his attorney’s failure to file a timely direct
14 appeal in state court and Petitioner’s own failure to file a timely habeas petition in federal
15 court. Therefore, Petitioner has not shown that he is entitled to equitable tolling. Randle v.
16 Crawford, 604 F.3d 1047, 1054 (9th Cir. 2010).
17 B. Evidentiary Hearing
18 The decision to hold an evidentiary hearing is committed to the Court’s discretion.
19 Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007). “[A] federal court must consider whether
20 such a hearing could enable an applicant to prove the petition’s factual allegations, which, if
21 true, would entitle the applicant to federal habeas relief.” Id. at 474. “It follows that if the
22 record refutes the applicant’s factual allegations or otherwise precludes habeas relief, a
23 district court is not required to hold an evidentiary hearing.” Id. Because this action is 1 resolvable as time-barred on the existing record, this Court concludes an evidentiary hearing
2 is unnecessary.
3 C. Certificate of Appealability
4 A petitioner seeking post-conviction relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 may appeal a
5 district court’s dismissal of the federal habeas petition only after obtaining a certificate of
6 appealability from a District or Circuit Judge. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c). “A certificate of
7 appealability may issue . . . only if the [petitioner] has made a substantial showing of the
8 denial of a constitutional right.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). A petitioner satisfies this
9 standard “by demonstrating that jurists of reason could disagree with the district court’s
10 resolution of his constitutional claims or that jurists could conclude the issues presented are
11 adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,
12 327 (2003) (citing Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)). No reasonable jurist could
13 disagree with the above evaluation of Petitioner’s claim or conclude that the issue presented
14 in his petition should proceed further. Therefore, Petitioner is not entitled to a certificate of
15 appealability.
16 IV. CONCLUSION
17 Based on the foregoing, this Court concludes that Petitioner’s federal habeas petition
18 is untimely as it was filed more than one year after Petitioner’s judgment of conviction
19 became final and no statutory tolling applies. Nor has Petitioner demonstrated the existence
20 of extraordinary circumstances warranting the application of equitable tolling. Therefore, the
21 petition is barred by the one-year limitations period imposed under 28 U.S.C.
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Hatch v. Warner, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hatch-v-warner-wawd-2025.