Dodd v. United States
Dodd was convicted by jury of engaging in a continuing criminal conspiracy (CCE), in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841. His conviction was confirmed on direct appeal in 1997. In 2001, Dodd filed a petition for habeas corpus. He argued that his Sixth Amendment and due process rights were violated because the jury was not instructed that, to find him guilty of the CCE count, it had to find him guilty of each constituent violation by a unanimous vote. Dodd's petition was based on the Richardson case decided in the Supreme Court in 1999, which the Court made applicable retroactively (to cases decided before 1999) in 2002. The government argued that Dodd should have filed his petition within one year of the Richardson opinion. Dodd argued that his petition need not have been filed until one year after the Court clarified that Richardson applied retroactively. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of Dodd's petition as untimely filed, holding that the statute of limitations for filing the petition begins running on the date the Supreme Court initially recognizes a new right, not on the date that it is made retroactively applicable.
Question Presented:
Does the one-year limitations period in 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ¶ 6(3) begin to run (i) when either the Court or the controlling circuit court has held that the
relevant right applies retroactively to cases on collateral review (as the Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits hold), or instead (ii) when the Court recognizes a new right, whether or
not it is made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review (as the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits hold, and the Second and Eighth Circuits have stated in dicta)?
