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Foster v. Workman, 10th Cir. (2006)
Foster v. Workman, 10th Cir. (2006)
Foster v. Workman, 10th Cir. (2006)
ROLAND D. FOSTER,
Petitioner - A ppellant,
No. 06-6148
(D.C. No. 05-CV01443-C )
(W .D. Okla.)
v.
RANDALL G. W ORKM AN, W arden,
Respondent - Appellee.
ORDER
DENYING CERTIFICATE O F APPEALABILITY
the period between June 25, 2002 and the date on which he filed his grievance.
Id. The warden denied M r. Fosters grievance, explaining that M r. Tomlinson,
the administrator of OCI, has made the determination that he does not want to
rehire you at this time . . . . Id.
On December 13, 2005, M r. Foster filed his federal habeas petition. R.
Doc. 1. In it, he asserts that he is being denied the early release Ekstrand credits
he is entitled to. See id. He further alleges that he is not receiving a right
granted to others and therefore is being discriminated against, and that both the
administrator of OCI and the W arden failed to follow established policies and
procedures in his case. See id. He raises similar claims on appeal, and also
argues that delays in filing his petition were due to no fault of his own.
On M arch 17, 2006, the assigned magistrate judge recommended that M r.
Fosters action be time-barred by the one-year limitations period contained within
Oklahomas earned credit statute operated in an unconstitutional ex post facto
manner as applied to prisoners who had been sentenced prior to the amendments
effective date. Id. at 95. As a result, an ODOC policy provides that, [a]n inmate
is entitled to earned credit as it existed under the law during the period beginning
September 8, 1976, and ending October 31, 1988, on sentences in which the crime
was committed prior to November 1, 1988 if the inmate would earn more credit
under the old earned [credit] system than under the class level system [adopted in
1988] . . . . See Okla. Dept of Corr., Policy and Operations M anual 6 (2004),
available at http://www.doc.state.ok.us/Offtech/op060211.htm. Pursuant to the
credit system in place at the time M r. Foster was sentenced, an inmate w as to earn
two days deduction from his sentence for each day in which he was assigned to
Oklahoma State Industries (now OCI), private prison industries, agricultural
production, or vo-tech training. See id. It is these deductions that M r. Foster
apparently sought in his filed grievance and that he now seeks in his habeas
petition.
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F.3d 1265, 1268 (10th Cir. 2006). In this case, the limitations period for M r.
Fosters petition began to run on 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).
At the very latest, M r. Foster became aware that he would not be reinstated
to his prison job at OCI, and therefore would not be receiving the 2 for 1 early
release credits attached to an OCI job, on October 2, 2002, when the warden
denied his original request for reinstatement. M r. Foster therefore had until
October 2, 2003 to file his 2241 petition. He did not file his 2241 petition,
however, until December 13, 2005, well past the deadline.
M r. Foster argues that the delay in filing his habeas petition was through no
fault of his own because various state officials refused to answer his requests.
This argument is unavailing, however, because the evidence clearly demonstrates
that M r. Fosters various requests for reinstatement to an OCI job and his
grievance were timely rejected by ODOC staff.
M r. Foster also argues that he was first required to exhaust administrative
remedies before filing his habeas petition and that he did not finish doing so until
until he received the final administrative appeal decision on August 2, 2005. H e
argues the limitation period only began running on that date. W hile M r. Foster is
quite correct that we have previously held that 2244(d)(1)(D)s one-year
limitation period does not commence until the decision rejecting [an inmates]
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