De Jesus v. Acevedo

EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge.

Hector de Jesus, who in 1991 was convicted of murder, contends that a federal collateral attack in 2007 is timely because a state court accepted, and rejected on the merits, a collateral attack he filed in 2000. Yet the time to file for federal relief expired in April 1997 (one year after the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act became law). A state court’s later refusal to upset a conviction does not open a new window for federal collateral review.

That the time for federal review expired in April 1997 is common ground among the parties. If de Jesus had filed…