Sammy Jay Riddle v. Bobby Lumpkin, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division

Most criminal defendants plead guilty. Many who do so in Texas receive deferred adjudication probation. The court enters an order deferring a finding of guilt and placing the defendant on probation. If he successfully completes the probation, he avoids a conviction, sentence, and judgment; and the case is dismissed. The deferred adjudication order is not a judgment of conviction and sentence. When a person who has been on deferred adjudication files a federal habeas corpus petition challenging his guilty plea, the Fifth Circuit calculates the AEDPA statute of limitations from the finality of the deferred adjudication order, not from the finality of the judgment after adjudication of guilt and sentencing. But most defendants have no reason to challenge a guilty plea until after the adjudication of guilt, and that usually occurs long after the deferred adjudication order becomes final. Thus, most defendants never receive federal review of the constitutionality of their guilty pleas. The Fifth Circuit rule is out of line with how this Court and most federal courts define “judgment” in the context of the AEDPA statute of limitations. Petitioner asks this Court to decide the following issue: Whether the Court should apply the rule in Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147 (2007)—that a final judgment in a criminal case means the sentence—and hold that the federal habeas