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[08-22-08 15:44:46] PAGES PGT: OPIN

EVANS v. CHAVIS Opinion of the Court

to be untimely,” post, at 205 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)) is not consistent with Saffold. See supra, at 194. Neither do the cases cited by the Ninth Circuit provide it with the necessary legal support. The Circuit’s opinion in Saffold (written on remand from this Court) said nothing about the signiﬁcance of the words “on the merits.” Saffold v. Carey, 312 F. 3d 1031 (2002). Hunter v. Aispuro, 982 F. 2d 344 (CA9 1992), predated AEDPA, not to mention our deci­ sion in Saffold, and in any event concerned an entirely differ­ ent issue of federal habeas corpus law. Delhomme v. Rami­ rez, 340 F. 3d 817 (CA9 2003), addressed the timeliness issue in one sentence in a footnote, id., at 820, n. 2, and did not discuss at any length our opinion in Saffold, which must con­ trol the result here. In the absence of (1) clear direction or explanation from the California Supreme Court about the meaning of the term “reasonable time” in the present context, or (2) clear indica­ tion that a particular request for appellate review was timely or untimely, the Circuit must itself examine the delay in each case and determine what the state courts would have held in respect to timeliness. That is to say, without using a merits determination as an “absolute bellwether” (as to timeliness), the federal court must decide whether the ﬁling of the re­ quest for state-court appellate review (in state collateral re­ view proceedings) was made within what California would consider a “reasonable time.” See supra, at 193. This is what we believe we asked the Circuit to do in Saffold. This is what we believe it should have done. B The discrepancy between the Ninth Circuit’s view of the matter and ours may reﬂect an administrative problem. The Ninth Circuit each year must hear several hundred peti­ tions by California prisoners seeking federal habeas relief.