Ireturned to the Federal Court in another Habeas Corpus Petition at #CA-95-1779. This was assigned to U.S Magistrate Arnold C. Rapoport, on August 2nd, 1995. Judge Rapoport issued a report and recommendation concluding that: “It is not subject to federal review at this time. The petitioner has two choices: he may either withdraw the unexhausted claims, with the understanding that he will not be able to seek habeas review later, or present those claims to the State Court for review and then refile his petition”. By order entered July 18th, 1996, Judge Green adopted and approved the report and recommendation and dismissed the petition for failure to exhaust state remedies. I filed a notice of appeal, and by order dated April 15th, 1997, the third circuit court of appeals declined to grant a certificate of appeal ability. O’neill v. Love et al,. No. 96-1869.

       On May 6th, 1997, I returned to the state court again and filed a Post-Conviction Relief Act petition (PCRA). This was dismissed on June 25th, 1998 as untimely due to newly enacted laws that required a time frame on pursuing justice. Effective January 16th, 1996, the P.C.R.A 42 Pa. C.S.A. 9542 et seq., has been substantially amended, generally making it more difficult to obtain post-conviction relief. The only defendants who file petitions on or after that date who will have benefit of the prior version of the P.C.R.A. will be those whose judgment is final before the effective date of January 16th, 1996, and who file a first P.C.R.A. petition within one year. For defendants in that situation, it is very important that the first P.C.R.A petition be filed by January 16th, 1997. Unaware of this law, I filed May 6th, 1997, directly after the federal habeas review. The Superior Court affirmed the dismissal at Commonwealth v. O’Neill, 737 A.2d 1277, on March 11th, 1999. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Discretionary Review on July 7th, 1999.

      On July 26th, 1999, I refiled my petition for habeas corpus relief. O’Neill v. Frank et al,. No. 99-3762, the petition was again returned to Magistrate Rapoport for a report and recommendation. I filed a motion to amend based on newly discovered evidence (Lawrence’s statement). On February 22nd, 2000, Magistrate Rapoport recommended the habeas petition be dismissed as time-barred because it was filed more than the one year federal statute of limitations which was not tolled by any properly filed state legislation. In 1996, congress enacted a new law, “anti-terrorism and effective Death Penalty Act” which limited all appeals to begin within one year. This was done ostensible to stop endless appeals of death row inmates and terrorist, but affected all Americans who ever thought of appealing decisions. In 1996 the Federal Court dismissed my Habeas Corpus ordering me back to the State Court and then I could return and raise my claims and not until then. Although I did as directed, I am now being denied access to the courts. The Federal Judge adopted the report and recommendation of Magistrate on May 23rd, 2000. I appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeal but they declined to grant a certificate of appeal ability on February 12th, 2001. I filed for a rehearing, asking for a full Judge panel, O’Neill v. Frank et al,. No. 00-1739 on June 7th, 2001. At the time I filed a civil action No. 99-3962, I had already filed three prior Habeas Corpus petitions, all of which were dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies.                                              

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