Opinion
Case Number: 00-10431
March 14, 2002
OPINION AND ORDER DENYING PETITIONER'S MOTION TO MAKE ADDITIONAL FINDINGS AND AMEND JUDGMENT
Petitioner Corey L. Crews, a state inmate currently incarcerated at the Saginaw Correctional Facility in Freeland, Michigan, filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus. On August 2, 2001, the Court issued an Opinion and Order Granting Respondent's Motion for Summary Judgment. Now before the Court is The petitioner's Motion to Make Additional Findings and Amend Judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies the motion.
I.
Motions to alter or amend judgments, filed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e), are "entrusted to the court's sound discretion." Keweenaw Bay Indian Community v. United States, 940 F. Supp. 1139, 1140 (W.D. Mich. 1996) ( citing Huff v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 675 F.2d 119, 122 (6th Cir. 1982)). Rule 59(e) motions are generally granted:
(1) because of an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) because evidence not previously available has become available; or (3) necessity to correct a clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice.Nagle Indus., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 175 F.R.D. 251, 254 (E.D. Mich. 1997) (citing Keweenaw Bay, 940 F. Supp. at 1141). "Such motions, however, are `not intended as a vehicle to relitigate previously considered issues;' `should not be utilized to submit evidence which could have been previously submitted in the exercise of reasonable diligence' and are not the proper vehicle to attempt to obtain a reversal of a judgment `by offering the same arguments previously presented.'" Id. (quoting Keweenaw Bay, 904 F. Supp. at 1141).
The petitioner argues that the Court's order dismissing his petition as untimely should be amended because he is entitled to equitable tolling of the limitations period based upon the following circumstances: (i) he had no actual or constructive knowledge of the one-year limitations period; (ii) he was diligent in attempting to comply with the one-year limitations period; (iii) his confinement in the administrative segregation unit denied him access to legal materials and legal assistance, thereby preventing him from timely filing appeals in state court; (iv) the state will not suffer prejudice if the limitations period is equitably tolled; and (v) barring the petition as untimely would result in a manifest injustice where the petitioner is "likely innocent" of the charged offense.
None of the arguments set forth by the petitioner satisfies the standards under which Rule 59(e) motions may be granted. The petitioner does not argue that an intervening change in the law requires that the Court amend its judgment, nor does he argue that the Court committed a clear error of law which must be remedied. The petitioner's arguments also do not satisfy the only remaining prong under which Rule 59(e) relief may be granted, that evidence not previously available suddenly has become available. All of the petitioner's arguments and the related facts in support thereof were available to him at the time he filed his response to the motion for summary judgment.
Thus, the petitioner has failed to show entitlement to relief under Rule 59(e).
II.
Moreover, to the extent that the arguments asserted by the petitioner in his motion were not previously available to him, he still has not shown that his circumstances warrant equitable tolling of the limitations period. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has identified the following five factors to be considered in determining the appropriateness of equitably tolling a statute of limitations: (1) the petitioner's lack of notice of the filing requirement; (2) the petitioner's lack of constructive knowledge of the filing requirement; (3) diligence in pursuing one's rights; (4) absence of prejudice to the respondent; and (5) the petitioner's reasonableness in remaining ignorant of the legal requirement for filing his claim. Dunlap v. United States, 250 F.3d 1001, 1008 (6th Cir. 2001).
First, a petitioner's ignorance of the limitations period does not warrant equitable tolling. See Rose v. Dole, 945 F.2d 1331, 1335 (6th Cir. 1991) (holding that ignorance of the law is insufficient to warrant equitable tolling); Sperling v. White, 30 F. Supp.2d 1246, 1254 (C.D. Cal. 1998) (collecting cases establishing that ignorance of the law, illiteracy, and lack of legal assistance do not justify equitable tolling).
Second, the petitioner's claim that he was denied access to legal materials while in administrative segregation is unpersuasive. The petitioner claims that the denial of access to legal materials prevented him from filing his motion for relief from judgment sooner and therefore prevented him from timely filing his habeas corpus petition. However, at the time he filed his motion for relief from judgment, sixty-seven days remained in the AEDPA's one-year limitations period. That limitations period was tolled during the pendency of the petitioner's motion for relief from judgment. The one-year limitations period resumed running on January 31, 2000, when the Michigan Supreme Court denied the petitioner's application for leave to appeal and the petitioner, therefore, had no properly filed application for collateral review pending in state court. Thus, to be timely, the petitioner had to file his petition by April 7, 2000. The petitioner, however, did not file his petition until October 3, 2000. The petitioner does not claim that he was in administrative segregation during that sixty-seven-day period when he could have timely filed his petition. Thus, because the petitioner had over two months when he was not housed in administrative segregation to timely file his habeas corpus petition, the Court concludes that his confinement in administrative segregation did not prevent him from complying with the one-year limitations period. See Hisbullahankhamon v. Walker, 105 F. Supp.2d 339, 344 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (declining to equitably toll limitations period where prisoner claimed to have been prevented from timely filing petition because he had been placed in solitary confinement on the ground that the prisoner had not exercised diligence in waiting over 250 days while he was not in solitary confinement to file his first collateral attack). See also Miller v. Marr, 141 F.3d 976, 978 (10th Cir. 1998) (prisoner who claimed to have filed habeas corpus petition outside the one-year limitations period because he was housed in an out-of-state facility without access to legal materials was not entitled to equitable tolling where he failed to pursue his federal claims during the time period he was confined at an in-state facility with adequate legal materials). Moreover, although the petitioner claims that he was denied access to legal materials while in administrative segregation, the grievance form attached to the petitioner's motion indicates that he was provided access to legal materials.
In addition, the petitioner's failure to file his habeas corpus petition within the sixty-seven days that remained of the one-year limitations period after the Michigan Supreme Court denied his application for leave to appeal the denial of his motion for relief from judgment evidences a failure to diligently pursue his rights.
Finally, the petitioner claims that he could provide evidence to demonstrate a substantial probability that he is innocent of murder. In Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995), the United States Supreme Court articulated the standard applicable to claims of actual innocence that are accompanied by claims of constitutional violations. To make a showing of actual innocence, "a petition must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. at 327. The Court further explained this standard as follows:
The . . . standard is intended to focus the inquiry on actual innocence. In assessing the adequacy of petitioner's showing, therefore, the district court is not bound by the rules of admissibility that would govern at trial. Instead, the emphasis on "actual innocence" allows the reviewing tribunal to consider the probative force of relevant evidence that was either excluded or unavailable at trial. . . . The habeas court must make its determination concerning the petitioner's innocence in light of all the evidence, including . . . evidence tenably claimed to have been wrongly excluded or to have become available only after trial.
. . . .
. . . [A]ctual innocence does not merely require a showing that a reasonable doubt exists in the light of the new evidence, but rather that no reasonable juror would have found the defendant guilty. It is not the district court's independent judgment as to whether reasonable doubt exists that the standard addresses; rather the standard requires the district court to make a probabilistic determination about what reasonable, properly instructed jurors would do. Thus, a petitioner does not meet the threshold requirement unless he persuades the district court that, in light of the new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.Id. (internal quotation omitted).
The petitioner does not present a credible claim of actual innocence. The only support he presents for this claim is his own affidavit in which he states that Derrick McDowell, whom he met in the Genesee County Jail, told him that he and his wife were acquaintances of Stefon Felton, who confessed to Mr. and Mrs. McDowell that he had committed the murder for which the petitioner was incarcerated. This self-serving affidavit, without more, is insufficient to establish that no judge or jury, acting reasonably, would have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Thus, because the petitioner has failed to show that he was entitled to equitable tolling of the limitations period, he has failed to establish that this Court's holding that his petition was untimely was an error of law or worked a manifest injustice.
III.
Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the petitioner's Motion to Make Additional Findings and Amend Judgment [dkt #15] is DENIED.