Winters v. Taskila, No. 21-2615 (6th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this Case
In this case, Da’Rell Winters, a convicted petitioner, sought to appeal the district court's denial of his habeas relief application. However, due to the delayed receipt of the district court's decision, he did not file his appeal in time. When he finally filed the appeal notice, he explained his delay but did not formally request to reopen the appeal period. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that his explanation was sufficient for the district court to consider his appeal notice as a motion to reopen, thus deeming his appeal timely.
The case's facts reveal that in 2014, Winters was convicted for armed robbery. After exhausting his appeals in Michigan state courts, he applied for habeas relief in a federal court in 2018. He represented himself and raised various claims, including insufficiency of evidence and errors in jury instructions and sentencing.
The federal district court denied Winters's habeas application and a certificate of appealability on March 10, 2021. Due to a mailing error, Winters received the court's decision only on May 18, 2021. He filed a notice of appeal on June 1, 2021, which was after the 30-day deadline for filing an appeal. The Sixth Circuit dismissed his appeal as untimely.
Winters later moved the district court to reopen the appeal period, which the court granted. It retroactively construed his June 1 notice of appeal as a motion to reopen, making his appeal timely. The Sixth Circuit agreed with this interpretation, concluding that Winters's appeal was timely and directing the Clerk's Office to set a briefing schedule for considering whether to grant a certificate of appealability in this appeal.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.