Conroy v. Thompson, No. 17-3624 (7th Cir. 2019)

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Justia Opinion Summary

In 2004, Conroy was charged with solicitation of murder, solicitation of murder for hire, and attempted first‐degree murder. The court determined that Conroy was fit to stand trial. In 2007, Conroy pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He did not appeal. Conroy received mental health services through the Illinois Department of Corrections and, in 2007, was diagnosed with depressive and schizoaffective disorders. In 2008, Conroy’s evaluations indicated that he was “alert and oriented,” and his “[t]hought processes were logical, coherent and goal-directed.” Conroy “denied any auditory [or] visual hallucinations or delusions.” In 2009, Conroy filed an unsuccessful state court post-conviction petition, arguing that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by coercing him into pleading guilty. In 2014, Conroy filed other unsuccessful state court post-conviction motions. In 2016, Conroy filed a federal court petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254, alleging ineffective assistance. Conroy argued that the limitations period for filing his petition should be equitably tolled because his mental limitations prevented him from understanding his legal rights. The district court determined that Conroy’s mental limitations were not an extraordinary circumstance and that he failed to show that he had been reasonably diligent in pursuing his claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting evidence of Conroy’s competency in prior years. Conroy did not meet the “high bar” for equitable tolling.

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In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 17 3624 BILL CONROY, Petitioner Appellant, v. SCOTT THOMPSON, Respondent Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 3:16 cv 00338 — David R. Herndon, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED FEBRUARY 21, 2019 — DECIDED JULY 11, 2019 ____________________ Before EASTERBROOK, SYKES, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges. BARRETT, Circuit Judge. Bill Conroy filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2016 to challenge an Illinois state court conviction from 2007. Although he admitted that he had not filed his petition within the one year limitations period, he claimed that his mental condition justified equitable toll ing. The district court disagreed, concluding both that his pe tition was untimely and that he had not met the high bar nec essary to establish equitable tolling. We agree and affirm. 2 No. 17 3624 I. In 2004, Bill Conroy was indicted in Illinois state court for solicitation of murder, solicitation of murder for hire, and at tempted first degree murder. Before trial, the state court held a hearing to determine his competency to stand trial. After hearing from two state experts and one defense expert, the court determined that Conroy was fit to stand trial. On May 8, 2007, Conroy pleaded guilty and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He did not appeal. Later in 2007, Conroy received mental health services through the Illinois Department of Corrections and was diag nosed with depressive and schizoaffective disorders. In 2008, however, Conroy’s mental evaluations indicated that he was “alert and oriented,” that his “[t]hought processes were logi cal, coherent and goal directed,” and that his “[i]nsight and judgment were fair.” His psychiatrist also noted in one 2008 report that Conroy “denied any auditory [or] visual halluci nations or delusions.” In 2009, Conroy filed a postconviction petition in state court arguing, among other things, that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by not investigating his case and by co ercing him into pleading guilty. The state trial court rejected Conroy’s arguments, and the state appellate court affirmed. In 2014, Conroy filed several other postconviction motions in state court, which were denied. Throughout this time, Conroy unsuccessfully sought help with his legal issues from the prison library staff. He also says that because he had no money, he was unable to hire “prison lawyers” to help him. In 2016, Conroy filed a pro se petition in federal court un der 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which permits persons in state custody No. 17 3624 3 to apply for habeas relief on the ground that their custody vi olates the Constitution or laws of the United States. Because Conroy named the wrong respondent, however, the district court dismissed his petition without prejudice and appointed a federal public defender to help him amend it. In the amended petition, Conroy alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective in arguing that he was not fit to stand trial. Conroy also argued that the timing for filing his petition should be equitably tolled because his mental limitations prevented him from understanding his legal rights from 2008 until he filed his petition in 2016. The state nevertheless moved to dismiss the petition as un timely and argued that Conroy was not entitled to equitable tolling. The district court agreed. It determined that Conroy’s mental limitations were not an extraordinary circumstance and that he had failed to show that he had been reasonably diligent in pursing his claim throughout the limitations pe riod. So there was no basis for equitably tolling the time for filing the petition. The court also denied Conroy a certificate of appealability. Conroy sought a certificate of appealability, and we granted it on two questions: (1) whether Conroy is entitled to equitable tolling, and (2) “whether trial counsel was ineffec tive for not arguing that the state psychologist’s evaluation revealed” that Conroy was unfit to stand trial. Because we agree with the district court that Conroy’s untimely petition is not entitled to equitable tolling, we need only address the former. 4 No. 17 3624 II. The government initially argued that Conroy’s amended petition constituted a second or successive petition because the district court dismissed his first petition without prejudice for failing to name the correct respondent. If that were true, it would have required Conroy to get our permission before fil ing with the district court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3). But as the government correctly acknowledged before oral argu ment, when a district court dismisses a petition without prej udice because of a technical or procedural deficiency, the cured second petition counts as the first. See Pavlovsky v. Van Natta, 431 F.3d 1063, 1064 (7th Cir. 2005). Conroy’s petition, therefore, is not a second or successive petition, and his ap peal is properly before us. We next consider the timeliness of Conroy’s § 2254 peti tion. We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s de cision concluding that Conroy’s untimely petition was not en titled to equitable tolling, see Lombardo v. United States, 860 F.3d 547, 551 (7th Cir. 2017), and we see none here. A state prisoner generally has only one year from the date that his conviction becomes final to seek federal habeas cor pus relief. § 2244(d)(1)(A). Conroy’s conviction became final on June 7, 2007, so the limitations period for filing a habeas petition expired on June 7, 2008. Conroy didn’t file his habeas petition until 2016. Although Conroy admits that he did not meet the one year time bar, he argues that mental limita tions—that he is illiterate, has emotional issues, and was di agnosed with schizoaffective disorder—entitle him to equita ble tolling. No. 17 3624 5 A petitioner is entitled to equitable tolling only if he can show both that extraordinary circumstances prevented him from timely filing and that he has been diligently pursuing his rights. Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 649 (2010). We have re peatedly emphasized that such tolling is rare—reserved for those circumstances “far beyond the litigant’s control.” Socha v. Boughton, 763 F.3d 674, 684 (7th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Mental incompetency may constitute an extraordinary cir cumstance that justifies equitable tolling, but “only if the ill ness in fact prevents the sufferer from managing his affairs and thus from understanding his legal rights and acting upon them.” Miller v. Runyon, 77 F.3d 189, 191 (7th Cir. 1996). We’ve said that this means that the petitioner must provide evidence establishing that his mental issues “actually impaired his abil ity to pursue his claims” throughout the limitations period. See Mayberry v. Dittmann, 904 F.3d 525, 531 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Obriecht v. Foster, 727 F.3d 744, 751 (7th Cir. 2013)); see also Davis v. Humphreys, 747 F.3d 497, 500 (7th Cir. 2014) (explaining that the petitioner must show “[s]omething more than but for causation”). Conroy’s evidence falls far short of this standard. We must note first that Conroy was found competent to stand trial by the Illinois state court in 2006. And he has not provided evi dence establishing that his mental issues drastically deterio rated after that presumptively correct finding. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e). In fact, the record reveals that the opposite is true. Take the fact that, in 2008, Conroy’s psychiatrist found that his “[t]hought processes were logical, coherent and goal directed” and that his “[i]nsight and judgment were fair.” This determination casts serious doubt on Conroy’s assertion 6 No. 17 3624 that he had the kind of mental deficiency that would consti tute an extraordinary circumstance. Moreover, Conroy filed both a post conviction petition and a request for counsel with the state court in 2009, and he filed several additional motions with the state court in 2014. These filings show that Conroy had the capacity to engage in the legal process. See Obriecht, 727 F.3d at 751 (concluding that the petitioner failed to estab lish a basis for equitable tolling when he “filed direct and col lateral appeals in state court between 2003 and June 2005, the period during which he asserts that his mental health pre vented him from seeking state review of his claims in this case”). Finally, most damning of all, Conroy originally at tributed his failure to timely file his habeas petition not to mental limitation, but to the fact that he “was unaware of time limits.” See Davis, 747 F.3d at 500 (“[P]risoners’ shortcomings of knowledge about the AEDPA or the law of criminal proce dure in general do not support tolling.”). Given these facts, the district court was well within its dis cretion to conclude that Conroy failed to prove that extraor dinary circumstances prevented him from timely filing. See Mayberry, 904 F.3d at 531 (“[A]lthough [the petitioner’s] men tal limitations undoubtedly made filing a petition for habeas corpus difficult, the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that he failed to show how those difficulties affected him during the relevant time period to such an extent that he qualifies for the extraordinary remedy of equitable tolling.”). We thus need not consider whether he diligently pursued his rights. We AFFIRM the district court’s judgment concluding that Conroy’s untimely petition did not warrant equitable tolling.
Primary Holding

Petitioner, diagnosed with mental disorders while in prison, did not establish extraordinary circumstances that would support equitable tolling of the limitations period for his federal habeas petition.


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