Roulo v. Schnell
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:24-cv-04459
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 5
In Roulo v. Schnell, Judge Docherty denied a stay, finding no good cause for Roulo’s unexhausted habeas claims.
Sean William Roulo, whose mixed federal habeas petition was not stayed and who was required to choose how to proceed within 21 days.
What happened
In Roulo v. Schnell, Sean William Roulo challenged his convictions for criminal sexual conduct in a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He acknowledged that he had not presented all of his claims to the Minnesota state courts first.
Roulo asked the court to pause the federal case while he pursued his unexhausted claims in state postconviction proceedings. He argued that dismissing the case or the unexhausted claims could leave him unable to obtain federal review because of filing deadlines and restrictions on later habeas petitions.
Judge John F. Docherty denied Roulo’s request to pause and administratively close the case. The court gave Roulo 21 days to choose between voluntarily dismissing the entire petition or dismissing only the unexhausted claims; otherwise, the court said dismissal of the entire matter without prejudice would be recommended.
The detailed version
- Roulo v. Schnell · No. 0:24-cv-04459
- Eric Tostrud
- Mar. 27, 2025
Background
Sean William Roulo filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his convictions for criminal sexual conduct. He also moved to hold the petition in abeyance and administratively close the case while he returned to Minnesota state court to present claims he had not yet exhausted.
Federal habeas exhaustion generally requires a state prisoner to present available claims to the state courts before seeking federal relief. Roulo acknowledged that he had not exhausted all of his claims. The court therefore treated the petition as a mixed petition—one containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims.
The requested stay
Under the procedure approved in Rhines v. Weber, a federal court may stay a mixed petition while the petitioner pursues state remedies, but only in limited circumstances. The court stated that a stay requires good cause for the failure to exhaust and is improper when the unexhausted claims are plainly meritless.
The court found no good cause for Roulo’s failure to present each claim to the state courts earlier. It noted that Roulo had received extensions during his state direct appeal and had additional time related to seeking review in the United States Supreme Court. The court also noted that nearly the entire federal filing deadline had elapsed before Roulo filed his federal petition, that nearly two more months had passed since the stay request, and that he still had not filed a state postconviction petition. The court further noted that Roulo was no longer a prisoner and had not been one for more than a year.
Ruling and next step
The court denied Roulo’s Motion to Hold Petition in Abeyance and Administratively Close Case. It did not decide the merits of Roulo’s habeas claims.
The court gave Roulo 21 days to choose either to voluntarily dismiss the entire mixed petition or to voluntarily dismiss the claims that had not been fairly presented to the Minnesota courts and continue only with the claims he believed were exhausted. If Roulo chose the second option, the court required him to identify the claims being dismissed. If he did not make a choice within 21 days, the court stated that dismissal of the entire matter without prejudice would be recommended.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.