Allwine v. Bolin
- John Tunheim
- 0:24-cv-00439
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate.
In Allwine v. Bolin, Judge Tunheim denied a prisoner's request to pause his federal petition while returning to state court, because his petition was not a mixed exhausted/unexhausted petition.
State prisoners who have filed federal habeas petitions and whose claims were found procedurally defaulted in state court, rather than merely unexhausted, may not use the stay-and-abeyance procedure to return to state court.
What happened
In Allwine v. Bolin, Stephen Allwine is serving a life sentence after a state court conviction for first-degree premeditated murder. He filed a federal petition seeking relief from his conviction by arguing violations of his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The court had already denied that petition, finding that several of his claims were procedurally defaulted in state court and that the remaining claims lacked merit.
Allwine then asked the court to use a legal procedure — known as "stay and abeyance" — that allows a federal court to pause a case while a petitioner goes back to state court to complete steps they skipped. This procedure is available when a petition mixes claims that have been fully pursued through state courts ("exhausted") with claims that have not ("unexhausted"). It exists to protect prisoners from losing their right to federal review because of a strict one-year filing deadline.
Judge Tunheim denied the motion. The court explained that Allwine's petition was not a "mixed petition" eligible for stay and abeyance. His petition's claims that were not properly raised in state court were procedurally defaulted — not merely unexhausted — and other claims failed to allege any violation of federal law. Because the legal procedure Allwine sought applies only to mixed petitions, it had no application here, and the motion was denied.
The detailed version
- Allwine v. Bolin · No. 0:24-cv-00439
- John Tunheim
- Aug. 7, 2026
Background
Stephen Allwine is serving a life sentence following a state court conviction for first-degree premeditated murder. He filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus — a legal request asking a federal court to review whether a person's imprisonment violates federal law or the Constitution — on February 12, 2024, claiming violations of his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The court previously denied Allwine's habeas petition on July 15, 2026, finding that several of his alleged grounds for relief were procedurally defaulted in state court (meaning he had failed to properly raise them through the required state court procedures, and could no longer do so) and that the remaining grounds lacked merit. See Allwine v. Bolin, Civ. No. 24-439, 2026 WL 2042776 (D. Minn. July 15, 2026). Judgment was entered by the Clerk of Court on July 17, 2026.
The Motion
On July 20, 2026 — apparently mailed on July 15, 2026, the same day the court denied his petition — the court received Allwine's Motion for Stay and Abeyance. Allwine asked the court to invoke the "stay and abeyance" procedure recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005).
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A), a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner unless the prisoner has exhausted — fully pursued — available remedies in the state courts. Federal courts generally may not adjudicate habeas petitions that mix exhausted and unexhausted claims. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 273–74. The stay-and-abeyance procedure allows a federal court to pause ("stay") a case and hold it in abeyance while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust previously unexhausted claims. This protects petitioners from losing the opportunity for federal review due to the one-year statute of limitations under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). However, the procedure is available only when: (1) the petitioner had good cause for failing to exhaust; (2) the unexhausted claims are potentially meritorious; and (3) there is no indication of intentionally dilatory tactics. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 278.
Ruling
Judge Tunheim denied the motion. The court's reasoning was straightforward: Allwine's habeas petition was not a "mixed petition" consisting of both exhausted and unexhausted claims — the prerequisite for using the Rhines stay-and-abeyance procedure. Instead, the claims that had not been properly raised in state court were procedurally defaulted (a distinct legal status meaning the opportunity to raise them in state court had been forfeited), and other claims failed to allege any violation of federal law at all. Because the Rhines procedure applies only to mixed petitions containing genuinely unexhausted — not defaulted — claims, it was inapplicable here.
Allwine is a pro se petitioner (representing himself without an attorney). The respondent, Warden William Bolin of MCF Stillwater, is represented by attorneys from the Minnesota Attorney General's Office and the Washington County Attorney's Office.
Disposition
Allwine's Motion for Stay and Abeyance (Docket No. 102) was denied.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.