Bowie v. Lee

Background

Patrick Bowie, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a federal petition challenging his conviction. In an April 20, 2020 letter, he asked for permission to file newly discovered documents and evidence concerning the petition, and the court gave him until May 21, 2020, to do so. Bowie did not file the evidence. Instead, in a May 6 letter, he said he had filed the additional evidence with the trial court and was awaiting its decision. He asked the federal court to hold or withdraw his April 20 request.

The court treated the May 6 letter as a request for another stay of the federal habeas proceedings or, alternatively, as a request to withdraw the April 20 request. The court noted that it had already granted Bowie a roughly four-and-a-half-year stay, from March 21, 2014, through November 30, 2018, to allow him to exhaust claims that had not been exhausted when he filed the petition.

Court’s reasoning

The court explained that federal courts ordinarily may stay habeas cases, but that this authority is limited by the federal habeas statute known as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Rhines v. Weber, the court said stays should not be used to delay federal review indefinitely. A reasonable stay may be appropriate when the petitioner shows good cause for not exhausting claims, potentially meritorious unexhausted claims, and no effort to delay the litigation.

The court found that Bowie’s request was the type of delay that those limits are intended to prevent. Bowie had referred to new or newly discovered evidence during the earlier stay, and the court had previously ruled that an unexplained reference to new evidence was not enough to justify another stay. The court also stated that Bowie’s claims appeared to have been exhausted through later state-court proceedings and that the habeas petition was ready for consideration. Although the court had allowed Bowie to file the new documents, he did not do so.

Ruling

Judge Paul E. Davison denied the request for a further stay. The court granted the request to withdraw the April 20 request insofar as that request sought to submit additional documents and evidence. The court deemed the matter fully submitted. This order did not decide the underlying habeas claims.

Disposition

- Request for a further stay: DENIED. - Request to withdraw the April 20 request to submit additional documents and evidence: GRANTED, to that extent. - Matter: Deemed fully submitted.