Opinion ID: 2977383
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Conviction History

Text: Connolly appealed his conviction to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which denied Connolly’s appeal, and on August 30, 1996, the Michigan Supreme Court denied his application for leave to appeal. Connolly did not seek to appeal to the United States Supreme Court, and the ninety-day appeal period to do so expired on November 28, 1996. On April 2, 1997, Connolly filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Western District of Michigan. On January 6, 1998, the district court dismissed Connolly’s petition for failure to exhaust. Connolly finally filed a motion for collateral relief in Kent County Circuit Court on October 2, 2002, a motion that the circuit court denied on 2 Apparently, another judge was expected to preside over the trial itself. Appellant’s Br. at 12-13 n.4. 5 No. 04-2075 October 14, 2002. The Michigan Supreme Court denied him leave to appeal the denial of collateral relief on October 31, 2003. Beginning shortly after he was sentenced, Connolly tried on several occasions to obtain a transcript from the April 12, 1994 hearing at which Benner stated her belief that he was innocent. Connolly was repeatedly informed, first by court reporters and then by Judge Kolenda, that because there was no record on the docket sheet of the April 12 hearing, the hearing must not have taken place. By order dated May 25, 2000, Judge Kolenda acknowledged that the hearing did in fact take place and that a transcript was available. Connolly filed this petition for habeas relief in the Western District of Michigan on April 8, 2004. In his petition, Connolly raised four claims: (1) that his plea was not made knowingly, because it was induced by fraud and coercion; (2) that Karpowicz falsified information to secure a warrant; (3) that he received ineffective assistance of counsel; and (4) that the ineffective assistance of counsel “causing a due process violation due to missing transcripts.” (J.A. at 10-11) On August 5, 2004, the district court dismissed Connolly’s habeas petition as time-barred and denied Connolly a certificate of appealability. On August 3, 2005, this Court granted a rehearing and a certificate of appealability with respect to the limited question of whether the statute of limitations was equitably tolled in Connolly’s case due to his actual innocence.