Robert Travis Jenkins v. Dan Schnurr

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of Kansas considers Robert Travis Jenkins’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition challenging a Kansas aggravated-robbery conviction. The court concludes that the petition was filed outside the one-year AEDPA limitations period and that Jenkins has not established entitlement to equitable tolling or the actual-innocence exception. The matter is therefore dismissed as untimely.

Holdings

1. The § 2254 petition was untimely because the one-year AEDPA limitations period ran from October 8, 2019 through October 8, 2020, while Jenkins did not file his federal petition until April 2025.
2. Jenkins was not entitled to equitable tolling because he did not demonstrate that extraordinary circumstances beyond his control caused his untimely filing while he diligently pursued his federal claims.
3. Jenkins failed to satisfy the actual-innocence gateway because he presented no new reliable evidence and offered only descriptions, speculation, and conjecture concerning evidence that might exist.
4. A certificate of appealability was denied because reasonable jurists would not debate the court's procedural ruling and Jenkins did not make the required substantial showing.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Jenkins's § 2254 petition was filed within AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations.
2. Whether Jenkins was entitled to statutory tolling under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).
3. Whether extraordinary circumstances and diligent pursuit warranted equitable tolling of the AEDPA limitations period.
4. Whether Jenkins's allegations and purported new evidence satisfied the actual-innocence exception to the AEDPA statute of limitations.
5. Whether Jenkins was entitled to a certificate of appealability.

Disposition

dismissed