NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 17a0628n.06
No. 17-5696
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Nov 13, 2017
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk
JUNIOR ALDRIDGE, )
)
Petitioner-Appellant, )
)
v. )
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
)
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
SHAWN PHILLIPS, Warden, )
WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
)
Respondent-Appellee. )
)
)
BEFORE: DAUGHTREY, MOORE, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.
MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Junior Aldridge was
convicted in Tennessee state court of first-degree murder and especially aggravated robbery and
was sentenced to concurrent prison terms of life and 40 years, respectively. His efforts to
overturn those convictions and sentences in state court were unsuccessful, leading him to file a
28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. Aldridge now
concedes that he failed to file his habeas corpus petition within the statutorily mandated one-year
statute-of-limitations period. Nevertheless, he argues that the district court erred in dismissing
that petition as untimely because evidence that was not introduced at his trial would establish his
actual innocence of the charges against him and thus serve to toll the applicable statute of
limitations. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the district court.
No. 17-5696, Aldridge v. Phillips
Limitations Period for Filing of Habeas Corpus Petition
Pursuant to the explicit language of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A):
A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas
corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. The
limitation period shall run from . . . the date on which the judgment became final
by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such
review.
That one-year limitations period can be extended, however. In fact, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2)
states, “The time during which a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other
collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending shall not be counted
toward any period of limitation under this subsection.”
Following Aldridge’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his convictions on direct review, he
did in fact pursue avenues for post-conviction relief. Even discounting the time taken to resolve
those collateral challenges, however, he still failed to file his habeas corpus petition within the
statutorily mandated time period, a fact that Aldridge now concedes. Citing McQuiggin v.
Perkins, 133 S. Ct. 1924 (2013), Aldridge nevertheless contends “that actual innocence, if
proved, serves as a gateway through which a petitioner may pass” in order to avoid the
impediment placed in his way by the expiration of a statute of limitations. Id. at 1928.
Both the United States Supreme Court and this court have emphasized that the actual-
innocence gateway is extremely narrow. See, e.g., Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 321 (1995);
Souter v. Jones, 395 F.3d 577, 590 (6th Cir. 2005). Indeed, it is not enough that a petitioner
shows that a reasonable doubt exists as to his guilt in light of new evidence; rather, “the
petitioner must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted
him in light of the new evidence.” Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327. That “new evidence” need not be
newly discovered evidence, however, but simply may be “evidence that was not presented to the
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No. 17-5696, Aldridge v. Phillips
fact-finder during trial, i.e., newly presented evidence.” Cleveland v. Bradshaw, 693 F.3d 626,
633 (6th Cir. 2012) (citing Souter, 395 F.3d at 595 n.9). In this appeal, Aldridge claims that just
such evidence exists so that equitable tolling should have led the district court to consider his
late-filed habeas corpus petition.
Aldridge’s Claim of Actual Innocence
The “new” evidence that Aldridge believes would lead any reasonable juror to exonerate
him of the crimes for which he was convicted is a statement given by the murder victim, Travis
Clariett, to a police officer two days before Clariett’s death. In that statement, Clariett claimed:
At approximately 8:30 p.m., I walked outside for break, that’s when I saw my
white Cadillac Sedan DeVille, missing. I have reason to believe that Renarda
Irving stole my car, because she has been threatening me and she had opportunity,
Monday. She came to my job and threatening [sic] to do something bad to me.
Although the statement in isolation does nothing to establish Aldridge’s innocence, the petitioner
argues that had the statement been offered into evidence before the jury—rather than excluded
by the trial judge as hearsay—it, in conjunction with other evidence, would have led the jurors to
point the finger of guilt at Renarda Irving, rather than at him. To determine whether such an
assertion has any validity, it is necessary to recap briefly the evidence that was introduced before
the jury at trial.
Although Renarda Irving intimated that she and Travis Clariett were married to each
other, it is clear that no official marriage ceremony had been conducted and that the two were
only girlfriend and boyfriend. Nevertheless, Clariett claimed Irving’s daughter as his own
dependent for income tax purposes even though Clariett clearly was not the father. The purpose
of the ruse was to maximize Clariett’s tax refund, in exchange for which Clariett would give
Irving $2,500.
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No. 17-5696, Aldridge v. Phillips
On March 10, 2005, both Irving and Clariett were at Clariett’s mother’s home in Barton,
Mississippi, just south of the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. Presumably, Irving was anxious
to receive the $2,500 from Clariett, and Clariett wished to retrieve his Cadillac from the location
in Memphis where it had been taken previously. Thus, on that day, Clariett, carrying $2,500 in
cash with him, rode with his nephew, Jeremy Hull, to Irving’s Memphis residence while Irving
drove her own vehicle and followed Clariett and Hull. After Clariett and Hull and Irving all
arrived at Irving’s residence, Irving left briefly with Junior Aldridge to retrieve Clariett’s
Cadillac from another location.
When Aldridge and Irving returned, Aldridge parked Clariett’s Cadillac directly behind
the Nissan Altima in which Clariett and Hull had travelled from Mississippi. Hull then observed
Aldridge entering Irving’s home while Clariett got into the driver’s seat of his Cadillac and
Irving sat in the front passenger seat of that vehicle. While in the Cadillac, Clariett began
counting out the money to be given to Irving as part of their income tax scam. He had counted
out and transferred only $500 of that amount when Aldridge emerged from Irving’s home with a
plastic bag, approached the rear passenger window of the Cadillac, and directed Clariett to “[l]et
down the window.” When Clariett complied with the request, Aldridge hit Irving in the head
with a gun he had pulled from the bag, demanded, “Bitch, give me the money,” and fired one
shot at Clariett, killing him. Hull, viewing the shooting by looking in his rear-view mirror, then
saw Aldridge flee from the scene and heard Irving “hollering and crying,” before Hull drove
away from the area in fear.
At Aldridge’s trial, Hull identified Aldridge as the shooter and testified that he saw only
Aldridge, not Irving, with a weapon on the day of the murder. Irving offered the same account
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No. 17-5696, Aldridge v. Phillips
of the occurrences and added that Aldridge, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a black jacket, ran
away with approximately $2,000 of the money Clariett had brought to give Irving.
As stated earlier, Aldridge attempted at trial to deflect guilt from himself by seeking to
admit into evidence a statement made by Clariett two days before the murder. In that statement
made to a police officer, the victim related that Irving had threatened him and surmised that she
had taken his car from the parking lot at his place of employment. Even had the statement been
presented to the jury, however, we cannot say that, in light of that evidence, no reasonable juror
would have voted to convict Aldridge of Clariett’s murder. Despite Irving’s alleged threats and
supposed car theft, absolutely no evidence adduced at trial placed a gun in Irving’s possession,
and no witness testified that Irving—or anyone other than Aldridge—fired the shot that killed
Clariett. To the contrary, the sworn testimony of Jeremy Hull corroborated Irving’s claim that
Aldridge approached the victim’s car, pulled a gun from a plastic bag he was carrying, fired the
fatal shot from near the rear passenger window of Clariett’s Cadillac, and fled from the scene.
Because a reasonable juror could conclude that Aldridge was guilty of murder and especially
aggravated robbery beyond a reasonable doubt, the petitioner cannot establish his actual
innocence such that he should be allowed to proceed with his habeas corpus claim despite his
untimely filing of the petition.
CONCLUSION
In the absence of a showing of actual innocence, Aldridge cannot establish his right to
equitable tolling of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)’s statute-of-limitations period. Accordingly, we
AFFIRM the judgment of the district court dismissing Aldridge’s habeas corpus petition as
untimely.
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