The petitioner pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree murder in a Pennsylvania common pleas court. After his plea and sentence, he took no action on the case for more than a decade but sought to excuse his delay when he filed a habeas corpus petition. The petitioner claimed that his mental illness prohibited him from engaging in collateral attacks on his case in state and federal courts. The Third Circuit refused to apply equitable tolling and dismissed the petition. In a 70-page opinion, the Court went into great detail about the petitioner’s mental health. The Court rejected his attempt to elevate a non-precedential Third Circuit case, Champney v. Sec’y DOC, to a rigid framework for assessing the intersection of mental health and equitable tolling.
