Difficulty in obtaining an attorney affidavit in an ineffective assistance of counsel claim does not allow a prisoner to get the benefits of equitable tolling of the one-year statute of limitations on habeas corpus petitions, a split federal appeals panel has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that defendant Taiwu Jenkins, who is serving an “extremely severe sentence,” had not met the standard for equitable tolling even though he claimed he received no cooperation from his trial attorney in producing an affidavit that showed he received bad advice on his potential sentence before proceeding to trial.
