Earl D. Crawford v. State of Tennessee

The petitioner, Earl D. Crawford, appeals pro se from the summary dismissal of his 2016 petition for post-conviction relief, which challenged his 1986 convictions of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, and armed robbery. Because the petition was filed nearly three decades beyond the applicable statute of limitations, because this is the petitioner’s second petition for post-conviction relief, because the petitioner failed to either allege or prove a statutory exception to the timely filing or a due process tolling of the statute of limitations for filing a petition for post-conviction relief, and because there is no merit to the petitioner’s claim of sentence illegality, we affirm the judgment of the postconviction court.