Ricky Patterson v. FELICIA ADKINS , Warden

In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 20-2700
R ICKY PATTERSON ,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
F ELICIA A DKINS , Warden,
Respondent-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 19-CV-2198 — Colin S. Bruce, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED M AY 17, 2022 — DECIDED J ANUARY 2, 2025
____________________
Before SYKES , Chief Judge, and K IRSCH and JACKSON -
A KIWUMI , Circuit Judges.
S YKES , Chief Judge. In 2003 an Illinois jury convicted Ricky
Patterson of first-degree murder, arson, and felony conceal-
ment of a homicide in connection with the 2002 death of Der-
rick Prout. The crimes were set in motion when Patterson
arranged to buy 30 pounds of marijuana from Prout in Cham-
paign, Illinois. Prout went missing immediately after they met
to complete the transaction.

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The evidence against Patterson, though largely circum-
stantial, was characterized as “overwhelming” by the Illinois
Supreme Court. People v. Patterson, 841 N.E.2d 889, 912 (Ill.
2005) (“Patterson I”). The prosecution established that Patter-
son killed Prout while the two were at Patterson’s rented
home in Champaign. He wrapped the body in a blanket, put
it in the trunk of Prout’s car, then tried to clean the victim’s
blood off his living-room carpet. When that failed, he set fire
to his house in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Patterson
then drove Prout’s car to a remote area northwest of Chicago
and left it in a field surrounded by trees, inaccessible except
by an unmarked dirt road. Two days later Patterson (or per-
haps an accomplice) returned and set the car on fire. Prout’s
charred body, wrapped in the blanket from Patterson’s home,
was found in the trunk of the burned car. DNA testing con-
firmed that the blood on the carpet in Patterson’s home was
Prout’s.
For these crimes Patterson was sentenced to 55 years in
prison. The state supreme court affirmed the judgment. Id. at
912–13. Patterson then filed a petition for state postconviction
relief together with a motion for additional DNA testing. Pro-
tracted proceedings in state court followed. In July 2019—
more than 13 years after the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed
the convictions on direct appeal—Patterson sought federal
habeas review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The one-year limitation
period had long-since expired even accounting for tolling
during the pendency of Patterson’s state postconviction peti-
tion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A), (d)(2). To overcome the
time bar, Patterson invoked the exception for claims of actual
innocence. The district court rejected his claim and dismissed
the § 2254 petition as untimely.

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No. 20-2700 3
We affirm. Patterson’s § 2254 petition was more than six
years late even with tolling for a properly filed state postcon-
viction petition. And we agree with the district judge that Pat-
terson’s claim of actual innocence falls far short of the
necessary showing to qualify for this narrow gateway to mer-
its review of an untimely § 2254 petition.
I. Background
Our account of Patterson’s case comes from the record of
his five-day trial and the additional proceedings in the Illinois
trial, appellate, and supreme courts. The case has a labyrin-
thian factual and procedural history; we will simplify where
possible.
In June 2002 Ricky Patterson was living with his girlfriend
Migdalia Rivera and their daughter in a rented house on the
periphery of Champaign, Illinois. The house bordered acres
of farmland and there were few neighbors. The couple shared
a single cellphone that was registered to Rivera, but Patterson
usually carried it; there was no landline phone in the home.
At the time of the crimes, they were experiencing financial
problems. They had not paid their rent for four months and
were being evicted. On or about June 12, Patterson told the
landlord that they would pay the $3,600 they owed in back
rent and move out on June 22.
Derrick Prout, the murder victim, lived in Indianapolis
with his wife Christa. He had lost his job and was selling
drugs to supplement his unemployment benefits. Patterson
was one of his customers. Phone records show that on June
16, Patterson called Prout, and the two exchanged additional
calls that day while Prout was driving back to Indianapolis
from Chicago. Patterson arranged to buy a large quantity of

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marijuana from Prout in Champaign the next day. Prout’s
wife Christa later told police that Prout had already left their
Indianapolis home for Champaign by the time she woke up
on the morning of June 17.
Prout had a girlfriend in Champaign named Candice
Johnson, and he visited her on the afternoon of June 17 after
arriving in town. But first he met with Patterson to finalize the
terms of their planned drug transaction. They met at a shop
in Champaign owned by Patterson’s brother, and Patterson
arranged to buy 30 pounds of marijuana from Prout for
$16,000 later that evening. This was odd: a man who was
$3,600 behind in rent was unlikely to have $16,000 to pay for
a large distribution quantity of drugs.
After the two men agreed on the terms of their transaction,
Prout went to his girlfriend Candice’s apartment, arriving at
about 4 p.m. He brought a duffel bag full of marijuana and
hid it in her pantry. Candice later testified that she and Prout
went to dinner, returned to her apartment, and watched tele-
vision until about 8 p.m. when Patterson arrived in his Chev-
rolet Blazer. Prout went outside and spoke with Patterson. He
then returned to the apartment, retrieved the duffel bag full
of marijuana, told Candice that he would be back later, and
left in his maroon Dodge Intrepid. Patterson followed in his
Blazer.
That was the last time anyone other than Patterson saw
Prout alive. Cellphone records show calls between Prout and
Patterson around 8:30 p.m. via a cell tower near Patterson’s
home on the edge of town. When Prout did not return later
that evening as promised, Candice repeatedly tried to reach
him, but he did not pick up her calls. She also tried calling
Patterson to find out where Prout was, but he did not answer

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No. 20-2700 5
either. Christa Prout’s calls to her husband likewise went un-
answered.
When Christa still could not reach her husband the next
day, June 18, she called Chrystal Peacock, one of Prout’s sis-
ters who lived in Champaign, and told her that Prout was
missing. Chrystal called Candice and asked when she had last
seen Prout. Candice told her what had happened the night
before and gave her Patterson’s phone number. Peacock then
called Patterson asking about her brother. Patterson told her
he met Prout at a carwash the previous evening to do a drug
deal. He said that Prout left after they completed the transac-
tion, but he stayed behind and washed his truck. Monique
Adams, another of Prout’s sisters, called Patterson at about
8 p.m. on June 18 also looking for information about her miss-
ing brother. Patterson told her a different story than the one
he gave Chrystal: he said he met Prout at a carwash where
they were “supposed to” do a drug deal but “did not.” Pat-
terson then hung up on Monique.
In the overnight hours of the next day—to be precise, at
about 3:20 a.m. on June 19—a police officer reported that Pat-
terson’s house was on fire. While the officer waited for the fire
department to respond, he observed that the windows and
doors were closed and intact. When firefighters arrived, they
confirmed that all doors to the home were locked. White su-
premacist graffiti was spray painted inside and outside the
house. This too was odd. Patterson and his girlfriend were
unlikely targets for this sort of crime; they had no problems
with neighbors or acquaintances, and neither of them had re-
ceived any race-based threats or intimidation.
Once the fire was suppressed, local sheriff’s deputies and
an investigator from the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office

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began investigating the cause of the fire. Parts of the ceiling
and walls of the home had fallen, and the floor was covered
with rubble. In the living room investigators discovered a can
of spray paint and two plastic gasoline containers; the con-
tainers still smelled like gasoline. The investigator from the
State Fire Marshal’s Office determined that the fire was inten-
tionally set.
On June 19 Monique Adams called Patterson again, this
time to arrange for family members to talk with him about
what happened to Prout. Patterson agreed to meet with them
at 6 p.m. but did not show up. When she called him at 6:45
p.m. to find out where he was, he told her he had just learned
that his house had burned down and would contact her later.
At about 7:30 p.m., Patterson and his girlfriend went to
their burned house and talked with police officers who were
there. When asked about his whereabouts during the over-
night hours when the fire was set, Patterson told the officers
that he left Champaign for Chicago around 8 p.m. that night—
June 18—and returned on the afternoon of June 19 after some-
one called and told him that his house had burned down. His
cellphone records contradicted this story. The records
showed that calls were made on his phone via a cell tower in
Champaign on the evening of June 18 until about 9:30 p.m.
and again between 7 and 9 a.m. on June 19. Indeed, Patter-
son’s phone did not leave the Champaign area until 1:30 p.m.
on June 19. Call records showed that the phone traveled north
along I-57, reached Chicago at around 4:45 p.m., then imme-
diately turned around and returned to Champaign.
Patterson told the officers that he planned to return to Chi-
cago the next day, June 20, and agreed to meet with them
when he got back to Champaign. The officers proposed a

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No. 20-2700 7
meeting time of 3 p.m. on June 20. Patterson agreed. The ap-
pointed time came and went, but he did not show up.
Phone records showed that Patterson’s phone left Cham-
paign on the morning of June 20 heading toward Chicago. It
continued traveling north past Chicago to the border of Cook
and Lake Counties northwest of the city. At 4:06 p.m., the
phone placed a call via a cell tower near I-53 and Lake Cook
Road in the Village of Long Grove in Lake County, northwest
of Chicago.
On June 21 investigators returned to Patterson’s home
looking for evidence of Prout’s disappearance. They walked
through the burned house and searched drawers and closets.
To avoid disturbing the evidence, however, they did not look
under the debris on the floor. Other than the locked doors and
graffiti, they found nothing suspicious. That same day—June
21—Patterson and his girlfriend checked into a Holiday Inn
in St. Louis.
A little after 9 a.m. on June 22, Thomas Lucich—a Long
Grove resident who lived on the outskirts of the village in a
heavily wooded area—heard four or five “thuds” coming
from outside his home and off to the east. He looked outside
in the direction of the noise. Through a small gap along a tree
line, he saw a car on fire. He called 911.
The burning car was in an isolated spot, accessible only by
an unmarked, dead-end dirt road and surrounded by trees.
Importantly, it was near the border of Cook and Lake Coun-
ties and the intersection of I-53 and Lake Cook Road, the same
vicinity as the call from Patterson’s phone at 4:06 p.m. on June
20. Firefighters responded to Lucich’s 911 call and ap-
proached the burning car. It was a Dodge Intrepid, engulfed

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8 No. 20-2700
in flames. The car had sustained heavy damage by the time
the fire was suppressed, but the license plate confirmed that
it was registered to Prout. His charred body was found in the
trunk, wrapped in a blanket with a distinctive pattern of geo-
metric shapes. A Long Grove fire lieutenant who responded
to the fire testified at trial that a burning car makes popping
and cracking noises as hoses and tires and other parts ex-
plode, which explained the thuds that Lucich heard.
Later that day, at the instruction of Lake County authori-
ties, St. Louis police arrested Patterson and his girlfriend Mig-
dalia Rivera at the Holiday Inn. The next day, June 23, St.
Louis police detectives interviewed Patterson. He told them
that he did not own a cellphone and refused to provide Ri-
vera’s telephone number. When asked about his whereabouts
at the time of the fire at his home, he repeated his story that
he had traveled to Chicago the night before. At the end of the
interview, Patterson and Rivera were released and free to go.
On June 24 investigators returned to Patterson’s burned
home in Champaign to continue what was now a murder in-
vestigation. This time they searched under the rubble on the
floor. Under a thick pile of debris in the living room, they
found a mound of clothing. Only the top of the pile was
burned, and under the clothing there was a small area rug and
a soapy sponge. Under the rug was a large bloodstain. There
was also a strong scent of Pine Sol cleaner, and it looked as if
someone had tried to clean up the blood. In the kitchen, in-
vestigators found empty bottles of bleach and Pine Sol, a
bucket, and a roll of undeveloped film. They confiscated these
and other items of physical evidence, sent the bloodstain for
DNA testing, and developed the film.

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No. 20-2700 9
The photographs from the film included several photos
showing Patterson, Rivera, and their daughter wrapped in a
blanket with a distinctive geometric pattern—the same as the
blanket that was wrapped around Prout’s body in the trunk
of his burned car. DNA testing of the blood found on the car-
pet of the burned home yielded only a partial profile because
the evidentiary sample was degraded; two of the 13 tested loci
were unavailable. But the partial profile matched Prout’s
DNA: the probability of the same partial profile appearing in
someone else in the general population ranged from 1 in 16.3
quadrillion to 1 in 51.9 quadrillion.
An autopsy of Prout’s body revealed that he had been
stabbed eight times in the head and neck, including fatal stab
wounds to his neck that cut his windpipe and arteries. He had
also been shot twice in the head and neck. A Lake County fo-
rensic pathologist found that Prout died of “multiple stab
wounds with multiple gunshot wounds contributing to his
death.” Based on her observation of Prout’s body, the
pathologist determined that Prout had been dead for some
time when the car fire was set, but the exact time of death was
not ascertainable.
On September 10, 2002, Patterson was arrested for the
murder of Derrick Prout. He was charged with first-degree
murder, arson, and concealment of homicidal death. The case
proceeded to trial in April 2003. The prosecution’s case in-
cluded the evidence we’ve just outlined and more. Our ac-
count above suffices for present purposes, but one additional
point is worth mentioning. Prosecutors called Patterson’s girl-
friend Migdalia Rivera as a witness, but she invoked her Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination. So the judge

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10 No. 20-2700
permitted the prosecution to introduce her grand-jury testi-
mony.
Patterson testified in his own defense. He told the jury that
on the evening of June 17, he and Prout left Candice Johnson’s
apartment building in Champaign and drove in their own ve-
hicles to a nearby carwash where he gave Prout $16,000 in ex-
change for the duffel bag of marijuana. He said Prout left the
carwash in his Dodge Intrepid immediately after the ex-
change while he stayed behind and washed his Blazer. He
said he then returned home and went to bed around 10:30
p.m.
Patterson testified that on the following evening, June 18,
he drove to Chicago for a court appearance on the morning of
June 19, leaving their home in Champaign with Migdalia and
their daughter at around 8 p.m. He said they went first to the
Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, northwest of the city, where
he sold eight pounds of marijuana to a man named Chris
Smith, then stopped for the night at a motel in Palatine, also a
northwest suburb of Chicago. He testified that his car would
not start the next morning, so he missed his June 19 court date
in Chicago; he said it was rescheduled for June 20. Although
his new court date was the very next day, Patterson told the
jury that he drove back to Champaign with his family on the
afternoon of June 19. He said that while they were on the road
that afternoon, he received a call from his brother who told
him about the fire at his house. He further testified that on the
morning of June 20, he returned to Chicago and attended his
rescheduled court hearing at 9 a.m. Finally, he said that on
June 21 he and his family drove to St. Louis and checked into
a Holiday Inn, arriving at around 10:15 or 10:30 p.m.

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No. 20-2700 11
Patterson’s testimony conflicted with cellphone records,
which as we’ve noted provided compelling evidence of his
location during the relevant timeframe. When cross-exam-
ined by the prosecutor about the whereabouts of his phone on
June 18 and 19, Patterson claimed that he accidentally left the
phone in a friend’s car in Champaign at 3:30 p.m. on June 18.
When pressed for the friend’s name, he said it was Chris
Smith—the same Chris Smith to whom he sold marijuana in
Schaumburg that evening. When asked why he didn’t com-
plete the sale when the two met in Champaign that afternoon,
he said Smith did not have the money, so they arranged to do
the deal that evening in Schaumburg. And when asked why
he didn’t retrieve his phone from Smith when they completed
the drug deal in Schaumburg in the evening, he said “it didn’t
really cross my mind.” Patterson testified that he retrieved his
phone from Smith on the morning of June 19, after he had car
trouble and missed his court date.
These claims too were contradicted by the phone records,
which showed that calls were placed on his phone from
Champaign on the morning of June 19—first to the Chicago
courthouse where he was scheduled to appear but did not,
and then to his mother. Indeed, as we’ve explained, the phone
records established that his phone did not leave Champaign
until early afternoon on June 19 and then returned that same
evening. They also showed that on June 20, his phone traveled
north on the route to Chicago but only made it as far as
Kankakee and Bourbonnais—about 60 miles southwest of
Chicago—at the time he claimed to be in court for his resched-
uled appearance. And a call was placed from his phone via a
cell tower near 1-53 and Lake Cook Road in Long Grove at
4:06 p.m. that day. Patterson admitted on cross-examination
that he had his phone with him that day.

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12 No. 20-2700
The case was submitted to the jury with instructions on
criminal liability as a principal and under an accountability
theory based on evidence that Patterson may have had an ac-
complice for all or part of this criminal course of conduct. The
jury found Patterson guilty on all counts. The judge sentenced
him to 50 years in prison for the murder and 5 years each for
arson and concealment convictions, with the murder and ar-
son sentences to run consecutively, for a total of 55 years in
prison.
The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on di-
rect review on December 15, 2005. Patterson I, 841 N.E.2d at
913. The court held that the admission of Rivera’s grand jury
testimony violated Patterson’s Sixth Amendment right of con-
frontation but found the error harmless because the evidence
against him was “overwhelming.” Id. at 906. The court re-
jected all other challenges, including claims of ineffective as-
sistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and a challenge
to the sufficiency of the evidence. Id. at 906–913. Patterson did
not file a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court, so the
judgment became final on March 15, 2006, when the time to
do so expired.
On June 15, 2006, Patterson filed a petition for state post-
conviction relief and a motion for new DNA testing under
§ 116–3 of the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedure. See 725 I LL.
C OMP . S TAT. 5/116-3. His postconviction petition raised claims
of ineffective assistance of counsel; his § 116–3 motion
claimed that additional DNA testing would prove his inno-
cence. The trial judge denied both requests. On July 11, 2012,
the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the decision denying
Patterson’s postconviction petition but remanded for further
proceedings on his § 116–3 motion. People v. Patterson, 971

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No. 20-2700 13
N.E.2d 1204, 1210–11 (Ill. App. Ct. 2012) (“Patterson II”). Pat-
terson did not seek further review of the adverse decision on
his postconviction petition in the Illinois Supreme Court.
After lengthy remand proceedings on the § 116–3 motion,
the state agreed to submit the blood evidence for a new DNA
test using a 15-loci test protocol. The new test produced a full
profile that again matched Prout’s DNA. Patterson’s expert
reviewed the test report and confirmed that the profile was
clear and complete. The trial judge then denied the § 116–3
motion as moot and also denied Patterson’s request for inde-
pendent DNA testing. Patterson appealed, and the Illinois
Appellate Court affirmed. On September 26, 2018, the Illinois
Supreme Court denied Patterson’s petition for leave to appeal
(“PLA”).
Four months later, on January 25, 2019, Patterson sought
permission from the state supreme court to file a late PLA
from the appellate court’s July 2012 decision affirming the de-
nial of his postconviction petition. The clerk’s office sent Pat-
terson a notice stating that it had “timely filed … [his]
motion … for leave to file a late petition for leave to appeal,”
which would be “presented to the court for consideration.”
On March 19, 2019, the Illinois Supreme Court denied his mo-
tion to file a late PLA.
We come at last to these habeas proceedings. On July 24,
2019, Patterson petitioned for habeas review under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254 raising 12 separate constitutional claims. The district
judge dismissed the petition as untimely under § 2244(d),
which provides that a § 2254 petition must be filed within one
year after the challenged state-court judgment becomes final,
subject to tolling during the pendency of a properly filed ap-
plication for state postconviction relief. Patterson invoked the

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14 No. 20-2700
exception for claims of actual innocence, but the judge held
that he failed to make the necessary showing to qualify for the
exception. The judge also denied Patterson’s request for a cer-
tificate of appealability. Patterson renewed that request in this
court, and we permitted this appeal.
II. Discussion
A state prisoner seeking federal habeas review of his con-
viction or sentence under § 2254 must do so within one year
of the date the judgment becomes final. § 2244(d)(1)(A). The
limitations period is tolled for the “time during which a
properly filed application for [s]tate post-conviction or other
collateral review … is pending.” Id. § 2244(d)(2). The district
judge dismissed Patterson’s § 2254 petition as untimely. We
review that decision de novo. Arnold v. Richardson, 14 F.4th
780, 784 (7th Cir. 2021).
The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed Patterson’s convic-
tions and sentence on December 15, 2005; the judgment be-
came final on March 15, 2006, when the time to file a petition
for certiorari in the Supreme Court expired. Jimenez v. Quar-
terman, 555 U.S. 113, 119 (2009). More than 13 years elapsed
between that date and his § 2254 petition on July 24, 2019. Pat-
terson’s petition is therefore untimely unless the limitation
period was tolled for all but one year of that intervening pe-
riod.
The limitation clock ran for 91 days from the date the judg-
ment became final to June 15, 2006, when Patterson filed his
state postconviction petition and § 116–3 motion for addi-
tional DNA testing. Time was tolled from that date until July
11, 2012, when the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the denial
of the postconviction petition. Though the appellate court

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No. 20-2700 15
remanded for further proceedings on the § 116–3 motion, Pat-
terson could have sought further review of the adverse deci-
sion on his postconviction petition in the state supreme court.
But he did not file a PLA in the Illinois Supreme Court. So as
of that date—July 11, 2012—the petition for state postconvic-
tion relief was no longer pending and the limitation clock re-
started. See Fernandez v. Sternes, 227 F.3d 977, 979 (7th Cir.
2000). Counting from that date and including the 91 days that
elapsed before Patterson filed his postconviction petition, the
limitation period expired on April 12, 2013—more than six
years before he filed his § 2254 petition.
Patterson argues that the limitation period was tolled dur-
ing the remand proceedings on his § 116–3 motion and re-
mained tolled until September 26, 2018, when the Illinois
Supreme Court denied his PLA seeking review of the appel-
late court’s decision affirming the denial of that motion. He
also maintains that the limitation clock stopped again on Jan-
uary 25, 2019, when he filed his motion in the state supreme
court seeking permission to file a late PLA from the appellate
court’s July 2012 decision affirming the denial of his postcon-
viction petition. He argues that because the clerk’s office ac-
cepted his motion as “timely filed,” the limitation period was
further tolled from January 25 until March 19, 2019, when the
state supreme court denied the motion to file a late PLA. On
this chain of reasoning, the limitation clock was still running
when he filed his § 2254 petition on July 24, 2019.
Patterson’s tolling theory suffers from several flaws. First,
“a motion under § 116–3 is not a collateral review of the un-
derlying judgment and therefore does not toll the statute of
limitations for bringing a federal habeas corpus petition un-
der 28 U.S.C. § 2254.” Price v. Pierce, 617 F.3d 947, 952 (7th Cir.

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16 No. 20-2700
2010). Nor was the time tolled while Patterson’s motion for
leave to file a late PLA was pending. We’ve held that if the
Illinois Supreme Court grants a motion to file a late PLA, the
limitation period is tolled from the date of the motion through
the court’s decision on the merits. Fernandez, 227 F.3d at 979.
But that did not happen here. The Illinois Supreme Court de-
nied Patterson’s motion, so his motion to file a late PLA had
no effect on the running of the limitation clock. Id. Patterson’s
§ 2254 petition was more than six years too late.
Though untimely, Patterson argues that we should review
the merits of his § 2254 petition under the exception to the
time bar for claims of actual innocence. See McQuiggin v. Per-
kins, 569 U.S. 383, 386 (2013). To pass through the “actual in-
nocence” gateway to merits review of a time-barred § 2254
petition, a state prisoner “must establish that, in light of new
evidence, ‘it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror
would have found [him] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’”
House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518, 536–37 (2006) (quoting Schlup v.
Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 327 (1995)). Applying this standard, we
consider “all the evidence, old and new, incriminating and ex-
culpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be
admitted under rules of admissibility that would govern at
trial.” House, 547 U.S. at 538 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). Based on the entire record, we “make ‘a probabilistic de-
termination about what reasonable, properly instructed
jurors would do.’” Id. (quoting Schlup, 513 U.S. at 329). Patter-
son can succeed under this standard only if he produces “re-
liable evidence … that was not presented at trial.” Schlup, 513
U.S. at 324. And “[t]he bar to proving [an actual-innocence]
claim … is onerous.” Dixon v. Williams, 93 F.4th 394, 403 (7th
Cir. 2024). The standard “is demanding and permits review

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No. 20-2700 17
only in the ‘extraordinary’ case.” House, 547 U.S. at 538 (quot-
ing Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327).
Patterson’s evidence falls far short of satisfying this stand-
ard. He points first to a medical report showing that on June
16, 2002, he was treated in the emergency room for lower back
strain and prescribed narcotic pain medication. He contends
that the ER report proves that he was physically incapable of
committing these crimes. Not so. The ER report has limited
weight, if any at all. Standing alone, it does not establish that
Patterson was physically incapable of fatally stabbing and
shooting Prout. Indeed, Patterson’s trial attorney testified
during state postconviction proceedings that he ruled out a
medical defense after consulting the treating physician who
told him that Patterson could have committed the crimes with
the back condition and pain medication described in the re-
port. Finally, Patterson’s case was submitted to the jury with
instructions on principal liability as well as an accountability
theory based on evidence suggesting that Patterson might
have had an accomplice.
Patterson next argues that other drug dealers had a motive
to kill Prout over unpaid debts. This claim is based on infor-
mation from Prout’s wife Christa, his girlfriend Candice John-
son, and other family members who reported that Prout had
been threatened by other drug dealers several months before
the crimes. Vague, unsubstantiated reports of threats hardly
qualify as reliable evidence that someone else likely commit-
ted the murder. Even if we grant that the evidence of threats
might suggest that someone else might have had a motive to
kill Prout months before the murder, it does not advance Pat-
terson’s claim of actual innocence. Without more, any theory
of an alternative suspect is speculative.

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18 No. 20-2700
Patterson also suggests that someone saw Prout’s car after
their drug transaction at the carwash—namely, a witness
named Kim Taylor, who said she thought she saw Prout’s car
at an intersection in Champaign late in the evening on June
17. As the district judge noted, however, Taylor’s statement
was equivocal. She said she saw a car that she believed was
Prout’s, but when she approached it, she saw another person
driving and concluded that it must belong to someone else.
Finally, Patterson points to information from Sally and
Robert Kruger, who lived in Long Grove near the spot where
Prout’s car was set on fire. They reported hearing two gun-
shots shortly before they saw the fire. For starters, this argu-
ment is seriously underdeveloped. It was presented only in
Patterson’s pro se habeas petition; there is no statement from
the Krugers, either sworn or otherwise. Moreover, a report of
two gunshot-like sounds is consistent with Thomas Lucich’s
trial testimony that he heard several loud thuds before he saw
the car fire. And the Long Grove fire lieutenant testified that
burning cars make popping and cracking sounds as hoses and
tires and other parts explode.
In short, Patterson’s “new evidence” is meager and in
some respects not new at all. And when considered against
the powerful case the prosecution presented at trial, it does
not come close to establishing a probability that no reasonable
juror would have found him guilty. The circumstantial evi-
dence of Patterson’s guilt—the physical evidence, cellphone
records, witness testimony, and DNA evidence—was over-
whelming. Although the initial DNA test produced only a
partial profile, the match between Prout’s DNA and the blood
on the carpet was statistically irrefutable. And the match was

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No. 20-2700 19
later confirmed by more sophisticated DNA testing during
the § 116–3 proceedings.
Accordingly, we agree with the district judge that Patter-
son has not satisfied the demanding actual-innocence stand-
ard to obtain merits review of his untimely § 2254 petition.
The petition was properly dismissed.
A FFIRMED

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