What the Record Establishes

  • Both instruments are public court records: a CM/ECF-stamped federal filing and a Supreme Court waiver form with an appearance entered as Counsel of Record.
  • The petition in No. 26-5055 was filed February 27, 2026 and was on the Supreme Court’s docket on August 7, 2026.
  • The Illinois Supreme Court denied leave to appeal on January 28, 2026; the Rule 13.1 window ran 90 days, to April 28, 2026.
  • Dkt. 51 note 2 computes the state deadline under the branch of 725 ILCS 5/122-1(c) that applies "if a petition for certiorari is not filed," and lands on October 26, 2026 — which does not follow from its own anchor, since April 28 plus six months is October 28.

What They Have Not Produced

  • Any correction, errata, or amended filing reconciling the April 28 assertion with the Supreme Court docket in No. 26-5055.
  • Illinois’s answer to the two questions the Rule 15.8 supplemental brief puts to it: whether it maintains that the time for certiorari expired April 28, 2026, and how that is reconciled with its own appearance in the pending case.
  • The internal review record showing who checked the Supreme Court docket before the limitations assertion was filed.

Two documents, one afternoon, ninety-five minutes apart, signed into two different federal dockets. The first says the door to the Supreme Court closed in April. The second is counsel walking through it.

August 7, 2026 — Central Daylight Time
  1. 1:41:09 p.m.Dkt. 51 stamped: “The time for seeking certiorari review expired on April 28, 2026”
  2. same dayThe Second District denies the motion to end the appointment and counsel’s motion to withdraw
  3. 3:16:42 p.m.Counsel for Illinois signs the waiver in No. 26-5055 and enters as Counsel of Record
  4. docketed“Waiver of Illinois of right to respond submitted.”

The Supreme Court’s own docket in No. 26-5055 is the instrument that dates every line of this strip.

The authority the filing cites holds the other way

Dkt. 51 cites Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, at page 150, for its limitations proposition. That page addresses when a judgment becomes final for a petitioner who does not seek certiorari. Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 119, and Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 522, 527, state the same rule for the petitioner who does. This petition was on file for 161 days when the assertion was made, and docketed for 28.

What the supplemental brief asks the Supreme Court to do about it

The Rule 15.8 supplemental brief filed August 15, 2026 in No. 26-5055 puts the two instruments side by side and offers a three-rung disposition: grant; or vacate and remand in light of Hunter v. United States, 608 U.S. ___ (2026), decided June 18, 2026 — three weeks before this case was docketed; or, at minimum, call for a response under Rule 15.1 requiring Illinois to answer two named questions. The brief and its argument are here.

The design of that request is the point. Concede that April 28 was wrong, and the premise of the limitations argument in the Northern District of Illinois goes with it. Defend April 28, and it must be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s own docket, in the Supreme Court. Say nothing, and Rule 15.2 already describes what silence costs.

What is not asserted here

This page does not allege that anyone lied, and it makes no claim about anyone’s state of mind. It publishes two dated public instruments and the interval between them. The reconciliation is owed by the party that filed the first one, and it has been formally requested in the court where both belong.