Bridgewater

MEMORANDUM *

Richard Bridgewater appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . Bridgewater contends that the district court erred in dismissing his petition as untimely without conducting a factual inquiry into his claim that he was entitled to equitable tolling as a result of his mental retardation and organic brain damage. We agree and reverse and remand.

We are guided by our recent decision in Laws v. Lamarque, 351 F.3d 919 (9th Cir.2003). In Laws , we held that the prisoner’s allegation of mental incompetency in a verified pleading attached to his traverse was sufficient to require the district court to allow discovery or order expansion of the factual record with respect to the issue of equitable tolling of the applicable one-year statute of limitations. We emphasized that the prisoner did not carry a burden of persuasion in order to warrant further investigation into the merits of his arguments for tolling:

Id. at 924 (citation omitted).

In opposing the motion to dismiss, Bridgewater referred to the portion of his July 12, 2001 habeas petition, filed in the California Court of Appeal, that…