Mancill v. Hall (CA11)

Mancill v. Hall, No. 07-10101 (CA11) — This case is about the exhaustion requirement, as applied to claims a Georgia habeas court heard but never ruled on.  The petitioner had been convicted on two counts of malice murder, and filed a motion for a new trial.  The trial court denied the motion for a new trial seven years later, and then the petitioner appealed.  The convictions and sentence were affirmed.  The petitioner then filed a state habeas petition, challenging the delay in deciding the motion for a new trial and claiming ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel.

The state habeas trial court granted the petition on the claim of delay, but did not rule on the IAC claims.  The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the claim of delay was procedurally barred because it could and should have been raised on direct appeal, and remanded for a consideration on cause and prejudice.  The state habeas trial court found cause and prejudice and vacated the conviction and sentence.  The Georgia Supreme Court reversed again, but did not remand for consideration of the IAC claims.

The petitioner then sought federal habeas relief.  The district court ruled that the claim of delay was procedurally defaulted, and that the IAC claims were unexhausted because he did not cross-appeal them to the Georgia Supreme Court.  Furthermore, the IAC claims were procedurally barred because the petitioner could not return to pursue the cross-appeal.  The district court denied a COA, but the Eleventh Circuit granted one on the exhaustion issue.

The question is whether, in this case, the cross-appeal is part of Georgia’s established appellate review process.  See O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838 (1999).  This was a novel issue of Eleventh Circuit exhaustion law; a related case, Pope v. Rich, 358 F.3d 852 (11th Cir. 2004), did not control because in that case the petitioner had lost in the state habeas trial court and did not petition for discretionary review of the adverse ruling.  Under ordinary civil appellate rules, which in Georgia apply in habeas cases, the appellee may “present for adjudication on the cross appeal all errors or rulings adversely affecting him.”  But there was no adverse ruling on the IAC claims, because there was no ruling at all on those claims, and so Georgia’s civil appellate rules did not allow the petitioner to raise his IAC claims before the Georgia Supreme Court.

Two cases on which the district court relied, Turpin v. Bennett, 513 S.E.2d 478 (Ga. 1999), and Head v. Thomason, 578 S.E.2d 426 (Ga. 2003), were distinguishable because the petitioners in those cases actually received adverse rulings on their claims.  Furthermore, the Eleventh Circuit had found a case in which the appellee sought review of a claim not passed on by the lower court, and the Georgia Court of Appeals had refused to review the claim for that reason.  For these reasons, the cross-appeal was not a firmly established and regularly followed component of Georgia’s appellate review process.  Accordingly, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling on exhaustion, and remanded for further proceedings.

Gingras v. Weber (CA8)

Gingras v. Weber, No. 07-3114 — The court affirmed the denial of a § 2254 petition challenging a conviction for selling marijuana.  The petitioner’s home was searched pursuant to a warrant, and the petitioner gave a statement to the police after being informed of his Miranda rights.  He filed a motion to suppress the statement before trial, which the trial court did not resolve before the petitioner pleaded guilty pursuant to a plea agreement.  The petitioner had claimed — and the Eighth Circuit ultimately considered on appeal — that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to tell him that the motion to suppress the statement had not yet been ruled on at the time he pleaded guilty, and that but for that failure he would not have pleaded.

Despite the possibility that there existed an avenue under South Dakota law for the petitioner to resolve the claim in state court, the Eight Circuit addressed the merits.  Under the pre-AEDPA standard of review, the court concluded that there was “scant support in the record” for the idea that the petitioner’s statement to the police was not voluntarily made.  He was initially upset and crying when the police came to his house, but he had calmed down sufficiently to talk to the police in a calm and coherent manner.  There was no coersion on the police’s part.  These conclusions were reasonable, and did not suggest that the trial court would have granted the motion to suppress.  Consequently, there was no prejudice under Strickland and Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985).

The petitioner had sought an evidentiary hearing in federal court on this claim.  The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of the hearing, because the petitioner was not diligent in pursuing a hearing as to this claim.  The state habeas court did hold a hearing, but only on a different claim, and there was no indication that the petitioner had sought to bring this claim before the state courts on habeas review.  Consequently, he “failed to develop” the claim in state court, and was not entitled to a hearing under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2).

CA10 — memorandum dispositions

United States v. Fridliefson, No. 08-4131 — The court denied a COA in a § 2255 appeal.  In pleading guilty to a drug charge with a stipulated sentence under Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), the petitioner agreed not to seek collateral review of his sentence except to the extent necessary to argue that it exceeded the statutory maximum penalty.  He filed a § 2255 motion, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel.  The district court found the motion to be barred by the waiver provision in the plea agreement.  He argued that trial counsel was ineffective for incorrectly computing the applicable guildelines range, but the court concluded that error in computing the guidelines range did not affect the validity of the guilty plea or his decision to enter into a plea agreement.

Martin v. Ray, No. 08-5083 — The court denied a COA in a § 2254 appeal.  The petitioner had been charged with two counts of child abuse, but he was acquitted of one at trial.  He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.  He filed for federal habeas relief, raising three claims.  First, he argued that the statute of limitations had expired with respect to his charges.  Second, he argued that the trial court’s excluding a videotaped interview with a police detective violated his right to present a defense.  Third, the prosecutor improperly elicited an opinion from a witness regarding the petitioner’s truthfulness.  The district court rejected all these claims.  The court rejected these claims as unexhausted, procedurally defaulted, and meritless.