Judd v. Haley

• Decision Date: 09 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-12786,00-12786
• Citation: 250 F.3d 1308
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2001) Ernest Randy JUDD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael W. HALEY, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, Arnold Holt, Warden, Bullock County Correctional Facility, Bill Pryor, Respondents-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1308

250 F.3d 1308 (11th Cir. 2001)

Ernest Randy JUDD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael W. HALEY, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, Arnold Holt, Warden, Bullock County Correctional Facility, Bill Pryor, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 00-12786.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

May 9, 2001.

May 21, 2001.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.(No. 97-02735-CV-S-NE), C. Lynwood Smith, Jr., Judge.

Before WILSON and COX, Circuit Judges, and RYSKAMP^*, District Judge.

WILSON, Circuit Judge:

Ernest Randy Judd, an Alabama prisoner, appeals from the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Judd contends that the district court erred in finding that the doctrine of procedural default precluded federal review of his underlying constitutional claim-namely, that his right to a public trial under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution was denied by the Alabama trial court. After reviewing the briefs and the record, and after the benefit of hearing oral argument, we conclude that the doctrine of procedural default is inapplicable in this case. The Alabama Supreme Court's resolution of Judd's appeal did not rest upon an adequate state procedural ground, and thus does not operate as a bar to our review of the merits of Judd's federal constitutional claim. Furthermore, Judd's constitutional argument is meritorious, and entitles him to habeas relief. We therefore reverse the decision of the district court, and remand the case with instructions directing the district court to grant Judd's habeas petition.

BACKGROUND

Judd was indicted by an Etowah County, Alabama, Grand Jury in June of 1993 on multiple counts of rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse. Judd's adopted daughter, J.D.J., who was 14 at the time of the indictment, was the alleged victim of these crimes.¹

On the morning Judd's trial was to begin, in June of 1994, the prosecutor and Judd's defense attorneys met with the trial judge in chambers to resolve various evidentiary matters. A court reporter was present to preserve a record of the meeting. When all of the evidentiary issues on the agenda were resolved, the judge asked if the parties were ready to proceed to the courtroom and begin the trial. After receiving an affirmative response, the judge and the parties began to move towards the door.

The court reporter was apparently the first person to leave after the conclusion of the pre-trial meeting, and was thus not available to record any of the subsequent conversations that took place in chambers. What we can glean from the recollections of the parties involved (as manifested at an evidentiary hearing held before a federal magistrate judge) is something along the lines of the following: the prosecutor turned to the judge before they reached the courtroom door, and indicated that he wanted the courtroom closed to all spectators during J.D.J's testimony. While the prosecutor could not recall the exact words he used, he explained to the judge that the reasons that he sought the closure related to the graphic nature of J.D.J's testimony, her young age, and the fact that she feared testifying in a public forum.

At this point, counsel for the defendant apparently voiced an objection to the prosecutor's proposal. Despite the objection, the judge indicated that he was inclined to order the courtroom cleared during J.D.J's testimony. The parties then proceeded into the courtroom to prepare for opening statements.

Following opening statements, the court made the following ruling on the record:

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, upon motion of the State of Alabama, which I have granted, the courtroom will be cleared during the testimony of the minor child. Y'all may leave now.

After the courtroom was cleared, Judd's attorney issued a lengthy objection, saying in part:

Judge, we object to my client's constitutional rights being violated. He's entitled, under the U.S. and Alabama Constitutions, to a free and open courtroom in this case. The Court has closed the courtroom and we believe my client's rights have been violated in that aspect.

The Court responded, "Due to the nature of the case and I don't see any prejudice to the defendant, at this time I will deny your motion." The trial record does not indicate when, if ever, spectators were permitted to return to the courtroom, though both the prosecutor and the judge testified at the federal evidentiary hearing that the courtroom was reopened following J.D.J's testimony.

The jury found Judd guilty of two counts of sodomy in the first degree and three counts of sexual abuse in the first degree. The court sentenced Judd to two concurrent thirty-year terms on the sodomy convictions, and three concurrent five-year terms on the convictions for sexual abuse.

Judd's motion for a new trial was denied, and he appealed his convictions to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. One of the arguments Judd advanced on appeal was that the trial court had violated his rights to a public trial under both the Alabama and the United States Constitutions. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Judd's convictions in an unpublished memorandum, and Judd timely filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Alabama Supreme Court.

The Alabama Supreme Court agreed to consider Judd's claim that his right to a public trial was violated, and issued an opinion on the matter in April of 1997. See Ex Parte Judd, 694 So.2d 1294 (Ala.1997). The opinion began with an evaluation of relevant federal and state precedent on the scope of the right to a public trial, and sought to develop a coherent set of principles that lower courts and litigants could use as guidance when confronted with the issue. The court announced as a matter of law that there was no conflict between state and federal authorities on the scope and nature of that right. In fact, the court formally adopted the test the U.S. Supreme Court articulated in Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984), as a means of determining when a defendant's right to a public trial has been violated under the Alabama Constitution in the event of a total closure of a courtroom. See Ex Parte Judd, 694 So.2d at 1297 ("[W]e adopt the Waller v. Georgia test for determining when a courtroom can be closed ... without violating a defendant's constitutional right to a public trial."). However, the court never reached the merits of Judd's appeal. The court resolved Judd's constitutional claim on a procedural ground, as explained in the final paragraph of the court's opinion:

Judd failed to preserve for the record the proceedings on the motion to close the courtroom, the considerations that led to the closure of the courtroom, who was cleared from the courtroom, or whether the courtroom remained closed after the victims testimony. The burden is on the appellant to bring the record before an appellate court. Montgomery v. State, 504 So.2d 370, 372 (Ala.Crim.App.1987). Because Judd failed to have the relevant facts and proceedings included in the record, we cannot consider whether Judd's constitutional rights were violated when the courtroom was closed in his case.

Id.

In August of 1997, Judd filed the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. In it, Judd repeated his assertion that the Alabama trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.

Judd's petition was initially assigned to a magistrate judge, who held an evidentiary hearing on the matter and issued a Report and Recommendation. The magistrate judge found that the doctrine of procedural default was inapplicable to Judd's case. Thus, the magistrate judge was able to reach the merits of Judd's claim, and found that Judd's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial had been violated. The magistrate judge therefore concluded that the district court should grant Judd's habeas petition.

The district court, in a memorandum opinion, sustained the respondents' objections to the Report and Recommendation. The court found that the doctrine of procedural default precluded federal review of the merits of Judd's claim, and dismissed Judd's habeas petition. In June of 2000, the district court granted Judd a certificate of appealability, and Judd subsequently filed the instant appeal.

DISCUSSION

I.

The central issue in this appeal is whether a particular claim is subject to the doctrine of procedural default; this is a mixed question of fact and law, which we review de novo.² See Bailey v. Nagle, 172 F.3d 1299, 1302 (11th Cir.1999).

A state prisoner seeking federal habeas relief cannot raise a federal constitutional claim in federal court unless he first properly raised the issue in the state courts. See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 87, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). The doctrine of procedural default was developed as a means of ensuring that federal habeas petitioners first seek relief in accordance with established state procedures. See Presnell v. Kemp, 835 F.2d 1567, 1578-79 (11th Cir.1988). A state court's rejection of a petitioner's constitutional claim on state procedural grounds will generally preclude any subsequent federal habeas review of that claim. See Harmon v. Barton, 894 F.2d 1268, 1270 (11th Cir.1990). However, a state court's rejection of a federal constitutional claim on procedural grounds will only preclude federal review if the state procedural ruling rests upon "independent and adequate" state ground. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729-30, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 262, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989).

In Card v. Dugger, 911 F.2d 1494 (11th Cir.1990), we established a three-part test to enable us to determine when a state court's procedural ruling constitutes an independent and...