Leal Garcia v. Quarterman
| Citation | 573 F.3d 214 |
| Decision Date | 24 June 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 08-70003.,08-70003. |
| Parties | Humberto LEAL GARCIA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Nathaniel QUARTERMAN; Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Morris H. Moon, Houston, TX, Mark Stevens, San Antonio, TX, for Leal Garcia.
Stephen M. Hoffman, Postconviction Lit. Div., Austin, TX, for Quarterman.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Before WIENER, GARZA and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
The opinion in this case filed on June 15, 2009, is withdrawn and the following opinion is substituted therefor.
Petitioner Humberto Leal Garcia ("Leal") appeals from the district court's finding that it was without jurisdiction to consider his second petition for habeas corpus relief because Leal failed to first seek authorization from this court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244. Leal contends that because his petition is not successive within the meaning of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), he was not required to obtain authorization and the district court had jurisdiction to hear his petition. We agree, but we nevertheless affirm the dismissal on the basis of the intervening Supreme Court decision in Medellín v. Texas.1
Leal was convicted of murder in a Texas court in 1995 for killing a 16-year-old girl during the course of an aggravated sexual assault. On a jury's recommendation, Leal was sentenced to death. We assume the parties are well familiar with the facts of the case so we will not repeat them here;2 it goes without saying that the details of the crime are graphic and brutal.
This is Leal's second attempt at federal habeas relief.3 AEDPA requires that a petitioner filing a "second or successive" petition first obtain authorization to do so from the appropriate federal appellate court. Leal did not do so, claiming that his petition was not successive. The district court disagreed, holding that it was successive and that, because Leal failed to obtain authorization pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A), the court was without jurisdiction to hear the petition. The district court dismissed Leal's petition without prejudice. He now appeals the holding of no jurisdiction.4
To assist in better understanding of this opinion, we set forth the timeline of Leal's proceedings to date and critical events paralleling his petitions for relief:
March 2000 — Leal files his first federal habeas petition in the District Court for the Western District of Texas.
March 2004 — The International Court of Justice (the "ICJ") issues the Avena decision.5
October 2004 — The Western District of Texas denies habeas relief to Leal.6
December 2004 — Leal seeks a Certificate of Appealability ("COA") in this court to appeal denial of his first federal habeas petition.
February 2005 — President Bush signs a declaration ordering state compliance with the mandate of the Avena decision.
March 2005 — Leal requests that this court stay further proceedings while he returns to state court to litigate his Avena-related claim, which motion we denied without further discussion.
October 2005 — This court denies Leal's request for a COA.7
November 2006 — Texas Court of Criminal Appeals holds that the Avena decision and the Bush declaration are not binding on the state of Texas.8
March 7, 2007 — Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denies Leal's pending Avena-related state petition.9
March 14, 2007 — Leal files this, his second, federal habeas petition.
December 2007 — The District Court for the Western District of Texas dismisses Leal's petition for lack of jurisdiction.10
January 2008 — Leal files timely notice of appeal.
March 2008 — Supreme Court decides Medellín v. Texas, affirming the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.11
In a petition for habeas corpus, we review de novo the district court's determination that it was without jurisdiction to consider the petitioner's claim.12
Before delving into the specifics of this case, we must outline the singular international and domestic legal background from which Leal's petition arises. The Vienna Convention, to which the United States has been a signatory since 1969, requires member nations to permit detained foreign nationals access to their consular officers.13 The United States also signed the Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes to the Vienna Convention, which established the ICJ and made its decisions binding on the parties before it.14
Alleging that the United States had violated the right to consular access established in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, Mexico took a dispute to the ICJ for review.15 The case (the "Avena decision") concerned 51 named Mexican citizens convicted of capital crimes and imprisoned in the United States; Leal was one of the 51 named individuals.16 In 2004, the ICJ held that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention's guarantee of consular access and must review the convictions and sentences of those individuals whose rights were so violated.17 In its decision, the ICJ stated that procedural barriers — such as state law procedural default rules — to reviewing the cases of the 51 individuals should be suspended to permit review.18 To obtain state compliance with the ICJ's edict, President George W. Bush then issued a memorandum (the "Bush declaration") in February 2005, ordering states to review the cases identified in the Avena decision.19
As a result of this series of events, Leal — like others of the 51 named individuals — filed a petition for habeas corpus under Texas law seeking the review outlined in the Avena decision. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his petition, Leal filed his second habeas petition in the Western District of Texas seeking the state of Texas's compliance with the Avena decision and the Bush declaration. A year after Leal filed his second federal petition, the Supreme Court, in Medellín v. Texas, considered the issue of Texas's refusal to conduct a review pursuant to Avena. The Court held that although the ICJ's Avena decision creates an international obligation binding on the United States, (1) the decision cannot automatically create enforceable domestic law,20 and (2) the President, acting without legislative or constitutional authority, could not pre-empt state law to make it binding.21 In short, the Court held that the several states are not bound to conduct the review ordered by the ICJ in the Avena decision. The Court then affirmed the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals's rejection of Medellín's successive habeas petition as an abuse of the writ under state law.22
The claim on which Leal's federal petition is based has been foreclosed by the Supreme Court's decision in Medellín v. Texas.23 We proceed with our analysis, however, because the issue before us is whether the district court properly determined that it was without jurisdiction, a question not mooted by the Supreme Court's decision in Medellín.
AEDPA requires a prisoner to obtain authorization from the federal appellate court in his circuit before he may file a "second or successive" petition for relief in federal district court.24 Without such authorization, the otherwise-cognizant district court has no jurisdiction to entertain a successive § 2254 petition.25 Leal asserts, however, that his petition is not successive because it is based on a claim that was not available to him at the time of his prior petition. If he is correct, the stringent requirements of § 2244 for obtaining authorization would not apply.26
Leal filed his first federal habeas petition in 2000, long before the Avena decision and the Bush declaration. In March 2004, when the ICJ decided Avena, Leal's first petition was still pending; the District Court for the Western District of Texas did not deny him relief until seven months later. The State asserts that this gap between the Avena decision and the district court's denial afforded Leal the opportunity and ample time to amend his first petition to include the claim on which he now bases this later petition. As such, according to the State, Leal's Avena-based claim was previously available and required, but did not merit, authorization from this court.
Leal counters that his claim did not arise until (1) the Bush declaration attempted to make the Avena decision binding on the states and (2) the Texas courts refused to afford review.27 As a result, he insists, the claim on which this petition is based was not previously available to him and so, although it is numerically second, it is not "second or successive" within the meaning of AEDPA.
AEDPA was enacted in part to bring finality to state court judgments.28 Section 2244 lays out the requirements for filing successive petitions, serving as gate-keeper by preventing the repeated filing of habeas petitions that attack the prisoner's underlying conviction.29 The statute does not define "second or successive,"30 however, and we have made clear that a petition is not "second or successive" merely because it is numerically second.31 In In re Cain, we defined a "second or successive" petition as one that "1) raises a claim challenging the petitioner's conviction or sentence that was or could have been raised in an earlier petition; or 2) otherwise constitutes an abuse of the writ."32 Section 2244 specifies when a later-in-time petition will be heard. Despite its strictures, the case law clarifies that there is a category of petitions that, even though later in time, are outside the confines of § 2244 and will be heard because they are not "second or successive" within the meaning of AEDPA.33
Leal relies on the Cain definition to...
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