Adams v. Thaler

• Decision Date: 25 April 2012
• Docket Number: Nos. 12–70010,12–40436 and 12–70011.,s. 12–70010
• Citation: 679 F.3d 312
• Parties: Beunka ADAMS, Petitioner–Appellee, v. Rick THALER, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent–Appellant. In re Beunka Adams, Petitioner. Beunka Adams, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Rick Thaler, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

679 F.3d 312

Beunka ADAMS, Petitioner–Appellee,

v.Rick THALER, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent–Appellant.

In re Beunka Adams, Petitioner.

Beunka Adams, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Rick Thaler, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division, Respondent–Appellee.

Nos. 12–70010, 12–40436 and 12–70011.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 25, 2012.

Thomas Scott Smith (Court–Appointed), Smith & Smith, Sherman, TX, for Petitioner–Appellee.

Ellen Stewart–Klein, Asst. Atty. Gen., Postconviction Lit. Div., Austin, TX, for Respondent–Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Before KING, ELROD and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

KING, Circuit Judge:

Beunka Adams was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Texas state court. He is scheduled to be executed on April 26, 2012. On April 13, 2012, Adams filed a motion in the district court pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6), seeking relief from the district court's judgment denying his initial federal habeas corpus petition. He also filed a motion for a stay of execution. Adams v. Thaler, No. 5:07–cv–00180 (E.D.Tex.). That same day, in a separate district court action, Adams filed a second-in-time federal habeas petition and a motion for a stay of execution. Adams v. Thaler, No. 5:12–cv–00036 (E.D.Tex.).

On April 23, 2012, the district court granted Adams's motion to stay his execution pending the court's disposition of Adams's Rule 60(b)(6) motion. In the separate action related to Adams's second-in-time federal habeas petition, the district court transferred the case to this court, in order for us to determine in the first instance whether Adams's habeas petition is successive. On April 24, 2012, Rick Thaler filed a motion to vacate the stay of Adams's execution. For the following reasons, we VACATE the district court's grant of a stay of execution; we DISMISS Adams's successive federal habeas petition; and we DENY his motion for a stay of execution.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Beunka Adams (“Adams”) was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Texas state court.¹ The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“TCCA”) affirmed Adams's conviction and sentence on direct appeal, and the Supreme Court denied review. Adams v. State, No. AP–75023, 2007 WL 1839845 (Tex.Crim.App. June 27, 2007), cert. denied 552 U.S. 1145, 128 S.Ct. 1071, 169 L.Ed.2d 816 (2008). Adams filed a state habeas application, in which he asserted various claims, including several ineffective assistance of counsel claims. After an evidentiary hearing, the state trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law recommending the denial of Adams's habeas application. The TCCA adopted these findings of fact and conclusions of law and denied Adams's application. Ex parte Adams, No. WR–68066–01, 2007 WL 4127008 (Tex.Crim.App. Nov. 21, 2007).

Adams filed a second state habeas application in 2008, asserting two new claims related to the jury instructions given during the sentencing phase of his trial. Specifically, he asserted that he was deprived of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to effective assistance of counsel by trial counsel's and appellate counsel's failure to ensure that the jury was properly instructed in the punishment phase of his trial.² While the subsequent state application was pending, Adams filed a federal habeas petition asserting ten claims for relief, including the two claims presented in his second state habeas application. Adams simultaneously filed a motion to stay and abate the federal proceedings until the TCCA ruled on the second application. The federal district court granted the motion. A few months later, the TCCA found that the two claims in his subsequent state habeas application were procedurally barred, specifically that they did “not satisfy the requirements of Article 11.071, Section 5,” of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Therefore, the TCCA dismissed the application as an “abuse of the writ.” Ex parte Adams, No. WR–68066–02, 2009 WL 1165001 (Tex.Crim.App. Apr. 29, 2009).

Thereafter, the district court denied Adams's federal habeas petition, dismissing the two claims that Adams presented in his second state habeas application and denying the remaining claims. Adams v. Thaler, No. 5:07–cv–180, 2010 WL 2990967 (E.D.Tex. July 26, 2010). The district court determined that Adams had procedurally defaulted his ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel claims pursuant to Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). Coleman held that “[i]n all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Id. Because the TCCA dismissed these claims as an “abuse of the writ”—an independent and adequate state procedural ground—the district court found that the claims were procedurally defaulted. Furthermore, the court ruled that Adams could not demonstrate “cause” to excuse the procedural default, because, pursuant to Coleman, the ineffectiveness of state habeas counsel in failing to raise these claims in Adams's first state habeas application did not constitute “cause.” Seeid. at 752–53, 111 S.Ct. 2546. The court granted Adams a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on eleven issues: on the ten claims he presentedin his petition and on the issue of whether his two claims were procedurally barred. We affirmed the district court's judgment denying Adams's petition. Adams v. Thaler, 421 Fed.Appx. 322 (5th Cir.2011), cert. denied ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 399, 181 L.Ed.2d 256 (2011).

Adams recently filed another subsequent habeas application in state court, which the TCCA dismissed as an abuse of the writ. Ex parte Adams, No. WR–68066–03, 2012 WL 476538 (Tex.Crim.App. Feb. 15, 2012). On March 13, 2012, Adams petitioned the Supreme Court for review of that dismissal and also filed a motion for a stay of execution. On February 27, 2012, Adams filed in our court a motion for authorization to file a successive petition, but withdrew that motion on March 23, 2012, several days after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Martinez v. Ryan, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012).

In Martinez, the Supreme Court noted that Coleman held that “an attorney's negligence in a postconviction proceeding does not establish cause” to excuse procedural default. Id. at 1319. The Court recognized that Coleman “left open ... a question of constitutional law: whether a prisoner has a right to effective counsel in collateral proceedings which provide the first occasion to raise a claim of ineffective assistance at trial.” Id. at 1315. However, the Court did not resolve this constitutional question. Id. Instead, the Court in Martinez “qualifie[d] Coleman by recognizing a narrow exception: Inadequate assistance of counsel at initial-review collateral proceedings³ may establish cause for a prisoner's procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance at trial.” Id. The Court summarized its narrow holding as follows:

Where, under state law, claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel must be raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding, a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective.

Id. at 1320. The Court characterized its decision as an “equitable ruling,” and not a constitutional ruling. Id. at 1319.

On April 13, 2012, Adams filed a motion in the federal district court pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6), seeking relief from the district court's judgment denying his federal habeas petition. Adams v. Thaler, No. 5:07–cv–00180 (E.D.Tex.). In his Rule 60(b)(6) motion, Adams stated that the district court relied on Coleman to conclude that Adams's ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel claims were procedurally defaulted and that ineffective assistance of state post-conviction counsel could not constitute cause to excuse the default. Adams asserted that, since the district court's judgment, the Supreme Court had decided Martinez, which created an exception to Coleman's holding that ineffective assistance of state habeas counsel cannot constitute cause to excuse procedural default. Adams argues that Martinez constitutes “extraordinary circumstances” entitling him to Rule 60(b)(6) relief. Adams also filed a motion for a stay of execution pending disposition of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion.

Also on April 13, 2012, Adams filed a second-in-time federal habeas petition in the district court, a motion for a stay of execution, and a motion to proceed in forma pauperis. Adams v. Thaler, No. 5:12–cv–00036 (E.D.Tex.). Adams argued that his second-in-time federal habeas petition was not a “successive” petition and therefore that the court had jurisdiction to entertain it without our prior authorization. In his petition, Adams asserted that, given Martinez, he could now demonstrate cause for his procedural default and was therefore entitled to an adjudication of his ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel claims.⁴ In his motion for a stay of execution, Adams argued that the district court “should stay the execution and set a briefing schedule so the parties and the Court can meaningfully examine Martinez's implications.”

On April 19, 2012, Rick Thaler (“Director”), Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, filed a response...