Teleguz v. Pearson

• Citation: 689 F.3d 322
• Decision Date: 02 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–9.,11–9.
• Parties: Ivan TELEGUZ, Petitioner–Appellant, v. Eddie L. PEARSON, Warden, Sussex I State Prison, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

689 F.3d 322

Ivan TELEGUZ, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.Eddie L. PEARSON, Warden, Sussex I State Prison, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 11–9.

United States Court of Appeals,Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 16, 2012.

Decided: Aug. 2, 2012.

ARGUED:Matthew Carey Stiegler, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Appellant. Katherine Baldwin Burnett, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Elizabeth J. Peiffer, Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before MOTZ, DAVIS, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Vacated in part and remanded by published opinion. Judge WYNN wrote the opinion, in which Judge MOTZ and Judge DAVIS concurred.

OPINION

WYNN, Circuit Judge:

Ivan Teleguz, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Virginia, appeals from the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for habeas corpus relief. We granted a certificate of appealability to determine whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Teleguz's request for an evidentiary hearing to develop his claim of actual innocence, which, under Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995), would allow the district court to address Teleguz's procedurally defaulted constitutional claims. We hold that the district court abused its discretion in failing to conduct a sound and thorough analysis of Teleguz's Schlup gateway innocence claim as required by our decision in Wolfe v. Johnson, 565 F.3d 140, 163 (4th Cir.2009), and we remand for further proceedings.

I.

On February 9, 2006, a jury convicted Teleguz of capital murder for hire after his former girlfriend, Stephanie Sipe, was found dead in the apartment she shared with Teleguz's infant son. Although DNA evidence linked Michael Hetrick to the murder, Hetrick testified at Teleguz's trial that Teleguz had hired him to commit the crime. Hetrick's allegations were corroborated by two additional witnesses: Edwin Gilkes and Aleksey Safanov. Gilkes testified that he had been present at a birthday party where Teleguz hired Hetrick to commit the murder. Gilkes also testified that he accompanied Hetrick to Sipe's apartment and waited outside for Hetrick during the murder. Gilkes further claimed that he was afraid of Teleguz because he had heard rumors that Teleguz was a member of the Russian mafia, as well as a specific account of a murder committed by Teleguz in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. According to Gilkes, Teleguz had shot a Russian criminal in the street outside the Ephrata Recreation Center.

Safanov testified that Teleguz attempted to hire him to murder Sipe so that Teleguz would no longer be required to pay child support. Safanov also testified that Teleguz had spoken to him after the murder, complaining that “the black man” he had hired to kill Sipe had left blood at the scene, and offering Safanov money if he would “eliminate [the] killer.” J.A. 325. Although other evidence was presented at trial, the Supreme Court of Virginia explained that, “in order to return a guilty verdict, the jury had to believe the testimony of Safanov, Gilkes, and Hetrick.” Teleguz v. Commonwealth, 273 Va. 458, 643 S.E.2d 708, 728 (2007) (“Teleguz I ”).

On February 14, 2006, the jury recommended a death sentence after finding that two statutory aggravating factors were present: vileness and future dangerousness. Following Teleguz's appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed his conviction and sentence. Teleguz I, 643 S.E.2d at 732. He then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in state court, which the Supreme Court of Virginia dismissed. Teleguz v. Warden of Sussex I State Prison, 279 Va. 1, 688 S.E.2d 865, 879 (2010). On November 12, 2010, Teleguz filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, asserting various grounds for relief. Some of Teleguz's claims had been adjudicated on the merits by the Supreme Court of Virginia, while others had been procedurally defaulted. Teleguz argued that, pursuant to the Supreme Court's decision in Schlup, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, the district court should consider the merits of his procedurally defaulted claims because new and reliable evidence established that he was actually innocent of Sipe's murder (“Schlup gateway innocence claim”).

In support of his Schlup gateway innocence claim, Teleguz offered several categories of evidence. First, he presented affidavits of third-party witnesses who claimed that Teleguz did not attend the birthday party during which he was alleged to have hired Hetrick to kill Sipe. Second, he offered police reports and affidavits to establish that no murder occurred outside the Ephrata Recreation Center, that no murder that occurred in Ephrata prior to Teleguz's trial remains unsolved, and that the only murder involving a Russian victim occurred at a private residence. Third, Teleguz presented affidavits in which Gilkes and Safanov recanted the testimony they offered at Teleguz's trial. Gilkes now claims that he was coerced into testifying against Teleguz by the prosecutor, who “made clear that if [he] did not, [he] would have been the one on death row today, not Teleguz.” J.A. 1281. Gilkes executed affidavits in both 2008 and 2010 denying that Teleguz hired Hetrick to kill Sipe. Safanov currently resides in Kazakhstan, but was contacted by lawyers from Teleguz's defense team. According to their affidavits, Safanov now insists that he never discussed Sipe's murder with Teleguz and agreed to testify during Teleguz's trial only because he believed that if he cooperated with the prosecutor, he would be eligible for a visa allowinghim to stay in the United States despite pending federal gun charges.

On August 1, 2011, the district court issued an opinion and order denying Teleguz habeas relief. Teleguz v. Kelly, 824 F.Supp.2d 672, 723 (W.D.Va.2011) (“Teleguz II ”). We granted a certificate of appealability to determine whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Teleguz's request for an evidentiary hearing pursuant to Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851.¹

II.

We review a district court's denial of habeas relief de novo and its decision not to grant an evidentiary hearing for abuse of discretion. Wolfe, 565 F.3d at 160. When a court bases its decision on an error of law, it necessarily abuses its discretion. Id.

A.

“In disposing of a § 2254 habeas corpus petition” federal courts are “substantially constrain[ed]” in their review of state court convictions by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). Id. at 159. The AEDPA was “designed to further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism” by limiting federal habeas proceedings. Sharpe v. Bell, 593 F.3d 372, 379 (4th Cir.2010) (quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, if a state court adjudicates a petitioner's claims on the merits, a federal court may only award habeas relief if the resulting state court decision “[i]s contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of federal law” or “[i]s based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence” that was before it. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). “A state court's decision is ‘contrary to’ clearly established federal law only if it is ‘substantially different’ from the relevant Supreme Court precedent; it is ‘an unreasonable application of’ clearly established federal law only if it is ‘objectively unreasonable.’ ” Wolfe, 565 F.3d at 159 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405, 409, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)).

Further, a federal court ordinarily may not consider claims that a petitioner failed to raise at the time and in the manner required under state law unless “the prisoner demonstrates cause for the default and prejudice from the asserted error.” House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518, 536, 126 S.Ct. 2064, 165 L.Ed.2d 1 (2006). However, in Schlup, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, the Supreme Court recognized that in certain exceptional cases, a compelling showing of actual innocence would enable a federal court to consider the merits of a petitioner's otherwise defaulted claims. In these cases, new evidence “establish[es] sufficient doubt about [a petitioner's] guilt to justify the conclusion that his execution would be a miscarriage of justice unless his conviction was the product of a fair trial.” Id. at 316, 115 S.Ct. 851 (emphasis in original).

Courts have consistently emphasized that actual innocence for the purposes of Schlup is a procedural mechanism rather than a substantive claim. See, e.g., Sibley v. Culliver, 377 F.3d 1196, 1207 n. 9 (11th Cir.2004) (distinguishing between a “substantive claim for relief upon which the petition for habeas corpus is based” and a Schlup “gateway through which a habeas petitioner must pass” to have his substantive claims heard on the merits).² In other words, although a petitioner claims actual innocence for the purposes of asserting a Schlup claim, this innocence claim “does not by itself provide a basis for relief. Instead, his claim for relief relies critically on the validity” of his procedurally defaulted claims. Coleman v. Hardy, 628 F.3d 314, 318 (7th Cir.2010) (quotation marks omitted).

When a petitioner raises a Schlup gateway actual innocence claim, it must be supported by “new reliable evidence.” Schlup, 513 U.S. at 324, 115 S.Ct. 851. However, in its consideration of a petitioner's Schlup gateway actual innocence claim, the district court “ must consider ‘ all the evidence’ old and new, incriminating and exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be admitted under ‘rules of admissibility that would govern at trial.’ ” House, 547 U.S. at 537, 126 S.Ct. 2064 (quoting Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327–28, 115 S.Ct. 851) (emphasis added) (quotation marks omitted). In light of this evidence, the district court must determine...