Rawlins v. State

• Citation: 714 F.3d 1189
• Decision Date: 30 April 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–3138.,12–3138.
• Parties: Damaris RAWLINS, Petitioner–Appellant, v. State of KANSAS, and Derek Schmidt, Attorney General for the State of Kansas, Respondents–Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

714 F.3d 1189

Damaris RAWLINS, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.State of KANSAS, and Derek Schmidt, Attorney General for the State of Kansas, Respondents–Appellees.

No. 12–3138.

United States Court of Appeals,

Tenth Circuit.

April 30, 2013.

Jonathan Laurans, Kansas City, MO, on the briefs for Appellant.

Kristafer R. Ailslieger, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the Kansas Attorney General, Topeka, KS, on the brief for Appellee.

Before O'BRIEN, McKAY, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.

TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to examine ancient legal writs in a very modern context. It arises from the 2001 conviction of Damaris Rawlins in Kansas state court for battery of a police officer. The Kansas court sentenced Rawlins to three years' probation.

Even while not facing jail time, Rawlins timely challenged her conviction in the Kansas courts both through direct appeals and through Kansas's collateral review system, arguing that certain constitutional errors tainted her conviction. Those state-court proceedings lasted for an unusually long period of time, finally concluding with a denial of relief in 2011.

Rawlins continues to believe that her state conviction resulted from constitutional errors. If Rawlins had still been in state custody (including probation) at the conclusion of her collateral review proceedings, she could have continued to press those arguments in federal court through a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. Having long since completed her probation sentence, however, she no longer met § 2254's “in custody” requirement.

Rawlins therefore petitioned the District of Kansas for a writ of audita querela or in the alternative a writ of coram vobis. These ancient common law writs allow courts to reexamine judgments in certain limited circumstances.

The district court assumed that if any writ was appropriate, it was a writ of audita querela. It did not reach the propriety of a writ of coram vobis. The district court then examined Rawlins's constitutional arguments as if brought under a § 2254 petition and concluded that Rawlins merited no relief. The court therefore denied her petition for a writ of audita querela and entered judgment accordingly.

We conclude that the most analogous writ in these circumstances is the writ of coram nobis, not audita querela. (Rawlins asks for coram vobis rather than coram nobis, but the distinction is immaterial, as discussed further below.) Federal courts, however, have no power to examine a state-court judgment under the writ of coram nobis.

Accordingly, no procedure exists by which we can review Rawlins's state-court conviction under these circumstances. We therefore vacate the district court's judgment and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

I. Background

Rawlins was arrested for DUI in Kansas City in April 2001 and taken to the local jail. Accounts conflict on exactly what happened there, but apparently she became uncooperative—letting her body go limp—and the police had to carry her to an isolation cell. The police say they gently placed her on the floor of the cell, at which point Rawlins kicked the shins of the closest officer three times. Rawlins says the police essentially slammed her into the wall and floor of the cell and started assaulting her, and she kicked out instinctively to protect herself.

Rawlins was charged with battery of a police officer and the case went to a jury trial. Rawlins claims her trial counsel refused to proffer photographs showing the bruises and cuts she allegedly obtained from the police. Also, the judge denied a self-defense jury instruction because her testimony (at that time) was that she did not kick anyone, and if she did it was involuntary. The jury convicted.

Rawlins received a 12–month suspended sentence and 3 years' probation. She timely appealed, but for unexplained reasons it took the Kansas Court of Appeals until March 2003 to resolve the appeal, at which point the court affirmed.¹ The Kansas Supreme Court denied review a few months later.

Rawlins then timely sought state post-conviction review. This petition worked its way slowly through the Kansas judicial system which finally denied all relief in January 2011 ²—long after Rawlins finished her probation.

Given that she was no longer “in custody,” Rawlins could not bring a § 2254 petition in federal court. See28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) (making writ of habeas corpus available to prisoners “in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court”); Maleng v. Cook, 490 U.S. 488, 492, 109 S.Ct. 1923, 104 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989) (per curiam) (“While we have very liberally construed the ‘in custody’ requirement for purposes of federal habeas, we have never extended it to the situation where a habeas petitioner suffers no present restraint from a conviction.”). The fact that she still suffers certain (unexplained) disabilities by reason of her conviction does not change this rule. See id. (“[O]nce the sentence imposed for a conviction has completely expired, the collateral consequences of that conviction are not themselves sufficient to render an individual ‘in custody’ for the purposes of a habeas attack upon it.”).

Rawlins sought to avoid this problem in district court by applying for a writ of audita querela or in the alternative coram vobis. Apart from the unusual procedural posture, her application is effectively a § 2254 petition, arguing that her constitutional rights were violated through ineffective assistance (her lawyer's failure to introduce the photographs) and the judge's refusal to give a self-defense instruction.

The district court was not certain whether audita querela is available but assumed that it was, further assumed that § 2254 standards would apply, and addressed the application on its merits. The court concluded that Rawlins had not established a constitutional defect in her trial and dismissed her petition. The court did not address coram vobis.

II. Analysis

On appeal, both Rawlins and Kansas move quickly past the question of whether audita querela or coram vobis is appropriate and instead direct most of their arguments to the merits of Rawlins's claims as if brought as a § 2254 petition. Our review of the writs of audita querela and coram vobis, however, convinces us that the procedural posture is dispositive. As explained below, coram vobis (or nobis) is the most analogous writ, but a petitioner cannot move for it in federal court to review a state conviction. We accordingly do not reach the merits of Rawlins's constitutional arguments.

A. Audita Querela

Audita querela is an ancient common law writ, which translated means “the complaint having been heard.” Black's Law Dictionary 150 (9th ed. 2009). According to Blackstone, audita querela originally issued following actions for debt

where a defendant, against whom judgment [was] recovered, and who [was] therefore in danger of execution [on that judgment], or perhaps actually in execution, may be relieved upon good matter of discharge, which has happened since the judgment: [such as situations in which] the plaintiff hath given [the judgment debtor] a general release; or if the [judgment debtor] hath paid the debt to the plaintiff, without procuring the satisfaction to be entered on the record.

3 William Blackstone, Commentaries *405–06. The writ was eventually extended to “like cases” where post-judgment circumstances provided the defendant “good matter to plead.” Id. at *406. The upshot was that some unanticipated circumstance arising post-judgment made continuing enforcement of the judgment unfair. “It would be contrary to justice,” according to common law practice, for a judgment to be enforced “because of matters arising subsequent to the rendition thereof, or because of prior existing defenses which were not available to the judgment debtor in the original suit, by reason of the judgment creditor's fraudulent conduct, or through circumstances over which the judgment debtor had no control.” See 2 Ruling Case Law 1159 (William M. McKinney & Burdett A. Rich eds., 1914).

The writ has been applied in federal court actions. In 1946, for example, we described audita querela as the historical basis for a court's inherent power to “afford relief in behalf of one against whom execution had been issued or was about to be issued upon a judgment, which it would be contrary to justice to allow to be enforced, because of matters arising subsequent to the rendition thereof.” Oliver v. City of Shattuck ex rel. Versluis, 157 F.2d 150, 153 (10th Cir.1946); cf. United States v. Torres, 282 F.3d 1241, 1245 n. 6 (10th Cir.2002) (“a writ of audita querela is used to challenge a judgment that was correct at the time rendered but which is rendered infirm by matters which arise after its rendition” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(e) abolished the writ of audita querela in federal civil actions soon after we handed down our Oliver decision. ³ Audita querela still receives attention, however, in the immigration context. Immigrants facing deportation on account of their criminal convictions have on occasion attempted to use audita querela to argue that deportation would be an unduly harsh consequence in light of mitigating circumstances. See Ejelonu v. INS, 355 F.3d 539 (6th Cir.2004), vacated and reh'g en banc granted (July 27, 2004), appeal dismissed (Oct. 18, 2004); Doe v. INS, 120 F.3d 200 (9th Cir.1997); United States v. LaPlante, 57 F.3d 252 (2d Cir.1995); United States v. Johnson, 962 F.2d 579 (7th Cir.1992); United States v. Reyes, 945 F.2d 862 (5th Cir.1991); United States v. Holder, 936 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1991); United States v. Ayala, 894 F.2d 425, 428(D.C.Cir.1990).

With the exception of the Sixth Circuit's since-vacated Ejelonu decision, each of these immigration cases concludes that audita querela, if available, must be brought on “legal” rather than “equitable” grounds. In other words, the petitioner must show something like an intervening change in law, ...