Bynoe v. Baca, 072420 FED9, 17-17012
| Opinion Judge | PAEZ, CIRCUIT JUDGE |
| Party Name | Michael B. Bynoe, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Isidro Baca, Warden; Attorney General for the State of Nevada, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Attorney | Jeremy C. Baron (argued), Assistant Federal Public Defender; Rene L. Valladares, Federal Public Defender; Office of the Federal Public Defender, Las Vegas, Nevada; for Petitioner-Appellant. Natasha Mary Gebrael (argued); Erin L. Bittick, Deputy Attorney General; Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General; O... |
| Judge Panel | Before: Michael R. Murphy, Richard A. Paez, and Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Circuit Judges. RAWLINSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting: |
| Case Date | July 24, 2020 |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Argued and Submitted July 17, 2019 San Francisco, California
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada D.C. No. 3:07-cv-00009-LRH-VPC Larry R. Hicks, District Judge, Presiding
Jeremy C. Baron (argued), Assistant Federal Public Defender; Rene L. Valladares, Federal Public Defender; Office of the Federal Public Defender, Las Vegas, Nevada; for Petitioner-Appellant.
Natasha Mary Gebrael (argued); Erin L. Bittick, Deputy Attorney General; Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, Las Vegas, Nevada; for Respondents-Appellees.
Before: Michael R. Murphy, [*] Richard A. Paez, and Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Circuit Judges.
SUMMARY[**]
Habeas Corpus / Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)
The panel reversed the district court's denial of Michael Bynoe's motion pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(6) to reopen proceedings on his habeas corpus petition seeking to invalidate his plea of guilty but mentally ill to lewdness with a child under the age of fourteen, and remanded for further proceedings.
Bynoe entered the "guilty but mentally ill" plea, which subjected defendants to the same panoply of punishment as defendants who pleaded guilty or were found guilty after trial, during the short-lived period in which the Nevada state legislature replaced the insanity defense with the "guilty but mentally ill" plea. After the insanity plea was reinstated, Bynoe-without having exhausted any of his claims in state court-sought to invalidate his guilty plea by filing a habeas petition in federal district court. The district court denied Bynoe's request for a stay and dismissed the petition, interpreting this court's case law at the time to require the dismissal of habeas petitions consisting only of unexhausted claims. In Mena v. Long, 813 F.3d 907 (9th Cir. 2016), this court later clarified that district courts can indeed stay and abey entirely unexhausted habeas petitions. Following this change in law, Bynoe moved to reopen his habeas proceeding under Rule 60(b)(6) so the district court could reconsider his request for a stay while he presented his claims in state court. The district court denied the motion to reopen, concluding that Bynoe's claim was not timely and that he failed to present extraordinary circumstances justifying relief.
The panel held: • Bynoe's motion was properly filed under Rule 60(b)(6) rather than any of Rule 60(b)'s other grounds for relief.
• The motion, which was filed less than seven months after this court decided Mena and only two months after Bynoe was appointed counsel, was timely.
• The motion presented extraordinary circumstances warranting re-opening the final judgment, as the six factors set forth in Phelps v. Alameida, 569 F.3d 1120 (9th Cir. 2009)-the nature of the legal change, diligence in pursuing reconsideration, the parties' reliance interest in finality, the delay between finality of the judgment and the Rule 60(b)(6) motion, the relationship between the change in law and the challenged judgment, and concerns of comity- support reconsidering the final judgment.
The panel wrote that on remand Bynoe may request the district court to stay his petition while he returns to state court to exhaust his federal constitutional claims.
Judge Rawlinson dissented because, in her view, the majority does not adhere to the applicable standard of review, abuse of discretion.
OPINION
PAEZ, CIRCUIT JUDGE
In 1995, the Nevada State Legislature replaced the insanity defense with a "guilty but mentally ill" plea. See 1995 Nev. Stat. 2248-49. Pleading not guilty by reason of insanity instead of guilty but mentally ill had important practical consequences. Defendants who were found not guilty by reason of insanity were entirely acquitted of the crimes with which they were charged, while defendants who pleaded guilty but mentally ill were subject to the same panoply of punishment as defendants who pleaded guilty or were found guilty after trial.
Six years later, the Nevada Supreme Court reinstated the insanity defense. See Finger v. State of Nevada, 27 P.3d 66, 68 (Nev. 2001) (en banc). The court concluded that the principle of legal insanity is so "well-established" and "fundamental" that its abolishment violated the due process clauses of the Nevada and United States constitutions.[1] Id. at 84. The Legislature responded by restoring the insanity defense and abolishing the guilty-but-mentally-ill plea. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 174.035(4) (2003).
Michael Bynoe was one of the defendants who pleaded guilty but mentally ill during the short-lived period in which the plea was available in Nevada. After the insanity plea was reinstated, he sought to invalidate his guilty plea by filing a habeas petition in federal district court. At the time he filed his petition, he had failed to first exhaust any of his claims in state court. The court denied Bynoe's request for a stay and dismissed the petition, interpreting our caselaw at the time to require the dismissal of habeas petitions consisting only of unexhausted claims. See Bynoe v. Helling (Bynoe I), No. 3:07-cv-0009, 2009 WL 3060372, at *2 (D. Nev. Sept. 23, 2009). In an unrelated case, we later clarified that district courts can indeed stay and abey entirely unexhausted habeas petitions. See Mena v. Long, 813 F.3d 907 (9th Cir. 2016).
Following this change in law, Bynoe moved to reopen his habeas proceeding under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) so the district court could reconsider his request for a stay while he presented his claims in state court. The court denied his motion to reopen, concluding that Bynoe's claim was not timely and he had failed to present extraordinary circumstances justifying relief. See Bynoe v. Helling (Bynoe II), No. 3:07-cv-0009, 2017 WL 4079263, at *5 (D. Nev. Sept. 6, 2017); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6), (c)(1). We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I.
A.
Three years after Nevada eliminated the insanity defense, Bynoe was charged with one count of sexual assault on a child and one count of lewdness with a child under the age of fourteen. The court initially determined Bynoe was not competent to stand trial and ordered him transferred to a psychiatric facility for evaluation and treatment. After his competency was restored, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to a lesser offense of lewdness with a child under the age of fourteen in exchange for the state's agreement not to pursue the original sexual assault charge.
At his sentencing hearing, the court found Bynoe was mentally ill at the time of the offense and at the time of sentencing, accepted his plea, and sentenced him to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after he served a minimum of ten years.
B.
Bynoe's lengthy procedural journey through the Nevada and federal courts began a few months after he was sentenced. He began filing motions in state and federal court, challenging the propriety of his sentence and conviction. While his initial objections were pending, the Nevada Supreme Court held that the legislature's abolition of the insanity defense violated defendants' due process rights under the United States and Nevada Constitutions. See Finger, 27 P.3d at 86.
In 2007, Bynoe filed a pro se habeas petition in federal district court. He alleged that his federal due process rights were violated when he was barred from pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. The court appointed him counsel, and he filed an amended petition. Three out of the four grounds for relief in the amended petition turned on Nevada's unconstitutional decision to abolish the insanity defense. After reviewing the petition, the court ordered Bynoe to show cause why the petition should not be dismissed for lack of exhaustion.
In order to proceed with a federal habeas petition, petitioners must first exhaust their state-court remedies. See Anthony v. Cambra, 236 F.3d 568, 573-74 (9th Cir. 2000). In Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509 (1982), the Supreme Court held that district courts were required to dismiss "mixed" habeas petitions-petitions that contain both unexhausted and exhausted claims-in their entirety. Id. at 510.
Although dismissals of mixed petitions are technically without prejudice, the enactment of Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") made it difficult for petitioners to return to federal court with a timely petition. AEDPA imposes a one-year statute of limitations on the filing of a federal petition, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), and filing a federal petition does not toll the statute of limitations, see Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 181-82 (2001). Thus, petitioners who filed mixed petitions late in the limitations period could fall outside the one-year window by the time they finished exhausting their state-court remedies and returned to federal court. Together, the one-year time limit and Lundy's complete-dismissal requirement heightened the risk that petitioners who filed a mixed petition toward the end of the limitations period would lose the chance for federal review of their claims. Dixon v. Baker, 847 F.3d 714, 719 (9th Cir. 2017).
Recognizing "the gravity of this problem and the difficulty it [] posed for petitioners and federal district courts alike," the Supreme Court introduced an exception to the complete-dismissal requirement in Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 277 (2005). Under Rhines, a federal district court may stay the mixed petition and allow the petitioner to return to state court to litigate the unexhausted claims. See Jackson v. Roe, 425 F.3d 654, 660...
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