Chandler v. Ala. & the Attorney Gen. of Ala.
| Decision Date | 17 November 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 2:13-cv-109-SLB-TMP |
| Parties | EDDIE CHANDLER, Petitioner, v. STATE OF ALABAMA and the ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
This is an action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in which the petitioner challenges the constitutional validity of a conviction he received in the Circuit Court of Calhoun County, Alabama for trafficking marijuana. As explained below, all of the petitioner's claims are procedurally defaulted and he is entitled to no habeas relief.
On September 3, 2010, the grand jury in Calhoun County, Alabama, indicted the petitioner on one count of trafficking marijuana.1 (Doc. 13-1). He was arraigned on January 27, 2011, and pleaded not guilty. He was represented by Attorney William Broome. On April 27, 2011, the petitioner pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possession of marijuana pursuant to a plea agreement, and was sentenced on May 31, 2011, as a habitual offender to a term of fifteenyears, which was suspended with five years of probation instead. (Doc. 13-2). Petitioner did not appeal, and the conviction became final 42 days later, on July 12, 2011, when the time for appeal expired. There is no indication in the record, and petitioner does not allege, that he has filed any state post-conviction petition challenging the conviction or sentence.
While serving a federal sentence at FCI-Morgantown, West Virginia, petitioner filed the instant petition for § 2254 relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, on May 7, 2012. The petition was transferred to this court on January 7, 2013, being docketed in this court on January 17, 2013. The original petition alleged two principal claims, both asserting some form of ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. Those claims are:
Following the transfer of the petition to this court, the court granted petitioner's motion to amend the petition to add a claim (Claim 3) that his guilty plea was taken while the state courthouse was closed due to inclement weather and his family was not present. (Docs. 8 and 11). Later, petitioner filed several other motions to amend the petition, but the court allowed only anamendment (Doc. 22) alleging (Claim 4) that petitioner was coerced by counsel into pleading guilty even though counsel knew petitioner was not guilty of the marijuana charge. (Doc. 29). On August 5, 2014, petitioner again sought leave to amend the petition to allege (Claim 5) that trial counsel falsely represented to him, in an attempt to persuade petitioner to plead guilty, that petitioner's wife and brother would testify against him to the effect that petitioner was growing the marijuana plants near his home. (Doc. 37). Petitioner asserts that this information from counsel was false and known by counsel to be false, and that it caused petitioner to forgo trial and plead guilty. The court allowed this amendment as well. (Doc. 39).
Ultimately, the respondents filed answers to these claims, asserting that all of the claims are procedurally defaulted. (Docs. 13, 30, and 42). In particular, respondents point out that, with respect to all claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, petitioner has not filed any Rule 32 or other state post-conviction petition, nor did he appeal any claim related to the legality of the guilty plea taking place while the courthouse was closed for inclement weather.
The court notified the parties that the petition and answers would be taken under submission for summary adjudication, and petitioner was given the opportunity to reply to the assertion of procedural default raised in the respondents' answers. Petitioner filed his traverse on January 5, 2015 (Doc. 45), asserting that he is factually innocent of the marijuana-possession charge and that he only recently discovered that trial counsel's statements about petitioner's wife and brother being available to testify against him were not true. Petitioner contends he only recently discovered that his wife and brother would not testify against him, contrary to what he was told by counsel.
The Petitioner contends in Claims One, Two,2 Four, and Five that he received various forms of ineffective assistance of counsel and, in Claim Three, that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he was sentenced when the courthouse was closed and he was not given a full plea colloquy. These claims are procedurally defaulted because petitioner has not brought any of them in a state-court post-conviction proceeding.3 When a habeas claim has never been presented to a state court and there no longer exists any remedial vehicle by which the state courts may consider the claim, the United States Supreme Court has held that it is procedurally defaulted. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (1989). The court is not required to dismiss the claims as unexhausted because the defaults are apparent and it would be futile to send the petitioner back to state court only to be faced with them. See Collier v. Jones, 910 F.2d 770 (11th Cir. 1990); Whiddon v. Dugger, 894 F.2d 1266 (11th Cir. 1990). Consequently, under the authority of Teague, the Petitioner is procedurally barred from raising these claims absent a showing of adequate cause and prejudice for failing to raise the issues on direct appeal or in a properly filed Rule 32 petition. See Whiddon v. Dugger, 894 F.2d 1266(11th Cir. 1990).
If a petitioner has procedurally defaulted on a constitutional claim, he is barred from litigating it in a federal habeas corpus proceeding unless he can show adequate "cause" for and "actual prejudice" from the default, or by showing that failing to consider the claim is a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S. Ct. 1558, 71 L. Ed. 2d 783 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 71, 97 S. Ct. 2497, 53 L. Ed. 2d 594 (1977); Wilson v. Jones, 902 F.2d 923, 925 (11th Cir. 1990). The "cause and prejudice" test of Engle v. Isaac and Wainwright v. Sykes is in the conjunctive; therefore, the petitioner must prove both cause and prejudice. The United States Supreme Court summarized the "cause" standard in the following manner:
In Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72 (1977), this Court adopted the "cause and prejudice" requirement of Francis v. Henderson, supra, for all petitioners seeking federal habeas relief on constitutional claims defaulted in state court. The Sykes Court did not elaborate upon this requirement, but rather left open "for resolution in future decisions the precise definition of the 'cause-and-prejudice' standard." 433 U.S. at 87. Although more recent decisions likewise have not attempted to establish conclusively the contours of the standard, they offer some helpful guidance on the question of cause. In Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1 (1984), the Court explained that although a "tactical" or "intentional" decision to forgo a procedural opportunity normally cannot constitute cause, id. at 13-14, "the failure of counsel to raise a constitutional issue reasonably unknown to him is one situation in which the [cause] requirement is met." Id. at 14. The Court later elaborated upon Ross and stated that "the existence of cause for a procedural default must ordinarily turn on whether the prisoner can show that some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsel's efforts to comply with the State's procedural rule." Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986). We explained that "a showing that the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel, . . . would constitute cause under this standard." Ibid. (Citations omitted.)
Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214, 221-22, 108 S. Ct. 1771, 100 L. Ed. 2d 249 (1988).
The petitioner also must demonstrate that he was prejudiced; he must show "not merely that the errors . . . created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions." United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 170, 102 S. Ct. 1584, 71 L. Ed. 2d 816 (1982) (emphasis in original). A federal habeas court, however, will consider a procedurally defaulted claim in the absence of cause if a "fundamental miscarriage of justice" has "probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent." Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 537-38, 106 S. Ct. 2661, 91 L. Ed. 2d 434 (1986) ().
Petitioner has not shown "cause and prejudice" excusing the procedural default with respect to any of his claims. As to each of the ineffective assistance of counsel claims in Claims One, Two, Four, and Five, he was fully aware of the facts relating to his counsel's representation of him, yet he failed to even file a state Rule 32 petition seeking a remedy....
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