Coleman v. Kemna, 99-4103
| Decision Date | 09 April 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-4103,99-4103 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 2001) CALVIN COLEMAN, APPELLANT, v. MIKE KEMNA, APPELLEE. Submitted: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Before Wollman, Chief Judge, Hansen and Murphy, Circuit Judges.
Calvin Coleman appeals the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
A Missouri state court jury convicted Coleman on August 3, 1995, of second degree murder, first degree assault, and two counts of armed criminal action. The state trial court sentenced him to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment, a concurrent term of 25 years of imprisonment, and a consecutive term of 25 years of imprisonment. The state trial court subsequently denied Coleman's motion for post-conviction relief. Coleman sought review of his convictions and the denial of his motion for post-conviction relief in a consolidated appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the judgments of the state trial court. State v. Coleman, 967 S.W.2d 314 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998). Coleman did not file a motion to transfer seeking discretionary review by the Supreme Court of Missouri. Instead, he filed a petition in federal court, seeking habeas corpus relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
Subsequent to the filing of Coleman's federal habeas petition, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the exhaustion doctrine requires a state prisoner to file for any available discretionary review in the state's highest court prior to filing for federal habeas relief. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 847-48 (1999). Relying on O'Sullivan, the district court dismissed Coleman's habeas corpus petition with prejudice, concluding that his failure to seek discretionary review by the Supreme Court of Missouri amounted to a procedural default because the time for seeking such review had passed. The district court also concluded that Coleman had failed to allege grounds sufficient to constitute cause and prejudice or actual innocence to overcome the default. Coleman appeals.
We granted a certificate of appealability on the question of whether Coleman has procedurally defaulted his habeas claims in light of the Supreme Court's O'Sullivan opinion. We have considered Coleman's arguments and conclude that his case is controlled by Dixon v. Dormire, Nos....
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Randolph v. Kemna
...appellate review scheme under O'Sullivan in Dixon v. Dormire. See also Moore v. Luebbers, 262 F.3d 757 (8th Cir. 2001); Coleman v. Kemna, 263 F.3d 785 (8th Cir. 2001). In Dixon, we ruled that Missouri's scheme required prisoners to move for transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court in order to......