Davis v. Woodford

• Decision Date: 27 April 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-55164.,05-55164.
• Citation: 446 F.3d 957
• Parties: Stafford B. DAVIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne S. WOODFORD, Director, California Department of Corrections, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 957

446 F.3d 957

Stafford B. DAVIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne S. WOODFORD, Director, California Department of Corrections, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 05-55164.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 8, 2006.

Filed April 27, 2006.

Kenneth M. Stern, Law Offices of Kenneth M. Stern, Woodland Hills, California, for the petitioner-appellant.

Scott C. Taylor, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, California, for the respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Alicemarie H. Stotler, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-02-01186-AHS(RMC).

Before SUSAN P. GRABER, KIM McLANE WARDLAW, and JOHNNIE B. RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges.

GRABER, Circuit Judge.

In 2000, a state-court jury convicted Petitioner Stafford B. Davis of being a felon in possession of a firearm and of evading a peace officer. The state court sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison under California's Three Strikes Law, counting as eight "strikes" a 1986 California conviction that involved eight robberies. After unsuccessful state appeals and state habeas petitions, Petitioner filed this federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He now appeals the district court's denial of his requested relief, arguing primarily that the use of his 1986 conviction as eight separate "strikes" breached the 1986 plea agreement. We agree.

In 1986 the state expressly agreed to treat the robbery conviction as only one "strike" for purposes of later recidivist sentencing, so counting that conviction as eight "strikes" violated the terms of Petitioner's plea agreement. The California Supreme Court's denial of Petitioner's state habeas petition was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in the light of the evidence presented in state court, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2), and involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent, Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971), within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). We therefore reverse and remand with instructions to grant the writ of habeas corpus in this respect, subject to the state's resentencing Petitioner within a reasonable time.

BACKGROUND

On February 15, 1999, Petitioner argued with his landlady. She called 911 and reported that Petitioner had been brandishing a gun and had departed in a white Volkswagen. Two officers responded to the call. They followed Petitioner's car and ordered him to pull over. Petitioner disobeyed the order, drove back to the house, and ran up to the porch. The landlady slammed the door before Petitioner could enter, and the officers apprehended him. A loaded gun slipped from his waistband to the ground.

A 2000 information charged Petitioner with being a felon in possession of a firearm and with evading a police officer.

It further charged that Petitioner had nine prior serious felony convictions within the meaning of the Three Strikes Law; the first eight stemmed from robberies prosecuted in 1986.

It is clear that there were several different robberies underlying the 1986 conviction, and the state filed two separate informations against Petitioner. He pleaded guilty to eight counts of robbery with the understanding that the two informations would be consolidated into one and that there would be only one conviction on his record. At the plea colloquy, the judge asked the prosecutor to spell out the terms of the plea agreement, and the prosecutor responded:

[THE PROSECUTOR]: Your Honor, it's my understanding that both defendants¹ will plead to the Information as alleged, which would be, as I counted,... eight counts against Mr. Davis, and that they will receive five years in state prison as a consequence of that plea. For all purposes, it is the People's position that this would be one five-year prior on their record as a violent felony pursuant to Proposition 8.² Even though there were two separate Informations in this case, they were consolidated.

THE COURT: So there's only one instead of two priors?

[THE PROSECUTOR]: That's correct, Your Honor. It would be one prior for all purposes.

(Emphasis added.)

Later during the plea colloquy, speaking directly to Petitioner, the prosecutor explained that if Petitioner were to commit another serious felony, five years could be added to his sentence. The prosecutor specified: "It will be one five-year prior on your record. Do you understand that? But not two. Do you understand that, Mr. Davis?" Petitioner answered, "Yes." The prosecutor then asked, "Knowing that, do you still wish to plead guilty, Mr. Davis?" Again Petitioner said, "Yes."

In the 2000 case, Petitioner agreed to a bench trial at sentencing. The state-court judge struck the ninth alleged prior conviction, found that Petitioner had eight prior "strikes" due to the 1986 robbery conviction, and sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.

DISCUSSION

A. Timeliness of the Appeal

As an initial matter, we must address the Warden's contention that this appeal should be dismissed as untimely. See Kwai Fun Wong v. United States, 373 F.3d 952, 960 (9th Cir.2004) (noting that the existence of appellate jurisdiction is a threshold question).

The district court denied the habeas petition on December 2, 2004. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4, Petitioner had 30 days within which to file a notice of appeal. Petitioner submitted a sworn Proof of Service form showing that his fellow inmate Stephen Snow deposited the Notice of Appeal in the Folsom State Prison's mail system on December 31, 2004. The Warden points to the prison's legal mail logs, which show that the only mail from either Petitioner or Snow to the United States District Court in Los Angeles was sent on January 7, 2005. The Warden also offers a declaration from the mail room supervisor stating that mail generally is processed, logged in, and mailed on the same day it is delivered by the inmate. But an addendum to the supervisor's declaration states that she was absent on the last Friday in December 2004 (which was December 31) and that mail arriving on that day should have been processed on the following Monday.

On these facts, we hold that Petitioner can take advantage of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(c), otherwise known as the "mailbox rule." Under the mailbox rule, if an inmate deposits a notice of appeal in the institution's internal mail system on or before the last day for filing, the notice is timely. The evidence is that Snow deposited the Notice of Appeal in the prison mail system on December 31 and that no mail went out on that day. The fact that the prison log shows that the mail was sent on January 7 is not inconsistent with its having been deposited on December 31. Thus, the notice of appeal was timely filed, and we have jurisdiction to consider the merits. See Sudduth v. Ariz. Attorney Gen., 921 F.2d 206, 207 (9th Cir.1990) (published order) (declining to remand to the district court for a determination of timeliness).

B. Santobello Claim

Because Petitioner filed his habeas petition after April 24, 1996, it is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). Under AEDPA, a writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted unless the state court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," id. § 2254(d)(2).

There is no reasoned state-court decision addressing Petitioner's claim that the use of his 1986 conviction as eight strikes violated his plea agreement. He first raised the claim in a habeas petition before the California Supreme Court, and that petition was denied without comment. Therefore, we undertake an independent review of the record. See Delgado v. Lewis, 223 F.3d 976, 982 (9th Cir.2000) ("Federal habeas review is not de novo when the state court does not supply reasoning for its decision, but an independent review of the record is required to determine whether the state court clearly erred in its application of controlling federal law.").

In Santobello, the Supreme Court held that the government is bound by plea agreements and that, "when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled." 404 U.S. at 262, 92 S.Ct. 495. The question before us is whether the state promised Petitioner that he would have only one prior conviction on his record and, if so, whether Petitioner's guilty plea was induced by that promise. See Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 509-10, 104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437 (1984) (clarifying that a Santobello claim requires the plea to be induced by the prosecutor's promise).

Although we know little about the 1986 robberies, we do know from the plea colloquy that two informations were filed against Petitioner. Further, Petitioner's testimony in the 2000 trial and a declaration by his codefendant make it clear that several robberies were involved. Thus, the state could have brought and tried two separate cases, possibly resulting in two prior convictions under then-current law, but it agreed to consolidate them.

The Warden argues that the prosecutor's in-court statements merely explained the extant law but made no promise to Petitioner. Reading the 1986 plea colloquy as a whole, we are unpersuaded. The only reasonable inference to draw from the colloquy is that the state promised to treat the conviction as a single "prior."

California Penal Code section 667(a)(1), which was the law in effect at the time of Petitioner's 1986 conviction, provides that a person being sentenced for certain serious felonies receives a five-year sentence enhancement "for eac...