Finlayson v. State

• Decision Date: 28 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-4151,19-4151
• Citation: 6 F.4th 1235
• Parties: Jeffery Russell FINLAYSON, Petitioner - Appellant, v. STATE of Utah, Respondent - Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

6 F.4th 1235

Jeffery Russell FINLAYSON, Petitioner - Appellant,

v.STATE of Utah, Respondent - Appellee.

No. 19-4151

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED July 28, 2021

Andrew Parnes, the Law Office of Andrew Parnes, Ketchum, Idaho, for Petitioner-Appellant Jeffery Russell Finlayson.

Erin Riley, Assistant Solicitor General, Salt Lake City, Utah, (Sean D. Reyes, Attorney General, Salt Lake City, Utah, with her on the brief) for Respondent-Appellee State of Utah.

Before HOLMES, BACHARACH, and CARSON, Circuit Judges.

CARSON, Circuit Judge.

A Utah state court dismissed Petitioner Jeffery Russell Finlayson's habeas corpus proceeding for failure to prosecute. After appealing that decision, Petitioner brought a petition in federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. But the district court found the state court's dismissal procedurally barred federal relief. So the district court dismissed the petition and granted judgment for Respondent the State of Utah, denying a certificate of appealability. Petitioner appealed, and a judge of this Court issued a certificate of appealability on two issues. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a) and affirm the district court on both issues.

I.

In 2005, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a Utah state court, related to his 1995 conviction for sex crimes (the state court petition). The state court appointed counsel in 2006, and that counsel started working on the case in early 2007. Six years later, in January 2013, the state court dismissed the petition for failure to prosecute. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, Finlayson v. State, 345 P.3d 1266 (Utah Ct. App. 2015), and the Utah Supreme Court denied certiorari, Finlayson v. State, 362 P.3d 1256 (Utah 2015).

After exhausting the state-court appeals process, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus, under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, in the United States District Court for the District of Utah (the federal petition).

Petitioner became represented by counsel, who filed an amended petition on his behalf. After the parties fully briefed the amended petition, Petitioner sought an evidentiary hearing, but the district court did not hold one.

The district court disposed of the federal petition and entered judgment for Utah. Relevant to this appeal, the district court determined that Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) (involuntary dismissal for failure to prosecute) served as an independent and adequate state procedural ground for the dismissal of the state court petition, barring federal review of the issues raised in that petition. The district court also concluded that Petitioner could not establish cause to excuse the procedural bar under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012), and its progeny. For these and other reasons, the district court dismissed the federal petition with prejudice for failure to state a claim and denied a certificate of appealability.

Petitioner appealed. Upon review of Petitioner's briefing, we granted a certificate of appealability on the two issues described above.¹

II.

The certificate of appealability constrains our review to two issues. First, whether dismissal for want of prosecution under Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) is an independent and adequate state ground for denial of habeas relief. We review that question de novo. Anderson v. Attorney Gen. of Kan., 342 F.3d 1140, 1143 (10th Cir. 2003). And second, whether Martinez, supra, and its progeny offer habeas corpus petitioners in Utah an excuse for procedural default. We review that question de novo as well. See Cuesta-Rodriguez v. Carpenter, 916 F.3d 885, 903–05 (10th Cir. 2019).

III.

A state prisoner's default of his federal claims in state court under an independent and adequate state procedural rule bars federal habeas review of those claims. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). Petitioner "defaulted" his federal claims when he violated Utah's rule requiring that he actively prosecute his case, thus prompting the state court to dismiss those claims.² See Utah R. Civ. P. 41(b). If Utah Rule 41(b) is independent and adequate, the federal courts may not review Petitioner's claims. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546. We apply the default rule to prevent end runs around the state-remedy exhaustion requirement. Id. at 731–32, 111 S.Ct. 2546. But it also grants the same respect for state procedural rules that we grant our own and promotes comity between the federal and state courts. Id. at 746–51, 111 S.Ct. 2546. And it ensures finality in state criminal proceedings according to those states’ own rules. Id.

A state procedural rule is "independent" "if it relies on state law, rather than federal law, as the basis for the decision." Simpson v. Carpenter, 912 F.3d 542, 571 (10th Cir. 2018) (quoting Banks v. Workman, 692 F.3d 1133, 1145 (10th Cir. 2012) ). And it is "adequate" if it is "strictly or regularly followed and applied evenhandedly to all similar claims." Id. (quoting Thacker v. Workman, 678 F.3d 820, 835 (10th Cir. 2012) ). We have not yet decided whether Utah Rule 41(b) is independent and adequate, but our precedents lead us to conclude that it is.

A.

For a state procedural rule to be independent it must not require application of any federal law or depend on the answer to a question of federal law. Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 75, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985) (a rule is not independent where "the [s]tate has made application of the procedural bar depend on an antecedent ruling on federal law, [such as] the determination of whether federal constitutional error has been committed"). In Ake, the Supreme Court found that, as applied to a constitutional question, the state's waiver doctrine required the state court to "rule , either explicitly or implicitly, on the merits of the constitutional question." Id. (emphasis added). The waiver doctrine was therefore not independent of federal law when applied to a constitutional question. Id.

Petitioner raises three arguments that the Utah state law question of whether to dismiss a habeas corpus petition for failure to prosecute is intertwined with federal law and thus it is not independent. First, he points to a statute-of-limitations case, which he says supports his position, Julian v. State, 966 P.2d 249 (Utah 1998). Second, he points to an out-of-circuit case he says is persuasive, Park v. California, 202 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2000). Finally, Petitioner points out that courts in Utah look to several factors when deciding whether to dismiss, including, "most important[ly], whether injustice may result from the dismissal." Westinghouse Elec. Supply Co. v. Paul W. Larsen Contractor, Inc., 544 P.2d 876, 879 (Utah 1975). See also Gillmor v. Blue Ledge Corp., 217 P.3d 723, 732 (Utah Ct. App. 2009). We reject all three arguments.

Petitioner cherry-picks a sentence from Julian—"the mere passage of time can never justify continued imprisonment of one who has been deprived of fundamental rights." 966 P.2d at 254. He says this shows that Utah courts would look to the nature and merit of his claim to determine whether he "has been deprived of fundamental rights." So, he argues, whether to dismiss is intertwined with the merits question. But the statute-of-limitations context differs from the failure-to-prosecute context. We will not assume, without more, that the Utah courts would use a rule articulated for one in ruling on the other.³ Moreover, when a statute of limitations applies, the passage of time alone bars the petitioner's claims. Here, on the other hand, Petitioner instituted an action to vindicate his rights but then abandoned that action, allowing it to lie fallow for six years. Early in that proceeding, Utah moved for summary relief. And soon after, Petitioner's appointed counsel appeared in the case, only to never be heard from again. That dereliction of the obligation to prosecute a case once instituted, particularly the failure to respond to a motion for summary judgment, differs from the mere passage of time.⁴

In his reply brief, Petitioner's compares this case to Park, arguing it, too, shows that Utah's Rule 41(b) is intertwined with the merits question. But Petitioner omits the keystone fact of that case. The Ninth Circuit explained that "the California Supreme Court necessarily made an antecedent ruling on federal law ... by concluding that no fundamental federal constitutional error had occurred." Park, 202 F.3d at 1153. That antecedent ruling made the procedural default dependent on federal law. See Ake, 470 U.S. at 75, 105 S.Ct. 1087. Here, the Utah trial court made no comparable antecedent ruling on federal law, so the basic ground for Park’s ruling is absent and that case does not apply.

Finally, Petitioner says that Utah courts must ask whether injustice would result from a dismissal for failure to prosecute. He argues the "injustice" factor requires an evaluation of the merits which, in turn, rest on federal law, so the inquiry cannot be independent of federal law. We disagree for three reasons. First, whether to dismiss does not solely depend on injustice, on the meritoriousness of the claim, or on the outcome of the merits question. Utah courts have explained that "even where a trial court finds facts indicating that injustice could result from the dismissal of [a] case, it can dismiss when a plaintiff has had more than ample opportunity to prove his [or her] asserted interest and simply failed to do so." Rohan v. Boseman, 46 P.3d 753, 758–59 (Utah Ct. App. 2002) (quoting Country Meadows Convalescent Ctr. v. Utah Dep't of Health , 851 P.2d 1212, 1216 (Utah Ct. App. 1993) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Given this rule, the outcome of a Utah court's decision on a Rule 41(b) dismissal for failure to prosecute is not so dependent on the meritoriousness of a federal claim as to make it dependent on federal law.

Second, we...