Haley v. Cockrell
| Decision Date | 27 September 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-41389.,01-41389. |
| Citation | 306 F.3d 257 |
| Parties | Michael Wayne HALEY, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Janie COCKRELL, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Michael Wayne Haley, Tyler, TX, pro se.
Fredericka Searle Sargent, Austin, TX, for Respondent-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Before DeMOSS, STEWART and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.
The respondent appeals from the district court's grant of habeas corpus in favor of the defendant, Michael Wayne Haley ("Haley"). Finding no error, we affirm. The only issue before us is whether the district court properly granted habeas relief to Haley for his insufficiency-of-the-evidence claim. Thus, we recite only those facts pertinent to our decision.
Haley, an inmate of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, proceeding pro se, filed a federal application for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, asserting that his conviction was illegal.
On October 29, 1997, Haley was convicted of a "state jail felony," which is a felony in the second degree, and was sentenced as a habitual felony offender. See TEX PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 12.35 and 12.42. Antecedent to the conviction, Haley was indicted for theft, a Class A misdemeanor, which was enhanced to a "state jail felony" by his two prior theft convictions.1 In addition, the indictment alleged two prior felony convictions for delivery of amphetamines and aggravated robbery.2 Together, these two prior convictions enhanced his "state jail felony" to a second degree felony. Because the indictment alleged two prior felony convictions, Haley was classified as an habitual felony offender resulting in an enhanced sentence at the punishment phase of his trial.
During the punishment phase of Haley's trial, the State presented one witness who testified that Haley had been previously convicted of delivery of amphetamines and aggravated robbery. Haley did not cross-examine the State's witness or put on any evidence. After the parties rested, the jury was excused while the trial court prepared the jury instructions. Shortly after the jury was excused, the trial judge realized that the enhancement paragraphs provided in the indictment, concerning Haley's two prior convictions for delivery of a controlled substance and aggravated robbery, had not been read to the jury. Before bringing the jury back into the courtroom, the trial judge asked Haley if he wanted to enter a plea to the enhancements before the jury. Haley chose not to enter a plea and requested that the trial court not inform the jury that he was given such an opportunity. The next day, the trial court reopened the punishment proceedings to allow the State to read the enhancements to the jury. No mention was made of Haley's decision not to enter a plea, and the State did not reoffer its witness's testimony. Haley did not object to the reading of the enhancement or to the State's failure to reoffer the evidence. The jury found the enhancements alleged in the indictment to be true, and Haley was sentenced to a term of sixteen years and six months imprisonment.
Haley appealed his conviction, arguing, inter alia, that the trial court erred in failing to ask him to plead to the enhancement paragraphs of the indictment at the beginning of the punishment phase of his trial and that the trial court erred, during the punishment phase, in allowing the State to reopen its case for the purpose of reading the enhancement paragraphs to the jury. The Texas appellate court affirmed Haley's conviction. The court concluded that any error due to the trial court's failure in not requiring the State to reintroduce Haley's prior convictions, or in allowing the jury to consider his prior convictions before the reading of the enhancements, was waived by Haley's failure to object on those grounds. Further, it found that "any error by the trial court in failing to elicit a plea from Haley to the enhancements after the enhancements were read to the jury [was] waived under the invited error doctrine."3 Thereafter, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Haley's petition for discretionary review.
In February 2000, Haley filed a state habeas application in the trial court raising several challenges to the enhancement of his punishment. The court determined that his application raised the following grounds of error: (1) the theft offense was not properly enhanced in accordance with the Texas Penal Code, (2) the evidence was insufficient to support the enhancements for the prior felony offenses of delivery of amphetamines and aggravated robbery, and (3) ineffective assistance of counsel. The state habeas trial court recommended that the application be denied concluding that (1) the theft offense was enhanced correctly, (2) the sufficiency of the evidence had been raised on direct appeal and thus could not be attacked by a writ of habeas corpus, and (3) Haley's trial counsel was not ineffective. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Haley's state habeas application based upon the findings of the trial court.
Haley timely filed a § 2254 application in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in which he alleged the following points of error: (1) there was no evidence to support the chronological order of the enhancements as stated in the indictment,4 (2) there was no evidence presented to support the State's claim that he had previously been convicted of aggravated robbery, (3) the State made an improper jury argument, and (4) he received ineffective assistance of counsel.
With regard to the first alleged error, Haley argued that the aggravated robbery in Cause No. 7-91-1086 was committed on October 12, 1991, and the conviction for delivery of amphetamines in Cause No. 1-89-671 did not become final until October 18, 1991.5 Thus, he contended that the indictment incorrectly stated that the delivery of amphetamines conviction became final "prior to the commission of each of the offenses set out above," and the jury could not have found the enhancement paragraphs factually accurate. In its response to Haley's application, the State conceded that the chronological order of the convictions alleged in the enhancement paragraphs was erroneous.
In response to Haley's second allegation, the State argued that Haley's sentence was properly enhanced because he had a prior felony conviction, aggravated robbery, which included an affirmative finding of a deadly weapon.6 However, Haley countered that he was sentenced for attempted robbery which did not contain a finding of a deadly weapon, indicating that this finding was removed by a nunc pro tunc judgment.7 The State later conceded that Haley's attempted robbery conviction did not include an affirmative finding of a deadly weapon.
Nonetheless, the State argued that even though there was no finding of a deadly weapon in his robbery conviction, Haley was not entitled to habeas relief because his claim was procedurally barred from federal habeas review. The State emphasized that the state appellate court specifically noted that Haley failed to preserve any issue regarding the enhancement for review on appeal because he had failed to raise them in a timely objection or motion. The State noted that, on habeas review the state trial court concluded that his sufficiency claims could not be raised for the first time in a habeas application, and that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his state habeas application on the findings of the trial court. The State therefore reasoned that any issue relating to the enhancement that Haley may now be raising would be procedurally barred by his failure to present any contemporaneous objections.8 Alternatively, the State argued that the doctrine of invited error barred Haley from obtaining federal relief, "given his voluntary silence and inaction during trial."
Upon order of the district court, a magistrate judge issued a report, recommending that Haley's federal habeas application be granted on his claim regarding the improper enhancement of his sentence.9 The judge was not persuaded that Haley's claim was procedurally barred because the state appellate court's decision addressed only those claims raised by Haley on direct appeal. Because Haley had not argued that the robbery charge did not include a finding of a deadly weapon, the magistrate judge found that the state appellate court had not expressly applied the procedural bar to this argument.10 Notwithstanding the procedural bar, the magistrate judge determined that Haley's procedural default was excused because Haley had shown that he was "actually innocent" of a predicate violation required for sentencing as a career offender for a second degree felony. The judge concluded that failure to address this claim would result in a "fundamental miscarriage of justice."
After a de novo review, the district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and granted Haley's § 2254 application as to the claim that his sentence was improperly enhanced denying him relief on his other claims. Accordingly, the district court ordered the Texas courts to re-sentence Haley without the improper enhancement within ninety days and that should the State fail to do so, his conviction shall be reversed. This Court subsequently granted the State's motion to stay the district court's order of re-sentencing during the appeal of this case. This appeal follows.
When reviewing a grant of habeas corpus relief, this court reviews the district court's factual findings for clear error and its disposition of pure legal issues and mixed issues of law and fact de novo. Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 946 (5th Cir.2001). "If a state-court decision rejecting a federal habeas p...
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...review as a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the evidence under Jackson v. Virginia, 403 U.S. 307 (1979). See Haley v. Cockrell, 306 F.3d 257, 266-67 (5th Cir. 2002), vacated on other grounds by Dretke v. Haley, 541 U.S. 386 (2004). Under the Jackson standard, evidence is sufficient if......
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...at 1852. (12) Id. at 1852-53 (quoting Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 495-96 (1986)). (13) See infra Part V.A.2. (14) Haley v. Cockrell, 306 F.3d 257, 263-64 (5th Cir. (15) Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 405-05 (1993). (16) Id. at 415 (quoting KATHLEEN DEAN MOORE, PARDONS: JUSTICE, MERC......