Lott v. Coyle

• Decision Date: 11 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 1:95 CV 2642.,1:95 CV 2642.
• Parties: Gregory LOTT, Plaintiff, v. Ralph COYLE, Warden, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

2 F.Supp.2d 961

Gregory LOTT, Plaintiff, v. Ralph COYLE, Warden, Defendant.

No. 1:95 CV 2642.

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Eastern Division.

March 11, 1998.

Randall L. Porter, Lori Leon, Office of Public Defender Ohio Public Defender Com'n, Columbus, OH, Mark R. DeVan, Berkman, Gordon, Murray, Palda & DeVan, Cleveland, OH, for Plaintiff.

Michael L. Collyer, Office of Asst. Atty. Gen., Cleveland, OH, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

O'MALLEY, District Judge.

Petitioner Gregory Lott moves this Court to reconsider its Order of June 19, 1997, which held that the amendments to Chapter 153 made by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (the "AEDPA") would apply to this case.¹ For the reasons set forth below, that motion is DENIED.

I.

In support of his motion, Petitioner cites Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997), decided on June 23, 1997. In Lindh, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, held that the AEDPA does not apply retroactively to habeas cases filed prior to the statute's enactment. The Supreme Court specifically stated that "[t]he statute reveals Congress's intent to apply the amendments to chapter 153 only to such cases as were filed after the statute's enactment...." Id. 117 S.Ct. at 2063. The Court cited § 107(c) of the AEDPA, which provides that "Chapter 154 ... shall apply to cases pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act," and "read th[at] provision of § 107(c) ... as indicating implicitly that the amendments to chapter 153 were assumed and meant to apply to the general run of habeas cases only when those cases had been filed after the date of the Act." Id.

As it must, Respondent concedes that the rationale used by this Court in its earlier decision was erroneous under Lindh. Nonetheless, respondent opposes petitioner's motion, contending that, though its earlier rationale may have been wrong, the result this Court reached—i.e., that the Chapter 153 amendments to the AEDPA apply to this action—remains correct. Respondent contends that, because Lott had filed only a notice of intent to file his habeas petition and motion for appointment of counsel before the enactment of the AEDPA, which was signed into law on April 24, 1996, and did not file his petition until February 3, 1997, more than nine months after the AEDPA went into effect, the provisions of the AEDPA necessarily apply to that petition. Respondent thus argues that a habeas case is not "pending" for purposes of determining whether the AEDPA governs the action until an application for a writ of habeas corpus is filed.

In support of this proposition, respondent cites to Justice O'Connor's separate opinion in McFarland v. Scott, 512 U.S. 849, 862, 114 S.Ct. 2568, 129 L.Ed.2d 666 (1994) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), where she refers to Habeas Corpus Rule 2(a), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254(d), 1914(a), and 2242 as indicative of the fact that a habeas proceeding is considered to be pending only upon the filing of an application for a writ of habeas corpus. Respondent also points to the decisions of the Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, all of which have concluded that a motion for the appointment of counsel does not give rise to a "pending" case for purposes of determining the applicability of the AEDPA. See Calderon v. U.S. Dist. Ct. Cent. Dist. Cal., 128 F.3d 1283, 1287 n. 3 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ____, 118 S.Ct. 899, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (1998); Nobles v. Johnson, 127 F.3d 409, 413-15 (5th Cir.1997); Holman v. Gilmore, 126 F.3d 876, 879-80 (7th Cir.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 1169, 140 L.Ed.2d 179 (1998); Williams v. Cain, 125 F.3d 269, 273-74 (5th Cir.1997).²

Petitioner argues that the motion for the appointment of counsel was sufficient to generate a "pending case" for purposes of determining whether the AEDPA applies to his case. For support, petitioner emphasizes that, in Lindh, the Court used the terms "cases pending" (the language used in § 107(c)) and "cases filed" throughout its opinion, and used the term "application" in only a handful of instances. As Petitioner acknowledges, because the petitioner in Lindh had filed an application for a writ before the AEDPA's enactment, the meaning of that term was not at issue, and the Court, therefore, did not define what it meant, or, more precisely, what it believed Congress meant, by the use of that term.³ Petitioner, however, points to the majority's definition of the term in McFarland, and urges that definition upon this Court.⁴

In McFarland, the Supreme Court held that "a capital defendant may invoke [his] right to a counseled federal habeas corpus proceeding by filing a motion requesting the appointment of habeas counsel, and that a district court has jurisdiction to enter a stay of execution where necessary to give effect to that statutory right." 512 U.S. at 859.⁵ The Court reached this holding by construing 21 U.S.C. § 848(q)(4)(B) in conjunction with related provisions. The Court first concluded that "the right to appointed counsel adheres prior to the filing of a formal, legally sufficient habeas corpus petition," because "a `post conviction proceeding' within the meaning of § 848(q)(4)(B) is commenced by the filing of a death row defendant's motion requesting the appointment of counsel." McFarland, 512 U.S. at 854-55 (emphasis added). The Court then determined that the right to appointed counsel would be meaningless unless the district court also were allowed to stay the petitioner's execution pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2251 (and thus provide the attorney with sufficient time to prepare an adequate petition) and therefore held that "once a capital defendant invokes his right to appointed counsel, a federal court also has jurisdiction under § 2251 to enter a stay of execution." Id. at 858.⁶ In reaching this conclusion, it was necessary for the Court to reject the respondent's argument that a habeas corpus proceeding is not "pending" until a habeas petition actually has been filed. Id. at 858.

In Petitioner's view, if a habeas corpus proceeding is considered to be pending upon the filing of a motion for the appointment of counsel, for purposes of vesting the federal court with jurisdiction to enter a stay of execution under § 2251, then filing a motion for the appointment of counsel necessarily generates a "pending case" for purposes of determining the AEDPA's applicability under Lindh as well.

II.

That "pending" was given such an expansive meaning in McFarland does not lead inexorably to the conclusion that it must be given the same broad scope for purposes of the AEDPA's applicability. See Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433, 52 S.Ct. 607, 76 L.Ed. 1204 (1932) ("It is not unusual for the same word to be used with different meanings in the same act...."); Cook, "Substance" and "Procedure" in the Conflict of Laws, 42 Yale L.J. 333, 337 (1933) ("The tendency to assume that a word which appears in two or more legal rules, and so in connection with more than one purpose, has and should have precisely the same scope in all of them, runs all through legal discussions. It has all the tenacity of original sin and must constantly be guarded against."). In fact, the Supreme Court previously has cautioned against assuming that there is a single, all purpose meaning for the term "pending": "`Pending' is simply not a term of art that unambiguously carries with it a meaning precisely suited for this situation." International Union of Electrical, Radio and Mach. Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U.S. 229, 243, 97 S.Ct. 441, 50 L.Ed.2d 427 (1976) (considering the meaning of "pending" in the context of applicability of amendments to the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972). In addition, several circuits struggled with the meaning of a "pending" case in determining the applicability of the 1985 amendments to the Equal Access to Justice Act. See United States v. 1002.35 Acres of Land, 942 F.2d 733 (10th Cir.1991) (deciding when a case is no longer pending such that the amendments would be inapplicable); Western Newspaper Publishing Co., Inc. v. NLRB, 821 F.2d 459 (7th Cir.1987) (same); Russell v. National Mediation Bd., 775 F.2d 1284 (5th Cir.1985) (same).

Clearly, "pending" is a malleable term whose meaning depends on the specific context in which it is used and the purposes to which it is being put. Because neither Lindh⁷ nor McFarland definitively answers the question of what constitutes a "pending" habeas proceeding for purposes of the applicability of the AEDPA, the Court must examine the usual and ordinary meaning of "pending," the reasons behind the Supreme Court's departure from that definition in McFarland, and whether the context of this case and the purposes of the AEDPA dictate that the Court construe the term as it was construed in McFarland. See Flores v. Rios, 36 F.3d 507, 513 (6th Cir.1994) (stating that "[t]he fundamental principle of statutory construction (and indeed, of language itself) [is] that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used.'") (citation omitted).

It is important not to lose cite of the fact that what the Court ultimately is interpreting is the statutory language of § 107. The Supreme Court's holding in Lindh, after all, was based on its interpretation of the congressional intent behind the AEDPA, and, more specifically, on what Congress intended by excluding any mention of whether § 153 would "apply to cases pending on or after the date of [the Act's] enactment" in § 107. Thus, the issue here, as in Lindh, revolves around the language of § 107. Consequently, it is appropriate to turn to principles of statutory construction to decide the question before this Court.

In determining the meaning of a statutory provision, the words used in that provision are given their usual and ordinary meaning, unless a contrary...