Magwood v. Patterson

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV–B.
• Citation: Magwood v. Patterson, 130 S. Ct. 2788, 177 L. Ed. 2d 592, 561 U.S. 320 (2010)
• Decision Date: 24 June 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09–158.,09–158.
• Parties: Billy Joe MAGWOOD, Petitioner, v. Tony PATTERSON, Warden, et al.

561 U.S. 320

130 S.Ct. 2788

177 L.Ed.2d 592

Billy Joe MAGWOOD, Petitioner,

v.Tony PATTERSON, Warden, et al.

No. 09–158.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 24, 2010.

Decided June 24, 2010.

Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, CA, appointed by this Court, for petitioner.

Corey L. Maze, Solicitor General, Montgomery, AL, for respondents.

Troy King, Attorney General, Corey L. Maze, Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Beth Jackson Hughes, J. Clayton Crenshaw, Assistant Attorneys General, Office of the Alabama Attorney General, Montgomery, AL, for respondents.

James A. Power Jr., Marguerite Del Valle, Power Del Valle LLP, New York, NY, Thomas C. Goldstein, Akin, Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Washington, DC, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Counsel of Record, Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford Law School, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Stanford, CA, Amy Howe, Kevin K. Russell, Howe & Russell, P.C., Bethesda, MD, for petitioner.

Opinion

Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV–B.

Petitioner Billy Joe Magwood was sentenced to death for murdering a sheriff. After the Alabama courts denied relief on direct appeal and in postconviction proceedings, Magwood filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court, challenging both his conviction and his sentence. The District Court conditionally granted the writ as to the sentence, mandating that Magwood either be released or resentenced. The state trial court conducted a new sentencing hearing and again sentenced Magwood to death. Magwood filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court challenging this new sentence. The District Court once again conditionally granted the writ, finding constitutional defects in the new sentence. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding in relevant part that Magwood's challenge to his new death sentence was an unreviewable “second or successive” challenge under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) because he could have mounted the same challenge to his original death sentence. We granted certiorari, and now reverse. Because Magwood's habeas application ¹ challenges a new judgment for the first time, it is not “second or successive” under § 2244(b).

I

After a conviction for a drug offense, Magwood served several years in the Coffee County Jail in Elba, Alabama, under the watch of Sheriff C.F. “Neil” Grantham. During his incarceration, Magwood, who had a long history of mental illness, became convinced that Grantham had imprisoned him without cause, and vowed to get even upon his release. Magwood followed through on his threat. On the morning of March 1, 1979, shortly after his release, he parked outside the jail and awaited the sheriff's arrival. When Grantham exited his car, Magwood shot him and fled the scene.

Magwood was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of an on-duty sheriff, a capital offense under Alabama Code § 13–11–2(a)(5) (1975).² He was tried in 1981. The prosecution asked the jury to find Magwood guilty of aggravated murder as charged in the indictment, and sought the death penalty. Magwood pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; however, the jury found him guilty of capital murder under § 13–11–2(a)(5), and imposed the sentence of death based on the aggravation charged in the indictment. In accordance with Alabama law, the trial court reviewed the basis for the jury's decision. See §§ 13–11–3, 13–11–4. Although the court did not find the existence of any statutory “aggravating circumstance” under § 13–11–6, the court relied on Ex parte Kyzer, 399 So.2d 330 (Ala.1981), to find that murder of a sheriff while “on duty or because of some official or job-related acts,” § 13–11–2(a)(5), is a capital felony that, by definition, involves aggravation sufficient for a death sentence.³ The trial court found that Magwood's young age (27 at the time of the offense) and lack of significant criminal history qualified as mitigating factors, but found no mitigation related to Magwood's mental state. Weighing the aggravation against the two mitigating factors, the court approved the sentence of death. The Alabama courts affirmed. See Magwood v. State, 426 So.2d 918, 929 (Ala.Crim.App.1982); Ex parte Magwood, 426 So.2d 929, 932 (Ala.1983). We denied certiorari. Magwood v. Alabama, 462 U.S. 1124, 103 S.Ct. 3097, 77 L.Ed.2d 1355 (1983). After the Alabama Supreme Court set an execution date of July 22, 1983, Magwood filed a coram nobis petition and an application for a stay of execution. The trial court held a hearing on the petition and denied relief on July 18, 1983.⁴

Eight days before his scheduled execution, Magwood filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, and the District Court granted a stay of execution. After briefing by the parties, the District Court upheld Magwood's conviction but vacated his sentence and conditionally granted the writ based on the trial court's failure to find statutory mitigating circumstances relating to Magwood's mental state.⁵ SEE MAgwood v. smith, 608 F.supp. 218, 225–226, 229 (M.D.Ala.1985). The Court of Appeals affirmed. See Magwood v. Smith, 791 F.2d 1438, 1450 (C.A.11 1986).

In response to the conditional writ, the state trial court held a new sentencing proceeding in September 1986. This time, the judge found that Magwood's mental state, as well as his age and lack of criminal history, qualified as statutory mitigating circumstances. As before, the court found that Magwood's capital felony under § 13–11–2(a)(5) included sufficient aggravation to render him death eligible. In his proposed findings, Magwood's attorney agreed that Magwood's offense rendered him death eligible, but argued that a death sentence would be inappropriate in light of the mitigating factors. The trial court imposed a penalty of death, stating on the record that the new “judgment and sentence [were] the result of a complete and new assessment of all of the evidence, arguments of counsel, and law.” Sentencing Tr., R. Tab 1, p. R–25. The Alabama courts affirmed, see Magwood v. State, 548 So.2d 512, 516 (Ala.Crim.App.1988); Ex parte Magwood, 548 So.2d 516, 516 (Ala.1988), and this Court denied certiorari, see Magwood v. Alabama, 493 U.S. 923, 110 S.Ct. 291, 107 L.Ed.2d 271 (1989).

Magwood filed a petition for relief under Alabama's former Temporary Rule of Criminal Procedure 20 (1987) (now Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32) (rule 20 petition) claiming, inter alia, that his death sentence exceeded the maximum sentence authorized by statute; that his death sentence violated the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments because it rested upon an unforeseeable interpretation of the capital sentencing statute; and that his attorney rendered ineffective assistance of counsel during resentencing. The trial court denied relief. It held that the statutory basis for Magwood's death sentence had been affirmed on direct appeal and could not be relitigated. The trial court also held that Magwood's attorney played no substantive role in the resentencing and had no obligation to dispute the aggravation, given that the District Court had required only that the trial court consider additional mitigating factors.

Magwood appealed the denial of his Rule 20 petition, arguing, inter alia, that his sentence was unconstitutional because he did not have fair warning that his offense could be punished by death, and that he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel at resentencing. See Record in Appeal No. 92–843 (Ala.Crim.App.), Tab 25, pp. 23–24, 53–61.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, citing its decision on direct appeal as to the propriety of the death sentence. See Magwood v. State, 689 So.2d 959, 965 (1996) (citing Kyzer, 399 So.2d 330, and Jackson v. State, 501 So.2d 542 (Ala.Crim.App.1986)).⁶ The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari, see 689 So.2d, at 959, as did this Court, see Magwood v. Alabama, 522 U.S. 836, 118 S.Ct. 108, 139 L.Ed.2d 61 (1997).

In April 1997, Magwood sought leave to file a second or successive application for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his 1981 judgment of conviction. See § 2244(b)(3)(A) (requiring authorization from the Court of Appeals to file a second or successive application). The Court of Appeals denied his request. See In re Magwood, 113 F.3d 1544 (C.A.11 1997). He simultaneously filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his new death sentence, which the District Court conditionally granted. See Magwood v. Culliver, 481 F.Supp.2d 1262, 1295 (M.D.Ala.2007). In that petition, Magwood again argued that his sentence was unconstitutional because he did not have fair warning at the time of his offense that his conduct would be sufficient to warrant a death sentence under Alabama law, and that his attorney rendered ineffective assistance during the resentencing proceeding.

Before addressing the merits of Magwood's fair-warning claim, the District Court sua sponte considered whether the application was barred as a “successive petition” under § 2244, and concluded that it was not. Id., at 1283–1284 (“[H]abeas petitions challenging the constitutionality of a resentencing proceeding are not successive to petitions that challenge the underlying conviction and original sentence” (citing 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice & Procedure § 28.3b(i), p. 1412 (5th ed.2005) (“When a petitioner files a second or subsequent petition to challenge a criminal judgment other than the one attacked in an earlier petition, it cannot be said that the two petitions are ‘successive’ ”) (emphasis in original))).

The District Court rejected the State's argument that Magwood had procedurally defaulted the fair-warning claim by failing to present it adequately to the state courts, noting that Magwood had presented the claim both in his Rule 20 petition and on appeal from the denial of that petition. See 481 F.Supp.2d, at 1285–1286; supra, at 2793 – 2794. Addressing the merits, the District Court ruled that...