Peoples v. Haley

• Decision Date: 18 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-6882,98-6882
• Citation: 227 F.3d 1342
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2000) JOHN W. PEOPLES, JR., Petitioner-Appellant, v. MICHAEL W. HALEY, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA, Respondents-Appellees,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1342

227 F.3d 1342 (11th Cir. 2000)

JOHN W. PEOPLES, JR., Petitioner-Appellant, v. MICHAEL W. HALEY, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA, Respondents-Appellees,

No. 98-6882

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

September 18, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama D.C. Docket No. 94-CV-2175

Before ANDERSON, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

We vacate and withdraw the previous opinion in this case, dated September 7, 2000, and substitute the following opinion.

I.

On December 7, 1983, John W. Peoples, Jr. was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the murders of Paul Franklin, Sr., his wife Judy Franklin, and their ten-year-old son, Paul Franklin, Jr. His convictions and death sentences were affirmed on direct appeal. See Peoples v. State, 510 So. 2d 554 (Ala. Crim. App. 1986); Ex Parte Peoples, 510 So. 2d 574 (Ala. 1987). After Peoples unsuccessfully sought collateral review in state court, he petitioned the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama for a writ of habeas corpus on September 6, 1994. His petition, as subsequently amended, contained twenty-six claims, which we set out in the margin.¹

In an order signed on September 30, 1998, the district court, finding many of Peoples' claims either procedurally barred or without merit, denied Peoples' petition without an evidentiary hearing. On October 28, 1998, relying on the version of 28 U.S.C. 2253 in place before the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996) (the "AEDPA"), Peoples filed an application for a certificate of probable cause ("CPC") and a notice of appeal in the district court. On November 16, 1998, the district court granted Peoples a CPC. In doing so, the court observed:

Under the AEDPA, a habeas petitioner appealing the denial of his petition must obtain a "certificate of appealability" in order to proceed with an appeal. Because Peoples filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in this court on September 6, 1994, prior to the April 24, 1996 effective date of the AEDPA, he is correct in seeking a certificate of probable cause rather than a certificate of appealability. See Hardwick v. Singletary, 126 F.3d 1312, 1313 (11th Cir. 1997) (recognizing that Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 117 S. Ct. 2059, 2068 (1997), effectively "abrogates and supplants" that portion of Hunter v. United States, 101 F.3d 1565 (11th Cir. 1996), governing certificates of appealability in cases pending on the effective date of the AEDPA). As a practical matter, however, the Eleventh Circuit has concluded that the standard governing certificates of probable cause under pre-AEDPA law and certificates of appealability under the AEDPA "is materially identical." Hardwick, 126 F.3d at 1313 (adopting the Fifth Circuit's conclusion in Green v. Johnson, 116 F.3d 1115, 1120 (5th Cir. 1997), that the AEDPA was intended to codify the standard established in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893 (1983)).

The standard, which petitioner must satisfy to obtain appellate review of the decision of this court's disposition of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, requires a "substantial showing of a denial of [a] federal right." Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. at 893. Furthermore, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that the nature of the penalty - in this case, death - is a "proper consideration in determining whether to issue a certificate of probable cause." Id.

II.

Before April 24, 1996, the effective date of the AEDPA, a habeas petitioner who had been denied relief had to obtain a CPC from the district court in order to prosecute an appeal. See Tompkins v. Moore, 193 F.3d 1327, 1330 (11th Cir. 1999); 28 U.S.C. 2253 (1994). In issuing a CPC, a district court did not have to enumerate those issues for which a petitioner had made a "substantial showing of the denial of [a] federal right." Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893, 103 S. Ct. 3383, 3394, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1090 (1983) (quoting Stewart v. Beto, 454 F.2d 268, 270 n.2 (5th Cir. 1971), overruled in part on other grounds by Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 117 S. Ct. 2059, 138 L. Ed. 2d 481 (1997)).

The AEDPA amended 28 U.S.C. 2253 to require a petitioner to request a certificate of appealability ("COA") instead of a CPC, see Henry v. Department of Corrections, 197 F.3d 1361, 1364-66 (11th Cir. 1999) (describing statutory history), and established a statutory standard, set out in section 2253(c)(2), for the issuance of a COA. See 28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(2) (Supp. IV 1999). Unlike the procedure for the issuance of a CPC, under the amended version of section 2253, the district court, when granting a COA, must "indicate [for] which specific issue or issues" the petitioner has "made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." 28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(2), (3).

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Lindh, 521 U.S. at 336, 117 S. Ct. at 2068 (holding that the Chapter 153 amendments, which apply to all federal habeas petitions, are inapplicable to federal habeas petitions pending on the date of the AEDPA's enactment), the lower federal courts concluded that the pre-AEDPA procedure for obtaining a CPC applied if the petitioner's habeas petition and notice of appeal from the district court's denial of that petition were filed in the district court before April 24, 1996, the AEDPA's effective date. See generally Mincey v. Head, 206 F.3d 1106, 1130 & n.58 (11th Cir. 2000). Neither Lindh nor the lower court decisions that followed, however, clearly answered the question whether the AEDPA required an unsuccessful habeas petitioner to obtain a COA from the district court in order to appeal the denial of relief if the notice of appeal was filed after the effective date of the AEDPA.² Compare Tiedeman v. Benson, 122 F.3d 518, 520-21 (8th Cir. 1997) (holding that COA is required in cases in which the notice of appeal is filed after the effective date of the AEDPA, even though the habeas petition was originally filed in the district court before that date), with Fuller v. Roe, 182 F.3d 699, 702 (9th Cir. 1999) (joining the majority of circuit courts in holding "that 2254 and 2255 petitioners who filed their petitions in district court prior to AEDPA's effective date, regardless of whether they filed their notice of appeal before or after AEDPA's [effective date] do not need a certificate of appealability to proceed with their appeal") (quoting United States v. Kunzman, 125 F.3d 1363, 1364 n.2 (10th Cir. 1997)); Crowell v. Walsh, 151 F.3d 1050, 1052 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (same); Tejeda v. Dubois, 142 F.3d 18, 21-22 & n.4 (1st Cir. 1998) (same); Berrios v. United States, 126 F.3d 430, 431 n.2 (2d Cir. 1997) (same); United States v. Skandier, 125 F.3d 178, 179-82 (3rd Cir. 1997) (same); Hardwick v. Singletary, 122 F.3d 935, 936 (11th Cir.) (per curiam), modified on reh'g per curiam, 126 F.3d 1312, 1313 (11th Cir. 1997)(same); Arredondo v. United States, 120 F.3d 639, 640 (6th Cir. 1997) (same); United States v. Carter, 117 F.3d 262, 264 (5th Cir. 1997) (same).

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, in Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 120 S. Ct. 1595, 146 L. Ed. 2d 542 (2000), answered the question, holding that, in a section 2254 or 2255 proceeding,

when a habeas corpus petitioner seeks to initiate an appeal of the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition after April 24, 1996 (the effective date of the AEDPA), the right to appeal is governed by the certificate of appealability (COA) requirements now found at 28 U.S.C. 2253(c) (1994 ed., Supp. III). This is true whether the habeas corpus petition was filed in the district court before or after AEDPA's effective date.

Slack, 120 S. Ct. at 1600.³ Pursuant to Slack, it is now clear that there should have been a COA in this case rather than a CPC, which raises the question whether this court should itself apply the COA standards or remand for the district court to do so.

As we held in Franklin v. Hightower, 215 F.3d 1196 (11th Cir. 2000) (per curiam):

[T]he grant of a CPC rather than a COA . . . is not fatal to the appeal. By applying AEDPA's standards to this appeal and issuing a proper COA (if warranted), this panel may "fix" the inadequacies of the present CPC. . . . And the Court in Slack remanded the case in part for the court of appeals to apply the appropriate standard, thus implying that defective leave to appeal neither dooms the appeal nor deprives the appellate courts of jurisdiction. See Slack, 120 S. Ct. at 1607.

Id. at 1199. In other words, in this situation, it is within the discretion of the court of appeals whether to apply the COA standards itself, or remand to the district court. Considerations of judicial economy will influence this decision.

In Hunter v. United States, 101 F.3d 1565, 1575 (11th Cir. 1996) (en banc),⁴ the district court had granted a COA, but had neglected to indicate for which of the issues the applicant had made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, in accordance with section 2253(c)(3)'s command. We remanded the case to the district court so it could perform this statutorily mandated function. Hunter, 101 F.3d at 1584. We also remanded the case because the petitioner had raised numerous claims in his application for a COA and it was impossible for us to glean from the record which issue or issues the district court thought worthy of appellate review.⁵ Cf. Murray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1250-51 (11th Cir. 1998) (limiting appellate review to the issue or issues specified in the COA).

We are faced in the instant appeal with a case similar to Hunter, and as with Hunter, remanding the matter to the district court is the proper course of action. See, e.g., Hunter, 101 F.3d at 1584 (noting that "we remand the case to the...