Snowden v. Singletary, 94-4303

• Decision Date: 18 February 1998
• Docket Number: No. 94-4303,94-4303
• Citation: 135 F.3d 732
• Parties: 11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1061 Harold SNOWDEN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 732

135 F.3d 732

11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1061

Harold SNOWDEN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 94-4303.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 18, 1998.

Robert Rosenthal, New York City, Amy Gershenfield Donnella, St. Davids, PA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Robert Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Roberta G. Mandel, Miami, FL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge, and CLARK and WELLFORD ^*, Senior Circuit Judges.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Harold Snowden ("Snowden"), a state prisoner, appeals the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief. The petition presented some unexhausted claims and some exhausted claims. Because all issues raised by Snowden in his habeas petition were either totally exhausted in state court or were already procedurally barred from further consideration in state court, we address the claims in the petition that were exhausted. We reverse the district court's denial of Snowden's petition.

Background

In 1986, Snowden was convicted of five counts of child abuse for acts which allegedly occurred at his home, where his wife cared for several children. Snowden was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

Snowden appealed his conviction to the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida. That court affirmed Snowden's conviction. See Snowden v. State, 537 So.2d 1383 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1989). The Florida Supreme Court denied discretionary review. See Snowden v. State, 547 So.2d 1210 (Fla.1989). Snowden then filed a motion for post-conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. That motion was denied by the state trial court without an evidentiary hearing. The Third District Court of Appeal of Florida affirmed the trial court's denial of Snowden's petition for post-conviction relief. See Snowden v. State, 589 So.2d 911 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1991).

Snowden next sought post-conviction relief in federal court and filed a petition for federal habeas relief under section 2254 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. In June 1994, a magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation stating that relief should be denied. This report and recommendation was adopted by the district court, and relief was denied. Snowden appeals that decision.

Discussion

In this appeal and in his petition for federal habeas relief, Snowden focuses on eight claims of error, including: (1) The state trial court prohibited adequate voir dire, violating his rights to due process and an impartial jury; (2) An expert witness for the State destroyed evidence, violating his rights of due process and confrontation of the witnesses against him; (3) The trial court improperly allowed four adults to testify about alleged-child-victims' hearsay statements, violating his rights of due process and equal protection; (4) The trial court admitted expert witness testimony about the truthfulness of the child witnesses, violating due process; (5) The trial court permitted the State's expert witness to testify that Snowden's counsel was abusive to one of the children during a deposition, violating due process; (6) The trial court allowed evidence of abuse against other children, that is, similar crimes evidence, violating due process; (7) The prosecutor made improper comments during closing argument, violating due process; and (8) The errors, taken cumulatively, violated Snowden's due process rights. ¹

To be appropriate for this court's review, Snowden must have raised these claims in state court to allow the state courts the opportunity to rule on the federal issues: the doctrine of exhaustion of state remedies.

I. Exhaustion of State Remedies and Procedural Defaults

In general, a federal court may not grant habeas corpus relief to a state prisoner who has not exhausted his available state remedies. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) ("An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that ... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State...."). "When the process of direct review ... comes to an end, a presumption of finality and legality attaches to the conviction.... The role of federal habeas proceedings, while important in assuring that constitutional rights are observed, is secondary and limited. Federal courts are not forums in which to relitigate state trials." Smith v. Newsome, 876 F.2d 1461, 1463 (11th Cir.1989) (quoting Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 887, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3391-92, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 [1983] ).

Exhaustion of state remedies requires that the state prisoner "fairly presen[t] federal claims to the state courts in order to give the State the opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of its prisoners' federal rights." Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365, 115 S.Ct. 887, 888, 130 L.Ed.2d 865 (1995) (citing Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275-76, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 [1971] ) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has written these words:

[T]hat the federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts .... it is not sufficient merely that the federal habeas applicant has been through the state courts.... Only if the state courts have had the first opportunity to hear the claim sought to be vindicated in a federal habeas proceeding does it make sense to speak of the exhaustion of state remedies.

Picard, 404 U.S. at 275, 92 S.Ct. at 512. See also Duncan, 513 U.S. at 365, 115 S.Ct. at 888 ("Respondent did not apprise the state court of his claim that the evidentiary ruling of which he complained was not only a violation of state law, but denied him the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.").

Thus, to exhaust state remedies fully the petitioner must make the state court aware that the claims asserted present federal constitutional issues. "It is not enough that all the facts necessary to support the federal claim were before the state courts or that a somewhat similar state-law claim was made." Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 5-6, 103 S.Ct. 276, 277, 74 L.Ed.2d 3 (1982) (citations omitted).

After examination of the record on appeal, including the trial transcript, Snowden's direct appeal brief, Snowden's petitions for state post-conviction relief, and the district court's order, we believe Snowden's petition for federal habeas relief is a mixed petition: some of the claims were exhausted in the Florida state courts, while other claims were not presented to the state courts for review. ² A federal district court ordinarily must dismiss a "mixed" habeas petition (one which contains both exhausted and unexhausted claims) without prejudice--allowing either resubmission of only exhausted claims or total exhaustion. Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 519-20, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1204, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982).

But, when it is obvious that the unexhausted claims would be procedurally barred in state court due to a state-law procedural default, we can forego the needless "judicial ping-pong" and just treat those claims now barred by state law as no basis for federal habeas relief. ³ See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735 n. 1, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 2557 n. 1, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 269, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 1046-47, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989) (O'Connor, J., concurring). And, in this case, where all the unexhausted claims are procedurally barred from being considered in Florida courts, it would serve no purpose to dismiss the petition for further exhaustion because review of those claims is unavailable in state courts. ⁴

The district court's order, by accepting the magistrate judge's report and recommendations, concluded that most of Snowden's claims were procedurally barred under Florida state law and, thus, could not be the source of federal relief. Usually "[a] procedural default bars the consideration of the merits of an issue in federal court only when the state court itself applies the procedural default rule." Dobbert v. Strickland, 718 F.2d 1518, 1524 (11th Cir.1983) (citing Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 152-53, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2222, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 [1979] ); see also Rogers v. McMullen, 673 F.2d 1185, 1188 (11th Cir.1982) ("where 'the state courts have not relied exclusively upon [a] procedural default' " federal habeas review is not prevented) (quoting Thompson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d 996, 998 [5th Cir.1981] ). In this case, the Florida appellate court did not apply procedural bars to those claims of Snowden which he presented to it. Snowden v. Florida, 537 So.2d 1383, 1383 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1989) ("While we find no merit in any of the numerous points on appeal raised by Snowden, we find worthy of discussion Snowden's contention that the introduction by the State of evidence to show ... similar acts ... infringed upon his right to a fair trial...."). But we believe that the district court correctly concluded that many of the claims were procedurally barred or would effectively be barred by Snowden's failure to raise them at his first Rule 3.850 proceeding.

Federal courts may apply state rules about procedural bars to conclude that further attempts at exhaustion would be futile. This step should not be taken if there is a reasonable possibility that an exception to the procedural bar may still be available to the petitioner. Richardson v. Turner, 716 F.2d 1059 (4th Cir.1983). As mentioned, we believe the district court properly concluded that no reasonable possibility exists for Snowden, in state court, to raise (as federal constitutional issues) those issues which he failed to raise throughout his direct appeal and in his first state post-conviction petition.

But, about the issues of jury voir dire, destruction of evidence, improper...