Teague v. Palmateer
| Decision Date | 30 October 2002 |
| Citation | 184 Or.App. 577,57 P.3d 176 |
| Parties | Scott Lewis TEAGUE, Appellant, v. Joan PALMATEER, Superintendent, Oregon State Penitentiary, Respondent. |
| Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
Theodore C. Coran, McMinnville, filed the brief for appellant.
Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Michael D. Reynolds, Solicitor General, and Timothy A. Sylwester, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
Rankin Johnson IV filed the brief amicus curiae for Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association.
Before DEITS, Chief Judge, and EDMONDS, LANDAU, HASELTON, ARMSTRONG, LINDER, WOLLHEIM, KISTLER, and BREWER, Judges.
Resubmitted En Banc October 15, 2002.
Petitioner appeals the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief, in which he alleged two grounds for relief. First, petitioner claimed that his dangerous offender sentence was imposed unconstitutionally under the principles announced in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Second, petitioner claimed that he received constitutionally inadequate assistance of counsel because his trial counsel failed to argue that the dangerous offender sentence was unconstitutional. The trial court dismissed the petition, and we affirm.
The pertinent facts are not in dispute. Petitioner was convicted of first-degree manslaughter after a jury trial in 1989. In August 1989, petitioner was sentenced, pursuant to ORS 161.725 (1987) and ORS 161.735 (1987), as a dangerous offender, based in part on a finding by the sentencing court that he suffers from a severe personality disorder indicating a propensity toward criminal activity. As a result of his dangerous offender status, petitioner received an indeterminate sentence of 30 years, with a 15-year minimum sentence. Had he not been designated a dangerous offender, petitioner's maximum indeterminate sentence for the crime of first-degree manslaughter would have been 20 years. ORS 163.118(2); ORS 161.605(1). On direct appeal in 1990, this court affirmed petitioner's conviction without opinion, and the Oregon Supreme Court denied review. State v. Teague, 102 Or.App. 522, 795 P.2d 124, rev. den., 310 Or. 422, 799 P.2d 151 (1990). Following the affirmance of his conviction, petitioner filed a timely petition for post-conviction relief that was denied. In 2000, petitioner filed this second petition.
Petitioner's principal claim in the current petition is that the imposition of a dangerous offender sentence for his crime violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted and applied in Apprendi, because the predicate facts underlying his dangerous offender sentence enhancement were neither pleaded in the indictment nor found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Petitioner also asserts that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel in violation of state and federal constitutional provisions because his counsel failed to argue that the facts on which the dangerous offender sentence was based should have been pleaded in the indictment and found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
The post-conviction court dismissed the petition on three alternative grounds: (1) the petition was untimely under ORS 138.510(3); (2) petitioner's allegations were barred by the successive petition bar of ORS 138.550(3); and (3) even if petitioner's claims were not procedurally barred, the imposition of petitioner's dangerous offender sentence was not unconstitutional under the legal principles announced in Apprendi. Petitioner asserts on appeal that the post-conviction court erred in each of its conclusions. Defendant superintendent responds that the trial court was correct in each of those conclusions and emphasizes that any one is sufficient to compel affirmance.
By way of supplemental briefing, the parties have addressed the additional issue of whether Apprendi applies retroactively in post-conviction proceedings. Defendant makes two related arguments in that regard. Defendant asserts first that, under the federal Supremacy Clause,1 Oregon courts are obligated to apply federal retroactivity principles in state post-conviction proceedings. Next, relying on the federal retroactivity test articulated in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), defendant urges that the legal principle announced in Apprendi is not retroactive. Petitioner and amicus curiae Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association (OCDLA) make several responses to our questions about the retroactivity of the rule of law from Apprendi. Their arguments essentially reduce to two alternative propositions: (1) Teague announced a rule of federal procedure that applies only to federal habeas corpus claims and not to state post-conviction proceedings; (2) in any event, Apprendi satisfies the retroactivity test announced in Teague v. Lane.
As explained at length below, Oregon courts are not obligated to follow federal retroactivity principles in state post-conviction proceedings, but it is well settled that we do so for prudential reasons. Consequently, the retroactivity of the rule announced in Apprendi should be tested under Teague v. Lane. Applying that test, we conclude, as has the overwhelming majority of other jurisdictions, that Apprendi does not apply retroactively to collateral review proceedings such as those for post-conviction relief. Because that conclusion completely disposes of petitioner's challenge to his dangerous offender sentence, we do not decide whether that challenge is untimely under ORS 138.510(3) or is precluded by the successive petition bar of ORS 138.550(3). Finally, we reject petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. We address each matter in turn.
The federal Supremacy Clause does not require states to adhere to federal retroactivity principles in determining whether to grant post-conviction relief to Oregon prisoners who rely on newly announced federal constitutional pronouncements. Rather, states are free to apply new federal constitutional pronouncements to a broader range of cases—that is, to give those pronouncements greater retroactive application—than federal law requires of federal courts. That much has long been settled. See, e.g., Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 733, 86 S.Ct. 1772, 16 L.Ed.2d 882 (1966)
; State v. Fair, 263 Or. 383, 387-88, 502 P.2d 1150 (1972). So, defendant's position to the contrary is wrong. Rather, as amicus OCDLA correctly argues, it is "up to Oregon to adopt its own rules regarding the effect on collateral review of subsequent changes in the law" and "Oregon has done so[.]" Contrary to amicus OCDLA's position, however, retroactivity is not determined by ORS 138.510(3) and ORS 138.550(3), which address when a petitioner may raise claims not raised at trial or in a prior post-conviction petition. Those statutes codify principles relating to issue preclusion, not retroactivity. Oregon's approach to retroactivity is reflected in a nearly 40-year-old body of settled precedent.
To place that precedent—and the retroactivity issue—in perspective, we begin with a bit of background. The United States Constitution requires states to furnish state prisoners with "some clearly defined method by which they may raise claims of denial of federal rights." Young v. Ragen, 337 U.S. 235, 239, 69 S.Ct. 1073, 93 L.Ed. 1333 (1948). Before the enactment of Oregon's current statutory post-conviction scheme, a state prisoner seeking relief for an alleged violation of a federal right was confronted with a confusing array of writs and statutory remedies that often failed to address federal claims adequately. See ORS 138.540(1). See generally Jack G. Collins and Carl R. Neil, The Oregon Postconviction-Hearing Act, 39 Or. L. Rev. 337, 337-40 (1960). The Oregon Supreme Court in the 1950s responded to the problem by adopting a more "elastic" approach to the availability of relief through habeas corpus. Huffman v. Alexander, 197 Or. 283, 349, 253 P.2d 289 (1953). In particular, the court declared that it would "shape our procedural apparatus so as to comply" with the United States Supreme Court's mandate in Young, id., and would "assimilate its procedure in [habeas] cases, as nearly as may be, to that of the federal courts." Id. at 350, 253 P.2d 289.
rev. den. (1971).
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