Toulson v. Beyer
| Decision Date | 13 May 1992 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 90-4326 (WGB). |
| Citation | 792 F. Supp. 352 |
| Parties | Troy TOULSON, Petitioner, v. Howard L. BEYER, Superintendent New Jersey State Prison and Robert J. Del Tufo, Attorney General of New Jersey, Respondents. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
Troy Toulson, pro se.
Office of Atty. Gen. of N.J. by Linda A. Rinaldi, Deputy Atty. Gen., Div. of Crim. Justice, Appellate Section, Trenton, N.J., for respondents.
Petitioner, Troy Toulson, an inmate at Trenton State Prison, Trenton, New Jersey, seeks habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In support of his petition, he challenges both the fact and duration of his incarceration on the following grounds: (1) the admission of evidence at trial of statements petitioner made without the assistance of counsel violated petitioner's federal constitutional right to counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) the admission into evidence at trial of certain statements made by petitioner violated petitioner's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as articulated in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966); (3) the trial judge's failure to give a limiting instruction regarding petitioner's statements was in plain error which prejudiced the trial's outcome; (4) petitioner's sentence totaling forty-five years in New Jersey state prison with a twenty-year parole disqualifier was "manifestly excessive"; (5) the judge based petitioner's sentence on facts that are neither in the trial record nor in the presentence report.
For the reasons discussed below, petitioner's request for habeas corpus relief will be granted with respect to his sentencing; his request for relief with respect to his conviction is denied.
On December 30, 1980, petitioner was charged on five counts involving an attempted armed robbery on October 12, 1980. The counts included: (1) conspiracy to commit armed robbery, in violation of N.J.Stat.Ann. 2C:5-2; (2) possession of a handgun without a permit, in violation of N.J.Stat.Ann. 2C:39-5(b); (3) possession of a handgun with a purpose to use it unlawfully, contrary to N.J.Stat.Ann. 2C:39-4; (4) committing aggravated assault by knowingly causing serious bodily injury to victim, Christine Vay, in violation of N.J.Stat.Ann. 2C:12-1(b)(1); and (5) attempt to commit armed robbery with a deadly weapon, in violation of N.J.Stat. Ann. 2C:15-1. Da-1-6.
Petitioner was convicted of all five counts and the trial judge committed him to the custody of the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections for consecutive terms of ten years, with a minimum parole ineligibility of five years on the first count; five years on the second count; ten years, with five years of parole ineligibility on the fourth count; and twenty years, with ten years of parole ineligibility on the fifth count. The third count conviction was deemed to merge into the fifth count conviction. Thus, petitioner's total sentence amounted to forty-five years, with twenty years of parole ineligibility. See Unpublished Opinion of Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division, at Da-23-24.
Petitioner appealed both the fact of his conviction and the duration of his sentence to the Appellate Division; on October 4, 1982, the trial court's decisions were affirmed without opinion by the Appellate Division, as permitted by N.J. Rule 2:113(e)(2). Id. at Da-25.
Petitioner challenged the Appellate Division's affirmance by petitioning for certification to the New Jersey Supreme Court, Da-27, however, in an order dated December 6, 1982, and filed December 8, 1982, the state supreme court denied certification.
Petitioner then moved in the Appellate Division for reconsideration of his sentence on March 3, 1983, Da-45-47. This motion also was denied. Da-48 (Date of order illegible).
Petitioner petitioned the Superior Court of New Jersey Law Division for post-conviction relief ("PCR") on the grounds that his sentencing exceeded the state statutory guidelines pursuant to N.J.Stat.Ann. 2C:44, and that the "sentencing judge based his sentence upon `information' without giving notice to the defendant that such `information' would be used and without giving the defendant the opportunity to answer the same." Petition for Post-Conviction Relief at Da-49. Petitioner's petition was denied on January 30, 1987. Habeas Corpus Petition ¶ 11(a)(5) & (6).
A state prisoner must exhaust state remedies before a federal court will entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) and (c). The United States Supreme Court explained that "the exhaustion doctrine is principally designed to protect the state courts' role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings." Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 518, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1203, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982) (citation omitted). As such, the exhaustion doctrine is applied to promote comity — and minimize friction — between the state and federal judicial systems "`by allowing the State an initial opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of prisoners' federal rights.'" Id. (quoting Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U.S. 1, 3, 102 S.Ct. 18, 19, 70 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981)). See also, Gibson v. Scheidemantel, 805 F.2d 135, 138 (3d Cir. 1986).
Once the Court in Rose reviewed the statutory law, case law, and policy reasons for the exhaustion doctrine, it resolved the question whether the doctrine should apply to habeas corpus petitions with both exhausted and unexhausted grounds (i.e., a "mixed petition") by concluding that "a rigorously enforced total exhaustion rule will encourage state prisoners to seek full relief first from the state courts, thus giving those courts the first opportunity to review all claims of constitutional error." Rose, 455 U.S. at 518-19, 102 S.Ct. at 1203-04. The Court held that the exhaustion requirement should be strictly enforced. Id. at 520, 102 S.Ct. at 1204. It further explained that this interpretation of §§ 2254(b) and (c) would inure to the benefit of both the courts and potential litigants, pro se and represented, by reducing piecemeal litigation and by providing a simple and clear instruction: "before you bring any claims to federal court, be sure that you first have taken each one to state court," id. at 520, 102 S.Ct. at 1204, and therefore, strict enforcement requires that "a district court must dismiss habeas petitions containing both unexhausted and exhausted claims." Id. at 522, 102 S.Ct. at 1205.
In order to follow the Supreme Court's simple and clear instruction, and so satisfy the exhaustion requirement, the petitioner's federal claim must be "fairly presented" to the state courts. Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971). The Court explained that "it is not sufficient merely that the federal habeas applicant has been through the state courts." Id. at 275-76, 92 S.Ct. at 512-13. A state prisoner is required to "present the state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts." Id. at 276, 92 S.Ct. at 512. Moreover, "both the legal theory and the facts on which a federal claim rests must have been presented to the state courts." Gibson, 805 F.2d at 138. The petitioner must have presented his federal claim "to the highest court of the state, either on direct review of the conviction or in a postconviction attack." 17A Charles A. Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 4264.1 (2d ed. 1988).
Within this precedential framework, a careful examination of the record reveals that although petitioner is correct in his assertion that the habeas petition is based entirely upon briefs submitted to state courts, petitioner's Letter-Brief In Lieu of Writ of Traverse, dated May 24, 1991 at 3, he has nonetheless failed to satisfy the requirements of exhaustion in that several of the grounds raised in support of his claim for habeas relief were raised only before the state court's appellate division, but were not "fairly presented" to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Specifically, Grounds One, Two, and Three are undeniably absent from his petition for certification to the New Jersey Supreme Court. See Da-27-44. While petitioner relies on Picard v. Connor to support the proposition that "the federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts," 404 U.S. at 275, 92 S.Ct. at 512, which petitioner asserts he has done, Picard also makes it clear that "fair presentation" requires presentation to the state supreme court, id. at 276, 92 S.Ct. at 512-13, which petitioner has not done. In addition, the Third Circuit addressed this issue in a habeas corpus proceeding and held that a defendant who, in a state court criminal proceeding, sought to preclude the trial from being held on Friday, the Orthodox Muslim weekly holy day, and who did not carry her request to the New Jersey Supreme Court, failed to exhaust her state remedies for purposes of federal habeas corpus. New Jersey v. Chesimard, 555 F.2d 63 (3d Cir.1977).
This court is therefore required to conclude that the petition contains unexhausted claims. Thus, assuming, without yet deciding, that petitioner's other claims are in fact exhausted, these three unexhausted claims serve to create a mixed petition which, under the strict rule of Rose v. Lundy, would require dismissal so that petitioner can return to state court to give it the first opportunity to rule on his federal constitutional claims.
There are, however, two situations that give rise to an exception to the otherwise strict rule of Rose: "An exception is made to the exhaustion requirement ... where the petitioner has no opportunity to obtain redress in the state court or where the state corrective process is so deficient as to render any effort to obtain relief futile." Gibson, 805 F.2d at 138 (citing Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U.S. 1, 3, 102 S.Ct. 18,...
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Toulson v. Beyer
...conviction, but remanded to the state trial court for resentencing after finding the sentence relied on facts not in the record. 792 F.Supp. 352. The State now The district court had jurisdiction over this matter under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253.......
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Toulson v. Beyer
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