Tucker v. Catoe

• Decision Date: 04 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-14,N,CA-98-681-0-8BD,99-14
• Citation: 2000 WL 763597,221 F.3d 600
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2000) RICHARD ANTHONY TUCKER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WILLIAM D. CATOE, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; CHARLES M. CONDON, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees. RICHARD ANTHONY TUCKER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WILLIAM D. CATOE, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; CHARLES M. CONDON, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees. o. 99-15 () Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 600

221 F.3d 600 (4th Cir. 2000)

RICHARD ANTHONY TUCKER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WILLIAM D. CATOE, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; CHARLES M. CONDON, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.

RICHARD ANTHONY TUCKER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WILLIAM D. CATOE, Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections; CHARLES M. CONDON, Attorney General, State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 99-14, No. 99-15 (CA-98-681-0-8BD)

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: April 4, 2000

Decided: June 13, 2000

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Solomon Blatt Jr., Senior District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] COUNSEL ARGUED: Thomas Ross Haggard, Ridgeway, South Carolina, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Teresa L. Norris, CENTER FOR CAPITAL LITIGATION, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant.

Before NIEMEYER, MICHAEL, and KING, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Michael joined.

OPINION

KING, Circuit Judge:

Richard Anthony Tucker, convicted of murder and sentenced to death by the state courts of South Carolina, appeals from the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Finding no error, we must affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

In the evening of August 1, 1992, seventy-nine-year old Carrie Alley was sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled in her home. Tucker was subsequently arrested as he attempted to unlock Ms. Alley's car, and at the time of his arrest, he was carrying several checks belonging to Ms. Alley, along with some of her jewelry. The investigation that followed produced physical evidence, including blood, DNA, and fingerprint evidence, that linked Tucker to the sexual assault and murder.

Tucker was then indicted and tried in the Court of General Sessions for Spartanburg County, South Carolina. On October 25, 1993, a jury convicted Tucker of grand larceny, first degree burglary, criminal sexual assault in the first degree, and murder. The sentencing proceedings began on October 26, 1993, and on October 28, 1993, Tucker was sentenced to death by the court upon the jury's unanimous recommendation.

Tucker has never challenged any of the guilt-phase proceedings; however, he has maintained that several components of the sentencing proceeding and direct appeal were flawed. Following the denial of his application for post-conviction relief in the South Carolina state courts, the district court for the District of South Carolina dismissed Tucker's petition for habeas corpus and granted a certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253. The facts and proceedings underlying Tucker's arguments have been recounted in two published decisions. See State v. Tucker, 462 S.E.2d 263, 264-66 (S.C. 1995); Tucker v. Moore, 56 F. Supp. 2d 611, 613 (D.S.C. 1999). In our discussion below, we focus only upon those facts relevant to the issues raised herein.

II.

At the outset, the Government contends that we may not consider the merits of Tucker's petition for habeas corpus relief because his petition is time-barred. In this vein, two separate statutes of limitations are potentially applicable to petitions for federal habeas corpus in capital cases. For states that comply with certain conditions, federal law provides for expedited procedures for review, including a 180day period within which the petition for habeas corpus relief must be filed in federal court. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2263(a) (2000).¹ Proceedings involving other states are governed by different provisions, which include a 1-year period in which the habeas corpus petition must be filed. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).² There is no dispute that Tucker's petition for federal habeas corpus relief was filed after the

180-day filing period had expired but within the 1-year filing period. Therefore, his petition is timely if the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1) apply to his petition, and it is untimely if the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2263(a) control.

In order for the expedited habeas corpus procedures for capital cases ("capital-specific provisions") promulgated in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") to control, a state must first satisfy the provisions of 28 U.S.C.§ 2261(b) & (c) (2000):

(b) This chapter is applicable if a State establishes by statute, rule of its court of last resort, or by another agency authorized by State law, a mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel in State post-conviction proceedings brought by indigent prisoners whose capital convictions and sentences have been upheld on direct appeal to the court of last resort in the State or have otherwise become final for State law purposes. The rule of court or statute must provide standards of competency for the appointment of such counsel.

(c) Any mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and reimbursement of counsel as provided in subsection (b) must offer counsel to all State prisoners under capital sentence and must provide for the entry of an order by a court of record --

(1) appointing one or more counsels to represent the prisoner upon a finding that the prisoner is indigent and accepted the offer or is unable competently to decide whether to accept or reject the offer (2) finding, after a hearing if necessary, that the prisoner rejected the offer of counsel and made the decision with an understanding of its legal consequences; or

(3) denying the appointment of counsel upon a finding that the prisoner is not indigent.

28 U.S.C. § 2261. Thus, a state must satisfy the conditions established in 28 U.S.C. § 2261 in order to invoke the time limitations of section 2263.

The State asserts that it has complied with section 2261 through two authorities. First, South Carolina has enacted S.C. Code Ann. § 17-27-160 (1999), which establishes standards for the appointment of counsel to represent defendants in capital post-conviction relief proceedings, establishes standards for qualification of counsel in order to be appointed, and provides for compensation and litigation expenses in these cases. Second, the Supreme Court of South Carolina, in In re Stays of Execution in Capital Cases, 471 S.E.2d 140, 141 (S.C. 1996), promulgated several requirements relating to representation issues in capital cases, including a requirement for the timely appointment of counsel for state post-conviction relief. Both S.C. Code Ann. § 17-27-160 and the rules set forth in In re Stays of Execution in Capital Cases, supra, were promulgated before the appointment of the lawyers who represented Tucker in his application for post-conviction relief.

In this case, however, it is undisputed that the lawyers appointed by South Carolina to represent Tucker in seeking post-conviction relief did not meet the State's requirements under S.C. Code Ann. § 17-27-160(B). Nonetheless, the State contends that it is entitled to benefit from the 180-day limitations period available under section 2263(a) because it enacted a "mechanism" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2261(b). At its base, this is an argument that a state may benefit from the capital-specific provisions and expedited procedures available under AEDPA if it enacts standards of competency for postconviction relief counsel, even if the state fails to abide by its mechanism or appoint counsel that meet its standards of competency.

In Bennett v. Angelone, 92 F.3d 1336, 1342 (4th Cir. 1996), the Commonwealth of Virginia contended that its mechanism for the appointment of competent counsel to represent indigent petitioners in post-conviction proceedings satisfied 28 U.S.C.§ 2261, and that Virginia was thus permitted to invoke the capital-specific provisions of AEDPA. In that case, we declined to reach the issue of whether the Commonwealth's mechanism satisfied 28 U.S.C. § 2261 because the Commonwealth had not enacted its "mechanism" until after the petitioner's habeas corpus petition had been finally denied by the Supreme Court of Virginia. We recognized, in Bennett, that AEDPA "establishes a quid-pro-quo relationship: A state seeking greater federal deference to its habeas decisions in capital cases must, by appointing competent counsel to represent indigent petitioners, further ensure that its own habeas proceedings are meaningful." 92 F.3d at 1342. Because Virginia's mechanism had not actually been applied to the petitioner, the Commonwealth could not invoke the capitalspecific provisions of AEDPA: "[A]pplying[the capital-specific provisions] to Bennett's petition would upset the`quid pro quo arrangement' [AEDPA] was supposed to establish." Id.

The import of Bennett is clear: the mere promulgation of a "mechanism" is not sufficient to permit a state to invoke the capital-specific provisions of AEDPA. See also Smith v. Moore, 137 F.3d 808, 812 n.1 (4th Cir. 1998) (holding that South Carolina may not invoke capital-specific provisions of AEDPA because petitioner's habeas corpus petition was finally decided before state's"mechanism" enacted). We accordingly conclude that a state must not only enact a "mechanism" and standards for post-conviction review counsel, but those mechanisms and standards must in fact be complied with before the state may invoke the time limitations of 28 U.S.C § 2263. Not only is this conclusion consistent with our precedent, but it is also consistent with common sense: It would be an astounding proposition if a state could benefit from the capital-specific provisions of AEDPA by enacting, but not following, procedures promulgated pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2261. In this context, Tucker's petition for habeas corpus, filed within the 1-year limitations...