Waddell v. Keller

• Decision Date: 05 September 2011
• Docket Number: 3:10cv532
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina
• Parties: LARRY WADDELL, Petitioner, v. ALVIN W. KELLER, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Correction; and HERBERT JACKSON, Administrator, Brown Creek Correctional Institution, Respondents.

LARRY WADDELL, Petitioner, v. ALVIN W. KELLER, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Correction; and HERBERT JACKSON, Administrator, Brown Creek Correctional Institution, Respondents.

3:10cv532

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE DIVISION

Signed: September 5, 2011

MEMORANDUM OF

DECISION AND ORDER

THIS MATTER is before the court upon respondents' Motion for Summary Judgment (#7) and Motion to Expand Page Limitation (#8). Having carefully considered respondents' Motion for Summary Judgment and reviewed the pleadings, the court enters the following findings, conclusions, and Order dismissing the petition.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

I. Background

A. Procedural History

Petitioner is an inmate incarcerated by the State of North Carolina at Brown Creek Correctional Institution, located in Polkton, North Carolina. On March 11, 1975, petitioner was convicted in the North Carolina General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division forMecklenburg County, of the first-degree murder of Alma Bertram Wood on July 12, 1974, and sentenced to death. State v. Waddell, 289 N.C. 19, 220 S.E.2d 293 (1975). On July 6, 1976, the United States Supreme Court vacated petitioner's death sentence and, on remand, he was re-sentenced by the North Carolina court to life imprisonment. Waddell v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 904 (1976). This action, brought under 28, United States Code, Section 2254 seeks federal habeas relief based on petitioner's contention that he has served his sentence and that his further detention violates his federal constitutional protections.

Since entering the North Carolina prison system in the 1970's, petitioner has accumulated good time, gain time, and/or merit time credits. At the time petitioner was sentenced, Chapter 14-2 of the North Carolina General Statutes provided, in pertinent part, that "[a] sentence of life imprisonment shall be considered as a sentence of imprisonment for 80 years in the State's prison." N.C.Gen.Stat. § 14-2 (1974). Despite the language of the statute, the North Carolina Department of Correction (hereinafter "DOC") treated a sentence of life as meaning imprisonment for the remainder of the inmate's natural life; thus, it never applied such credits to petitioner (or similarly situated inmates)¹ to reduce what DOC considered to be a length-of-life sentence. It was not until such reading was challenged by another, similarly situated inmate, Bobby Bowden, that the DOC considered a life sentence under the pertinent statute as a determinate sentence. In State v. Bowden, 193 N.C.App. 597(2008), the North Carolina Court of Appeals determined that a life sentence under Chapter 14-2 "is considered as an 80-year sentence for all purposes" and remanded the state habeas petition to the trial court to "determine how many sentence reduction credits [Bowden] is eligible to receive and how those credits are to be applied." Id., at 601 (emphasis added).²

In response to the decision in Bowden, the Respondent Alvin W. Keller, Jr., Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Correction, decided to proceeded on two independent tracks: one legal and the other practical. See Memorandum in Support, Ex. 1, Transcript of Jones Hearing, pp. 19-23 & 61 (hereinafter "Jones Trans"). While the first track was legal, actions taken in pursuit of the second "practical track" by DOC employees have resulted in petitioner raising issues herein. The second track required DOC employees to examine the sentences and credits of each inmate similarly situated to inmate Bowden (hereinafter " the Bowden class"). DOC "test runs" of the inmates sentenced under Chapter 14-2 (1974) who would be eligible for release if such credits were applied by DOC to reduce their sentences. Respondent Keller testified that "those were strictly test runs." Jones Trans., at p. 25. Apparently, this practical track resulted in emails and memoranda being generated by DOC employees that evinced misunderstanding and confusion surrounding the impact of the decision in Bowden, with some employees expressing their belief that the decision required the release of the Bowden class of inmates. Respondent Keller testified "I never ordered anyone's release." Id. After Bowden issued, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued Jonesv. Keller, 364 N.C. 249 (2010), discussed infra, which took up where Bowden left off.

Petitioner contends that when all the good time, gain time, and/or merit time credits (as well as credit for pre-trial confinement) are applied to his unconditional release date, he should have been released no later than June 25, 2008, and that he is now being held unlawfully by the State of North Carolina in violation of protections afforded him under the United States Constitution. Petition, at p. 33.

B. Petitioner's Contentions

Read in a light most favorable to him, petitioner raises the following contentions under Sections 2241(c)(3) and 2254:

I. Petitioner earned sentence reduction credits without reservation or restriction;

II. Petitioner has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in his sentence reduction credits and was deprived of his credits without Due Process of Law;

III. Retroactive summary revocation of his sentence reduction credits violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution; and

IV. DOC's refusal to credit his sentence reduction credits to his unconditional release date infringes upon his entitlement to fair notice of the law.

II. Exhaustion of State Remedies

Petitioner filed this action on October 22, 2010. In his petition, petitioner alleges that he has no remedy in state court because similarly situated inmates have raised identical claims for state habeas relief and did not prevail. Petition, at pp. 2-3 (citing Jones v. Keller, supra; Brown v. N.C. Dep't Corr., 517PA09, 697 S.E.2d 327 (N.C. Aug. 27, 2010)).Petitioner alleges it would, therefore, be futile for him to first seek relief in state court before bringing this federal action. Petition, at p. 3.

Simultaneous with the filing of this action, petitioner filed a state habeas petition in the North Carolina Supreme Court, "in order to ensure that his federal habeas claims are not procedurally defaulted." Pet., at 28. The state petition was summarily denied by the North Carolina Supreme Court November 4, 2010. Waddell v. Keller, ___ N.C. ___, 705 S.E.2d 342 (Nov. 4, 2010).

Prior to bringing an action under Section 2241 or 2254 petitioner must exhaust his state remedies. In Longworth v. Ozmint, 377 F.3d 437(4th Cir. 2004), the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that to satisfy the exhaustion requirements of Section 2254, a state prisoner must complete at least one round of the state's established appellate review process by presenting the ground for relief in a face-up and square fashion. Id., at 448. In Mallory v. Smith, 27 F.3d 991 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1047 (1994), the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held, as follows:

The exhaustion requirement can promote comity between the state and federal systems only if state courts actually have a meaningful opportunity to oversee their own operations. It is therefore required that a petitioner seeking federal habeas review make more than a perfunctory jaunt through the state court system, see Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275-76, 92 S.Ct. 509, 511-12, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971), and habeas review in the federal courts will be available only after the state courts have been "provided a full and fair opportunity to review earlier state court proceedings," Whittlesey, 897 F.2d at 145; see also Picard, 404 U.S. at 275-76, 92 S.Ct. at 511-12. Where questions concerning exhaustion arise, the petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating that state remedies have, in fact, been exhausted. See Miranda v. Cooper, 967 F.2d 392, 398 (10th Cir.1992); Nadworny v. Fair, 872 F.2d 1093, 1098 (1st Cir.1989).

* * *

[T]he exhaustion requirement demands that the petitioner do more than scatter some makeshift needles in the haystack of the state court record. The ground relied upon must be presented faceup and squarely; the federal question must be plainly defined. Oblique references which hint that a theory may be lurking in the woodwork will not turn the trick.

Id., 27 F.3d at 994-95 (citation and corresponding quotation marks omitted). This court will not reach the issue of whether filing a state habeas petition directly with the North Carolina Supreme Court completes one round of the state's established appellate review process. See Woodford v. Hgo, 548 U.S. 81, 92 (2006). Instead, the court finds that the state has conceded that petitioner has exhausted his administrative remedies. Respondent's Brief in Support (#9), at p. 9. While federal courts have the discretion to consider whether a petitioner has indeed exhausted administrative remedies even where exhaustion is not raised by the state as a procedural bar, Granberry v. Greer, 481 U.S. 128 (1987), petitioner acknowledges that Jones is the final word from the state's highest court on his claims and that he is "not raising an issue that the North Carolina Supreme Court has not already passed upon." Petition, at p. 27. Thus, it is clear that the decisions of the North Carolina Supreme Court in Jones, supra, and Brown, supra, are the final word on all the constitutional issues raised by the Bowden class of inmates, including petitioner. While the North Carolina Supreme Court did not reference either decision in its summary dismissal of petitioner's state habeas petition, see Waddell v. Keller, supra, it is reasonable to infer that such Court's established precedent in Jones and Brown formed the basis of its decision. Based on the circumstances presented in this case, the court finds that the exhaustionrequirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(B) and § 2254(b)(2) and (3) have been met.

III. Statute of Limitations

While respondents do not challenge exhaustion, they do contend that this action was filed well...