Zornes v. Bolin

• Decision Date: 27 June 2022
• Docket Number: 20-3013
• Parties: Tracy Alan ZORNES, Petitioner - Appellant, v. William BOLIN, Respondent - Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

37 F.4th 1411

Tracy Alan ZORNES, Petitioner - Appellant,

v.William BOLIN, Respondent - Appellee.

No. 20-3013

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: February 17, 2022

Filed: June 27, 2022

Robert H. Meyers, Federal Public Defender's Office, Minneapolis, MN, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Tracy Alan Zornes, Stillwater, MN, Pro Se.

Cecilia A. Knapp, Clay County Attorney's Office, Moorhead, MN, Edwin William Stockmeyer, III, Attorney General's Office, Appeals Division, Saint Paul, MN, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before LOKEN, COLLOTON, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

Tracy Zornes is serving a life sentence for murder in Minnesota. He brought a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the district court, alleging that the state trial court violated his right to a public trial, and that the decision of the state supreme court upholding his conviction was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. The district court¹ denied the petition, and we affirm.

I.

In November 2011, Zornes was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, first-degree arson of a dwelling, and theft of a motor vehicle in Minnesota state court. See Minn. Stat. §§ 609.185(a)(1), 609.561, subdiv. 1, 609.52 subdiv. 2(17). The Minnesota trial court sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

On direct appeal, Zornes challenged the trial court's decision to exclude two people from the courtroom during jury voir dire . Zornes's girlfriend was present in the courtroom for two days of jury selection. She was included on a joint witness list prepared by the parties. When counsel alerted the trial court to the girlfriend's presence on her second day of attendance, the court ordered her to leave the courtroom to comply with an order sequestering witnesses. Zornes did not object.

The next day, Zornes informed the court that Robert Stivers, a brother of one of the murder victims, was present in the courtroom. Stivers was on the State's witness list. Zornes explained to the court, however, that the State "may be willing to remove him from that list and in return we would not be objecting if he wants to watch from the observation room so we don't have the jurors in eye contact with him." The State then confirmed its desire to remove Stivers from the witness list. Consistent with Zornes's proposal, the court declared that Stivers would be allowed to sit in the observation room during voir dire , but would not be a witness at trial.

Zornes argued on appeal in state court that the trial court's decision to sequester the girlfriend and to direct Stivers to watch from an observation room violated his right to a public trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court of Minnesota rejected the contentions. State v. Zornes , 831 N.W.2d 609, 618 (Minn. 2013). With respect to the girlfriend, the court concluded that a potential witness is distinct from the "public" generally, and that the trial court had broad discretion to exclude a witness from the courtroom. After observing that the girlfriend played a key role in Zornes's planned alibi defense, the court explained that questioning of prospective jurors can be wide ranging and cover details of trial strategy, so it is conceivable that a witness could tailor her testimony in response to what she hears during voir dire. Id. at 619-20. The court ultimately held that the sequestration of the defendant's girlfriend did not violate Zornes's constitutional right to a public trial. The court also ruled that the exclusion of Stivers from the courtroom during voir dire was "too trivial to implicate Zorne[s]’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial," and found it unnecessary to address whether Zornes invited the alleged error. Id. at 620-21.

After failing to obtain post-conviction relief in state court, Zornes filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the district court. As relevant here, Zornes challenged the state court's disposition of his claim alleging a violation of the right to a public trial. The district court denied relief. The court reasoned that the state supreme court's decision was not contrary to clearly established federal law, because the Supreme Court has not addressed the constitutionality of partial closures of trial proceedings. The court also concluded that the state court's decision was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, because any alleged error in the ruling was subject to fairminded disagreement. The district court granted a certificate of appealability, and we review the district court's conclusion de novo .

II.

A federal court's authority to grant a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a state prisoner is governed by the standards set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. A federal court cannot grant a habeas petition with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the adjudication "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

A state court decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law, or if the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from relevant Supreme Court precedent yet reaches the opposite result. Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362, 405-06, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). A decision involves an "unreasonable application of" federal law if the state court "correctly identifies the governing legal standard but either unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular case or unreasonably extends or refuses to extend the legal standard to a new context." Munt v. Grandlienard , 829 F.3d 610, 614 (8th Cir. 2016) ; see Williams , 529 U.S. at 407, 120 S.Ct. 1495. To demonstrate an unreasonable application, a prisoner must show "that a state court's adjudication was not only wrong, but also objectively unreasonable, such that ‘fairminded jurists’ could not disagree about the proper resolution." Smith v. Titus , 958 F.3d 687, 691 (8th Cir. 2020) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado , 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004) ), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 982, 209 L.Ed.2d 488 (2021) ; see Williams , 529 U.S. at 409-12, 120 S.Ct. 1495. We evaluate the reasonableness of the state court's ultimate conclusion, not necessarily the reasoning used to justify the decision. Dansby v. Hobbs , 766 F.3d 809, 830 (8th Cir. 2014).

Zornes argues that the state court's decision is contrary to and involved an unreasonable application of two Supreme Court decisions: Waller v. Georgia , 467 U.S. 39, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984), and Presley v. Georgia , 558 U.S. 209, 130 S.Ct. 721, 175 L.Ed.2d 675 (2010) (per curiam). Waller considered a trial court's decision to close a pretrial suppression hearing to the public. The Court ruled that it was constitutional error to close the hearing, and that to justify such a closure, "the party seeking to close the hearing must advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced, the closure must be no broader than necessary to protect that interest, the trial court must consider reasonable alternatives to closing the proceeding, and it must make findings adequate to support the closure." 467 U.S. at 48, 104 S.Ct. 2210. Presley held that the right to a public trial extends to the voir dire of prospective jurors, and clarified that the trial court must consider reasonable alternatives to closure even when they are not proposed by the parties. 558 U.S. at 213-14, 130 S.Ct. 721.

The state supreme court's decision in this case is not contrary to Waller and Presley . When evaluating Sixth Amendment claims involving the right to a public trial, this court and others have distinguished between total closures and partial closures of criminal proceedings. See Garcia v. Bertsch , 470 F.3d 748, 752-53 (8th Cir. 2006) ; United States v. Osborne , 68 F.3d 94, 98-99 & n.12 (5th Cir. 1995) (collecting cases). Whether a closure is total or partial depends on who is excluded during the time in question. United States v. Thompson , 713 F.3d 388, 395 (8th Cir. 2013). This court applies the stringent standard announced in Waller to total closures, but conducts a different analysis for partial closures. Id.

The exclusions of Zornes's girlfriend and Stivers were both partial closures of the jury selection proceedings under this rubric; at no point did the trial court bar all members of the public from the courtroom. Waller and Presley both involved total closures. Waller , 467 U.S. at 42, 104 S.Ct. 2210 ; Presley , 558 U.S. at 210, 214, 130 S.Ct. 721 ; see Presley v. State , 285 Ga. 270, 674 S.E.2d 909, 910-911 (2009). The Supreme Court has never addressed a "partial closure" of jury selection (or any phase of a trial) in which a potential witness is sequestered or a relative of a victim is excluded at the suggestion of the defendant. Where no Supreme Court decision has confronted the specific question presented to the state court, the court's decision cannot be contrary to clearly established federal law for the purposes of § 2254(d)(1). Woods v. Donald , 575 U.S. 312, 317, 135 S.Ct. 1372, 191 L.Ed.2d 464 (2015) (per curiam). Accordingly, we conclude that the Minnesota court's decision is not contrary to clearly established federal law.

The next issue is whether the state court decision involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. As noted, Waller and Presley involved complete closures of a courtroom to the public, and did not address how a court should analyze an order excluding a prospective witness or victim's relative from attending jury voir dire . Zornes argues that a "partial closure" must satisfy the...