Opinion
NO. WR-55,850-02
2013-09-23
EX PARTE ARTURO ELEAZAR DIAZ, Applicant
ON APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
IN CAUSE NO. CR-1464-99-G FROM THE
370TH DISTRICT COURT OF HIDALGO COUNTY
PRICE, J., filed a dissenting statement.
DISSENTING STATEMENT
Over the last fifteen years or more, Texas has executed any number of people whose legal representation during their state post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings was plainly inadequate. Who knows how many of them may have been able to obtain new trials with adequate representation? Some of them may even have been innocent—think of Anthony Graves's near miss, for example—although for most of them we will likely never know for sure.
See Pamela Colloff, Free at Last, Texas Monthly November 2010 ("At the recommendation of the Burleson County district attorney's office, state district judge Reva Towslee-Corbett signed a motion that stated, simply, 'We have found no credible evidence which inculpates [Graves].' In other words, all capital murder charges were dropped. * * * Burleson County district attorney Bill Parham . . . was clear that this was not a matter of having insufficient evidence to take to trial; charges were not dropped because too many witnesses had died over the years or because the evidence had become degraded. 'There's not a single thing that says Anthony Graves was involved in this case,' he said. 'There is nothing.'"); Pamela Colloff, Innocence Found, Texas Monthly January 2011 ("Burleson County district attorney Bill Parham told reporters at a hastily organized press conference that he was 'absolutely convinced' of Graves's innocence. * * * When [special prosecutor Kelly] Siegler's turn came to address reporters, she placed the blame for Graves's wrongful conviction squarely on former DA Charles Sebasta. 'It's a prosecutor's responsibility to never fabricate evidence or manipulate witnesses or take advantage of victims,' she said. 'And unfortunately, what happened in this case is all of those things.' Graves's trial, she said, had been 'a travesty.'").
In the last two years, the United States Supreme Court has finally rendered a pair of decisions that partially remedies this situation, at least for purposes of federal habeas corpus review of state court convictions. By the combined opinions in Martinez and Trevino, the Supreme Court has held that a federal petitioner from Texas may pursue the merits of a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel in federal habeas corpus proceedings, even if he failed to pursue that claim in state court, so long as he can show that the default in state court was a product of ineffective representation by his initial state habeas counsel. Unfortunately for Arturo Diaz, whose initial state habeas counsel arguably failed to adequately present a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel under Wiggins v. Smith, these recent Supreme Court holdings may not help him. Martinez and Trevino excuse a procedural default that occurred in state court on account of ineffective state habeas counsel only for purposes of an initial federal habeas petition. Diaz has already litigated his initial federal petition, and he cannot hope to successfully pursue a Martinez/Trevino claim in a subsequent federal habeas petition.
Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012); Trevino v. Thaler, 133 S. Ct. 1911 (2013).
Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003).
See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1) ("A claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under Section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.") Diaz presented his Wiggins claim in his initial federal habeas petition, but the federal courts rejected it for lack of factual development in the state habeas proceedings—the very ineffectiveness about which Diaz now complains. Diaz v. Quarterman, 239 F. App'x 886, 889-90 (5th Cir. 2007) (not designated for publication). See Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 1398 (2011) (federal habeas review of a state court judgment is limited to a review of the objective reasonableness of that judgment in view of the record that was before the state court). Earlier, Diaz had argued that the deficiencies in his federal Wiggins claim should be excused because state habeas counsel had been ineffective in developing it in state habeas proceedings, but the Fifth Circuit rejected this argument under its then-settled precedent holding that ineffective state habeas counsel does not constitute an excuse for procedural default—the very precedent that Martinez/Trevino has now undermined. Diaz v. Quarterman, 228 F. App'x 417, 424 (5th Cir. 2007) (not designated for publication). Diaz currently has a motion pending in the federal district court under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to reopen his federal habeas proceedings. FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b). But relief under Rule 60(b) is hardly a foregone conclusion. See Adams v. Thaler, 679 F.3d 312, 322 (5th Cir. 2012) (because Martinez represented "simply a change in decisional law[,]" Rule 60(b) relief was not warranted, and the district court should not have granted a motion to stay execution).
Diaz has now filed another state post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus in which he is attempting to re-raise his Wiggins claim, this time presenting a specific pleading with regard to what an adequate mitigation investigation would have uncovered and how the lack of such an investigation adversely impacted the punishment phase of his trial. He presents documentary evidence in support of these allegations, and his claim appears to be substantial. Nonetheless, in order to proceed with a subsequent post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus under Article 11.071, Section 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, an applicant must plead "sufficient specific facts establishing that . . . the current claims and issues have not been and could not have been presented" in a previous writ application. Obviously the applicant's Wiggins claim was available to him when he filed his initial state writ application, since he did in fact raise it. But he failed to demonstrate the diligence required by Article 11.071, Section 5(a)(1), in that his counsel apparently failed to conduct the kind of investigation that would discover, develop, and document the underlying facts necessary to support a Wiggins allegation. His initial pleading was pro forma, with no substantive content. His only hope for obtaining a review of the merits of his claim now, at least in the guise of a subsequent writ application, is to argue that ineffective assistance of initial state habeas counsel constitutes a new factual basis to justify the re-presentation of his Wiggins claim.
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 11.071, § 5(a)(1).
Id.
I have urged the Court on several occasions in the past to consider such a construction of Article 11.071, Section 5(a)(1), but without success. Even after Martinez and Trevino, this Court continues to adhere to the holding it announced in Anthony Graves's case that Article 11.071's guarantee of "competent counsel" for purposes of an initial capital habeas application does not mean counsel who in fact performs effectively, but only counsel who was qualified to do so at the time of his appointment, regardless of how he actually performed. By this construction, the Court has essentially determined that the Legislature has mandated that we turn a blind eye to the failure—even the abject failure—of initial state habeas counsel to safeguard the constitutional rights of his client. It is difficult to square this willful blindness with "the premise" upon which "the entire statute is built" that "a death row inmate does have one full and fair opportunity to present his constitutional or jurisdictional claims in accordance with the procedures of the statute."
Ex parte Graves, 70 S.W.3d 103, 121 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (Price, J., dissenting); Ex parte Foster, No. WR-65,799-02, 2010 WL 5600129, at *2 (Tex. Crim. App. delivered Dec. 30, 2010) (Price, J., dissenting) (not designated for publication).
Graves, supra, at 116 ("What the Legislature has not done . . . is evince any intention that its choice of the term 'competent counsel' [in Article 11.071, Section 2(a)] as it applies to the appointment of a habeas attorney also applies to the final product or services rendered by that otherwise experienced and competent counsel.").
Ex parte Kerr, 64 S.W.3d 414, 419 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).
Much as I would prefer that the Court reconsider its unfortunate holding in Graves, I must concede that nothing about the Supreme Court's opinions in Martinez and Trevino compels us to do so. Graves construed Article 11.071, Section 5, and, because the Supreme Court eluded the issue of whether the Sixth Amendment mandates the effective assistance of counsel in habeas corpus proceedings, nothing in Martinez/Trevino even arguably renders the Court's construction of that provision unconstitutional. Nevertheless, as Judge Alcala has elsewhere recognized, Martinez and Trevino have triggered federalism concerns, paving the way for de novo federal review of a number of state claims and concomitantly diluting the control Texas would otherwise exercise over the finality of its own convictions.
See Ex parte McCarthy, No. WR-50,360-04, 2013 WL 3283148, at *7-8 (Tex. Crim. App. delivered June 24, 2013) (Alcala, J., dissenting) (not designated for publication) ( "Unless this Court revises its current approach, federal courts will now have the opportunity to decide a vast number of ineffective-assistance claims de novo, without any prior consideration of those claims in state court. The State's interest in finality of convictions would be better served by permitting state courts to address these ineffective-assistance claims on the merits.").
Perhaps we are not at liberty to carve out what Judge Alcala has called an "equitable exception" to the limits on subsequent capital habeas claims that Article 11.071, Section 5, imposes. We have often acknowledged our lack of authority to redraft statutory language to suit our own preferences in the name of policy or "equity." But that does not leave us altogether powerless.
Id. at *10; see Ex parte Sledge, 391 S.W.3d 104, 107-110 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (declining to recognize a judicial exception to Article 11.07, Section 4, of the Code of Criminal Procedure that would allow consideration in a subsequent writ application of the merits of a claim that the trial court lacked jurisdiction).
Sledge, supra, at 111.
In Ex parte Kerr, initially appointed state habeas counsel filed a document that purported to be a post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus, but which only challenged the constitutionality of the habeas statute itself. We held that such a pleading "was not, in fact, a true application for a writ of habeas corpus under [A]rticle 11.071 because it did not attack [the] applicant's capital murder conviction or death sentence." We likewise deemed a later pleading that challenged only the competency of the initial state habeas counsel's representation not to constitute a "writ application" for purposes of triggering Section 5's abuse-of-the-writ provisions. Because neither previous pleading satisfied the criteria for a true post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus, we held that Kerr's third-filed pleading, which for the first time challenged his conviction and death sentence, constituted his initial writ, and that "[h]e is entitled to have the merits of that initial application heard and decided."
64 S.W.3d 414 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).
Id. at 415-16.
Id. at 416.
See id. at 420 ("[T]he second habeas filing dealt solely with a stay of execution and an allegation of ineffective assistance of original habeas counsel.").
Id.
Almost ten years later, in Ex parte Medina, the Court construed Kerr to apply to a purported post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus that failed to "contain both legal claims and factual contentions." Initial habeas counsel in Medina had deliberately filed an application which stated adequate legal grounds but only the barest of specific facts in support of his claims for relief under those legal grounds. We observed:
361 S.W.3d 633 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).
Id. at 642.
Applicant, because of his counsel's intentional refusal to plead specific facts that might support habeas-corpus relief, has not had his "one full and fair opportunity to present his constitutional or jurisdictional claims in accordance with the procedures of [Article 11.071]." Not full because he is entitled to one bite at the apple, i.e., one application, and the document filed was not a proper writ application. Not fair because applicant's opportunity, through no fault of his own, was intentionally subverted by his habeas counsel.As suggested by the last clause of this passage, we went on to articulate a limiting principle: essentially, that a purported writ application that is deficient for lack of specific factual allegations will be regarded as a non-writ-application only when it involves "not habeas counsel's lack of competence but his misplaced desire to challenge the established law at the peril of his client[.]" In retrospect, it is not apparent to me that our limiting principle withstands scrutiny. It is not altogether clear to me, for example, how it is objectively less fair to a capital habeas applicant that he has been deprived of his one full bite at the apple by the incompetency—as opposed to the deliberate gamesmanship—of his initial state habeas counsel. Either way, he suffers "through no fault of his own."
Id. (quoting Kerr, supra, at 419).
Id. at 643.
Id. at 642.
It is equally unclear to me how the essential character of a pleading can be made to depend upon the intention of the pleader. A purported writ application either states sufficient facts to flesh out a cognizable claim, or it does not. It either constitutes a post-conviction writ application or it does not. Whether a document pleads sufficient specific facts so as to constitute a "writ application" in contemplation of Kerr cannot reasonably be made to turn on the good faith of the attorney who prepared it—it is either sufficiently well drawn or it is not. Such a document cannot be regarded as a writ application when the pleader deliberately omits sufficiently specific facts but not a writ application when the facts are left out because of the pleader's plain inaptitude.
Diaz's initial state habeas lawyer pled his client's writ application with no greater factual specificity than Medina's lawyer pled Medina's. The Court should take the time to consider declaring that the applicant's initial pleading constitutes no writ application at all, appointing the applicant's present counsel to be his initial state habeas counsel under Article 11.071, Section 4A, just as we did in Medina, and treating the applicant's current application as his initial post-conviction habeas corpus pleading. Because the Court will not stay the applicant's execution long enough even to consider this prospect—instead contenting itself to permit another potentially deserving habeas applicant to die—I dissent. DO NOT PUBLISH
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 11.071, § 4A.
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