Case ID: so3d_197/html/0161-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. WEIMER, J. CRICHTON, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE of Louisiana v. Sean Bernard NEWTON.
    No. 2016-KP-1264.
    Supreme Court of Louisiana.
    July 11, 2016.
   PER CURIAM.

| denied. Relator fails to show he received ineffective assistance of counsel under the standard of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). We attach hereto and make a part hereof the District Court’s and the Court of Appeal’s written reasons for denying relator’s application.

Relator has now fully litigated his application for post-conviction relief in state court. Similar to federal habeas relief, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244, Louisiana post-conviction procedure envisions the filing of a second or successive application only under the narrow circumstances provided in La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.4 and within the limitations period as set out in La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.8. Notably, the Legislature in 2013 La. Acts 251 amended La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.4 to make the procedural bars against successive filings mandatory. Relator’s claims have now been fully litigated in state collateral proceedings in accord with La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.6, and this denial is final. Hereafter, unless he can show that one of the narrow exceptions authorizing the filing of a successive application applies, relator has exhausted his right to state collateral review. The District Court is ordered to record a minute entry consistent with this per curiam.

WEIMER, J., concurs in the denial of the writs.

CRICHTON, J., additionally concurs and assigns reasons.

WEIMER, J.

concurring.

|tI concur in the denial of the writ.

CRICHTON, J.,

additionally concurs and assigns- reasons.

hi concur in the majority’s denial of this application. However, I write separately to note that in addition to the claims of ineffective assistance, defense counsel seeks expedited consideration of the defendant’s claims pertaining to what defendant alleges is newly discovered evidence of immunity agreements withheld by the state. Defense counsel first attempted to assert these claims in what he styled as a “Request for Relief’ from the district court’s ruling on the application for post-conviction relief, in which he asked that the district court “rescind” its ruling. The basis for counsel’s request to expedite review is his view that the statute of limitations for federal habeas relief provided in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) is about to expire, presumably from concern those claims will be deemed not “properly filed” in the state courts as required under AEDPA. In my view, given defense counsel’s role in creating the procedural posture that he claims result in exigency, expedited consideration is not merited. Regardless, accepting defendant’s analysis of AEDPA, nothing prevents him from tolling it by properly filing an application in the district court, as the court of appeal noted, if the time limit provided in La.C.Cr.P. art. 930.8 has not expired and defendant can show that one of the narrow exceptions authorizing the filing of a successive application applies.