Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03961/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03961-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-3961

___________

Roderick Nunley, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

Michael Bowersox, Superintendent, *

Potosi Correctional Center, *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: December 15, 2004

Filed: January 14, 2005

___________

Before MELLOY, BRIGHT, and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges.

___________

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Roderick Nunley pleaded guilty in Jackson County, Missouri, circuit court to

first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping, and forcible rape, charges

arising from the 1989 stabbing death of Ann Harrison, a fifteen-year-old girl who was

abducted by Nunley and Michael Taylor while she waited for the school bus. The

court sentenced Nunley to death. The case took a number of turns in the state courts,

including resentencing by another judge, before landing in federal court on Nunley's

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The Honorable Fernando J. Gaitan, United States District Judge for the

Western District of Missouri.

2

The Court applied the test it had set out in its previous opinion in Teague v.

Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), and concluded that the rule of Ring did not "alter[] the

range of conduct or the class of persons that the law punishes" but only "altered the

range of permissible methods for determining whether a defendant's conduct is

punishable by death." Schriro v. Summerlin, 124 S. Ct. 2519, 2523 (2004). Further,

the Ring rule did not change the elements of the offense. Finally, the Court held that

the opinion in Ring had not declared a watershed rule of criminal procedure that

would require the federal courts to apply it retroactively, since the fairness and

accuracy of the sentences in question were not affected. 

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motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 for habeas relief. The District Court1

 denied the

petition but granted a certificate of appealability (COA) on an issue that the court had

not addressed on the merits. We affirm the denial of habeas relief.

In June 2002 (after Nunley filed his § 2254 petition but a month before he filed

his traverse), the United States Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment right

to trial by jury required that a jury, not a judge, "find an aggravating circumstance

necessary for imposition of the death penalty." Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 609

(2002). Because he was sentenced by a judge, Nunley sought to raise a Ring claim

late in the § 2254 proceedings, after he filed his traverse, but the District Court

refused to allow Nunley to argue the issue in a supplemental traverse. Nevertheless,

in an order dated December 4, 2003, the District Court granted Nunley a COA, noting

that the Supreme Court had granted certiorari in a case from the Ninth Circuit to

address questions regarding the retroactivity of Ring.

A few weeks after Nunley filed his main brief in this appeal, the Supreme Court

handed down its opinion in the Ring retroactivity case, Schriro v. Summerlin, 124

S. Ct. 2519 (2004). The Court said, "Ring announced a new procedural rule that does

not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review." 124 S. Ct. at 2526.2

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Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967); Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618

(1965).

-3-

That decision would seem to settle the matter for Nunley in his bid in federal court

for collateral review of his death sentence under Ring, but Nunley argues otherwise.

A year before the Summerlin opinion was filed, the Missouri Supreme Court

issued its opinion in State v. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d 253 (Mo. 2003) (en banc). The

state's highest court decided, as a matter of state law, not to apply the analysis of

Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), to determine if Ring should apply retroactively

to the case before it. Instead, the court chose "to continue applying the LinkletterStovall approach to the issue of the retroactivity of Ring." Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at

268.3

 The court noted that the Teague test was narrower than the older LinkletterStovall test and so the court's application of the latter to the question of Ring's

retroactivity would "pass constitutional muster." Id. at 267. The court proceeded to

analyze Ring under the broader test and concluded that the Ring holding would be

retroactive as to "those few Missouri death penalty cases that are no longer on direct

appeal and in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict and the judge made the

required factual determinations and imposed the death penalty." Id. at 268–69; see

also id. at 269 n.17 (identifying five potential cases, besides Whitfield's, to which its

holding that Ring should apply retroactively might be relevant). Although the factual

scenario of Nunley's sentencing does not come within this narrow description of

cases, he nevertheless argues that Ring should apply to invalidate his death sentence.

In his reply brief, in maintaining that this Court can—and should—vacate his

death sentence, Nunley asserts that "[w]here a state creates certain rights for a

criminal defendant, the law is clear that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process

Clause requires that the federal courts enforce such rights." Appellant's Reply Brief

at 3. But in the cases he cites, the state courts in question had failed to act in

accordance with due process in applying state law. Such is not the case here. No

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state court has declined to hear Nunley's arguments on a Ring claim or on the

retroactivity of Ring under Whitfield. Moreover, the order granting the COA makes

no mention of Nunley's due process rights or a state court's violation thereof. We do

not dispute the proposition that Missouri may "provide greater protections in [its]

criminal justice system than the Federal Constitution requires." California v. Ramos,

463 U.S. 992, 1014 (1983). But Nunley has chosen the wrong forum in which to seek

those "greater protections." The issue he raises should, in this case, be addressed in

the first instance—if at all—by a state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). Under federal

law, which we are bound to follow, Ring is not retroactive on collateral review.

The District Court's denial of Nunley's petition for habeas relief is affirmed.

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