Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_07-cv-08000/USCOURTS-azd-3_07-cv-08000-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 28:2254 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (State)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Wyte Young, Jr., 

Petitioner, 

vs.

Dora B. Schriro, et al.,

Respondents. 

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No. CV 07-8000-PCT-EHC (MHB)

 

ORDER

Petitioner proceeding pro se has filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus By a

Person in State Custody under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Dkt. 1). The matter was referred to

Magistrate Judge Michelle H. Burns who has issued a Report and Recommendation

recommending that the § 2254 Petition be denied and dismissed with prejudice (Dkt. 28).

Petitioner has filed an Objection (Dkt. 31) to the Report and Recommendation. 

 Standard of Review

The district court reviews de novo the portions of the Magistrate Judge's Report and

Recommendation to which Petitioner has filed an objection. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C)("a

judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report, ..., to

which objection is made."); see also United States v. Reyna-Tapia, 328 F.3d 1114, 1121 (9th

Cir. 2003); Schmidt v. Johnstone, 263 F. Supp. 2d 1219 (D. Ariz. 2003), citing Thomas v.

Case 3:07-cv-08000-EHC Document 33 Filed 06/24/08 Page 1 of 7
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1

The record shows that the Arizona Supreme Court’s action was taken on March 20,

2001. The Notice sent by the Clerk of the Court is dated March 21, 2001 (Dkt. 18, Exhibit

T). 

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Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 149 (1985)(determining that district courts are not required to review any

issue that is not the subject of an objection). 

Discussion

In 1998, Petitioner was convicted by a jury in Navajo County Superior Court of two

counts of burglary, one count of kidnapping, three counts of aggravated assault, one count

of assault, and one count of influencing a witness. The charges stemmed from indictments

in two cases that were consolidated for trial (CR 98-208 and CR 98-473). In November

1998, Petitioner was sentenced to aggravated, concurrent prison terms for his felony

convictions, the longest of which was 15 years for aggravated assault, and to a six-month

concurrent jail sentence on his misdemeanor assault conviction. Petitioner timely appealed

and his conviction was affirmed by the Arizona Court of Appeals on October 5, 2000 (Dkt.

18, Exhibit R). The Arizona Supreme Court denied review on or about March 21, 2001 (Dkt.

18, Exhibit T).1

 

Petitioner represented by counsel filed a Petition for Post-Conviction Relief and his

claims were denied on the merits by the state trial court on June 5, 2003. The Arizona Court

of Appeals summarily denied review on August 5, 2004. Petitioner did not seek review by

the Arizona Supreme Court regarding this first state post-conviction proceeding.

On March 1, 2005, Petitioner filed a second Petition for Post-Conviction Relief which

the state trial court denied on March 31, 2005. Petitioner sought review in the Arizona Court

of Appeals which was denied on July 10, 2006. The Arizona Supreme Court denied

Petitioner’s petition for review on January 30, 2007. 

Petitioner filed his federal habeas petition on April 30, 2007. Petitioner has raised the

following eleven grounds for relief:

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Claim I: violation of Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial based on the

trial court’s alleged errors in determining the date his conviction became final and in

concluding that Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), did not apply to his conviction;

Claim II: ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, in violation of the Sixth

Amendment, regarding his first post-conviction proceeding because counsel failed to raise

a claim based on Blakely or Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000);

Claim III: ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, in violation of the Sixth

Amendment, based on counsel’s failure to petition the Arizona Supreme Court for review of

the trial court’s dismissal of his first post-conviction proceeding;

Claim IV: denial of Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine

witnesses when the trial court allegedly allowed hearsay testimony;

Claim V: denial of Petitioner’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights

when the trial court allegedly allowed “the introduction of [other act] evidence that was

prejudicial” under the Arizona Rules of Evidence;

Claim VI(a): denial of Petitioner’s rights to due process and a fair trial based on the

trial court’s granting of the State’s motion to consolidate the two cases (CR 98-473 and CR

98-208);

Claim VI(b): denial of Petitioner’s rights to due process and a fair trial when the State

allegedly failed to timely disclose “possible exculpatory evidence;”

Claim VII(a): denial of Petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection

and Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial and impartial jury when the state prosecutor

allegedly used the State’s peremptory challenges to strike five of six Native Americans from

the jury;

Claim VII(b): denial of Petitioner’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair

and impartial jury based on alleged “discriminatory prosecutorial practices” which tainted

the jury selection;

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Claim VII(c): denial of Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights to a fair and impartial

jury and to a fair trial as a result of conviction by a jury that allegedly did not represent a fair

cross-section of the community; and,

Claim VIII: denial of Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and right to

due process when the sentencing court allegedly sentenced Petitioner “in excess of the

statutory maximum” sentences without a jury determination of aggravating facts. 

The Magistrate Judge has recommended that Claims II, III, IV, V, VI(a), (b), and

VII(a)(second subpart),(b) and (c) are procedurally defaulted and should be dismissed. It is

further recommended that Claims I, VII(a)(first subpart) and VIII fail on their merits and also

should be dismissed. 

In his Objection, Petitioner first argues that Claims IV, V and VI(a) were fairly raised

in the state court proceedings and are procedurally exhausted.

Regarding Claims IV, V and VI(a), the Magistrate Judge has discussed that Petitioner

raised these issues in his appellate brief to the Arizona Court of Appeals but recommends

denial of the claims because they were analyzed under state law and procedure. Petitioner

raised Claim IV as a confrontation clause issue in his Petition for Review to the Arizona

Supreme Court but presentation of a claim for the first time to an appellate court with

discretionary review does not constitute fair presentation. 

The Court’s review of the record reveals that Petitioner presented Claims V and VI(a)

to the state courts only on state law grounds (see Dkt. 18, Exhibits O & R). See Shumway

v. Payne, 223 F.3d 982, 987-988 (9th Cir. 2000)(claim “fairly presented” to the state courts

when the petitioner has alerted the state courts to the fact that petitioner is asserting a claim

under the United States Constitution). Petitioner’s more in-depth development of the

confrontation clause claim in Claim IV for the first time in proceedings before the Arizona

Supreme Court did not exhaust that claim (see Dkt. 18, Exhibits O, R, S & T). See Casey

v. Moore, 386 F.3d 896, 915-919 (9th Cir. 2004)(petitioner failed to fairly present federal

claims where presentation of claim for the first time to an appellate court with discretionary

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review did not constitute fair presentation). Petitioner’s conclusory argument that he fairly

presented Claims IV, V and VI(a) in the state court proceedings is rejected.

 Petitioner next argues in his Objection that, as to Claims I and VIII, retroactive

application of Apprendi is a non-issue because Petitioner’s case was pending on direct appeal

at the time Apprendi was decided. Petitioner argues that he did not discover the significant

change in the law until January 2005 because of limited prison library resources. The

Magistrate Judge has recommended that Claims I and VIII were fairly presented to the state

courts but fail on their merits because Apprendi/Blakely do not apply retroactively to cases

pending on collateral review at the time of decision. 

The record shows that Petitioner raised Claims I and VIII in his second postconviction proceeding commenced on March 1, 2005 (Dkt. 18, Exhibits CC, DD, EE, FF,

GG & HH). As the Magistrate Judge has recommended, Petitioner’s conviction became final

90 days after March 21, 2001 when the Arizona Supreme Court denied review of his direct

appeal, that is on June 19, 2001 (Dkt. 28 at 10-11), citing Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 411

(2004). Beard held that state convictions are final for purposes of retroactivity analysis when

the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing

a petition for a writ of certiorari has elapsed or a timely filed petition has been finally denied.

Petitioner was sentenced in November 1998 and direct review of his conviction

became final in June 2001. Petitioner did not raise an issue based on Apprendi/Blakely until

he filed his second post-conviction proceeding in the state courts in March 2005. Petitioner

could have raised a claim based on Apprendi during the direct review proceedings but he did

not. Petitioner’s conviction became final in June 2001 before the decision in Blakely in

2004. The Ninth Circuit has held that Blakely does not apply retroactively to a state court

conviction. See Schardt v. Payne, 414 F.3d 1025, 1038 (9th Cir. 2005), petition for cert. filed

No. 05-9237 (Nov. 10, 2005). 

Petitioner argued in his second post-conviction proceedings filed in the state trial court

that he had been sentenced “beyond the presumptive term” as to each count of conviction

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(Dkt. 18, Exhibit BB at 1). Petitioner further argued that “[b]ecause the issue today amounts

to fundamental error this issue may be raised for the first time on appeal” (id., at 4). In his

Petition for Review filed in the Arizona Court of Appeals, Petitioner argued that the trial

judge sentenced him “beyond the jury’s verdict” to an “unsupported aggravated term of 15

years” rather than “the presumptive term of 7.5 years” (Dkt. 18, Exhibit EE at 2 & 5). In

Apprendi, the Supreme Court held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact

that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be

submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U.S. at 490. Apprendi did

not address the effect of a judicial determination of aggravating factors. 

Petitioner did not argue in his second post-conviction proceedings filed in the state

courts that inadequacies in the prison law library prevented him from raising the issue earlier.

Petitioner’s pleadings in the second post-conviction proceedings contain citations to case law

and Arizona statutes and rules of criminal procedure. Allegations of ignorance of the law do

not excuse the delay in raising the claim. See, e.g., Hughes v. Idaho State Bd. of Corrections,

800 F.2d 905, 909 (9th Cir. 1986)(pro se prisoner’s lack of knowledge of law unfortunate but

insufficient to establish cause). 

As for the third part of his Objection regarding Claim VII(a), Petitioner argues that

he presented a prima facie showing that the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges on

the basis of race and that the prosecutor’s attempt to articulate a race-neutral explanation was

implausible. The record of the state court proceedings shows that the prosecutor gave raceneutral explanations for the peremptory strikes (Dkt. 18, Exhibits R). Petitioner in his

Objection has not argued facts that show purposeful discrimination in the jury selection

process.

Petitioner’s Objection (Dkt. 31) is overruled. The Court adopts in full the Report and

Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge.

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that Petitioners’s Objection (Dkt. 31) is overruled.

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IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Report and Recommendation of the

Magistrate Judge (Dkt. 28) is adopted in full.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28

U.S.C. § 2254 (Dkt. 1) is denied and dismissed with prejudice.

DATED this 23rd day of June, 2008.

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