Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-06332/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-06332-0/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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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

RONALD DEAN YANDELL,

Petitioner,

v.

R. HOREL, warden,

Respondent. /

No. C 06-6332 MHP (pr)

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO

DISMISS AND REQUIRING

ELECTION BY PETITIONER 

INTRODUCTION

Ronald Dean Yandell, an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison, filed this pro se action

seeking a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Respondent has filed a motion

to dismiss, which Yandell has opposed. For the reasons discussed below, the motion to

dismiss will be granted and Yandell will be required to choose what to do about the

unexhausted claim in his petition.

BACKGROUND

Yandell was convicted in 2004 in Contra Costa County Superior Court of first degree

murder and voluntary manslaughter, and was found to have used a firearm in the commission

of the crimes. The California Court of Appeal affirmed Yandell's conviction and the

California Supreme Court denied his petition for review. He filed two habeas petitions in the

California Supreme Court, although the first petition was dismissed at his request before the

court decided it.

Yandell's federal habeas petition alleged four claims: (1) Yandell's right to due

process was violated because there was insufficient evidence to support the murder and

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manslaughter convictions, (2) Yandell's right to due process was violated by the trial court's

exclusion of impeachment evidence regarding witness Mark Gutierrez, (3) Yandell's right to

effective assistance of counsel was violated by trial counsel's deficiencies identified in the

petition, and (4) Yandell's rights to due process and fair trial were violated by police and

prosecutorial misconduct. 

Respondent moved to dismiss on the ground that state court remedies were not

exhausted for part of the fourth claim. Specifically, respondent argued that Yandell did not

exhaust state court remedies for his claim that the police and prosecutor committed

misconduct by not investigating a second bullet hole discovered in victim Dino Gutierrez's

bedroom wall. Yandell opposed the motion, arguing that he had presented the claim to the

California Supreme Court in a Supplemental Exhibit.

DISCUSSION

Prisoners in state custody who wish to challenge collaterally in federal habeas

proceedings either the fact or length of their confinement must first exhaust state judicial

remedies, either on direct appeal or through collateral proceedings, by presenting the highest

state court available with a fair opportunity to rule on the merits of each and every claim they

seek to raise in federal court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b),(c); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509,

515-16 (1982); Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U.S. 1, 3 (1981). The exhaustion-of-stateremedies doctrine reflects a policy of federal-state comity to give the state "'the initial

"opportunity to pass upon and correct" alleged violations of its prisoners' federal rights.'" 

Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275 (1971) (citations omitted).

In order to properly exhaust, the specific factual basis of the federal claim must be

presented to the highest state court. See Kelly v. Small, 315 F.3d 1063, 1067-69 (9th Cir.

2003) (finding unexhausted ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct

claims where specific instances of ineffectiveness and misconduct asserted in federal petition

were neither in the California Supreme Court petition nor discussed by the court of appeal). 

New factual allegations in a federal petition, however, do not render a claim unexhausted

unless they fundamentally alter the legal claim already considered by the state courts. 

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Belmontes v. Brown, 414 F.3d 1094, 1117-18 (9th Cir. 2005), rev'd on other grounds, 127 S.

Ct. 469 (2007). 

The issue here is whether the bullet hole claim was exhausted in Yandell's second

state habeas action, as the parties appear to agree that the direct appeal and first state habeas

action did not include the claim in question. Having compared Yandell's federal habeas

petition with the habeas petition and related materials he filed in the California Supreme

Court, the court agrees with respondent's contention that state court remedies were not

exhausted for the police/prosecutorial misconduct claim as to the bullet hole. In both his

state and federal habeas petition, Yandell argued that there was police/prosecutorial

misconduct that denied him his rights to due process and a fair trial. In both his state and

federal petition, Yandell identified numerous specific acts and omissions of the police and

prosecutor that were allegedly misconduct. In his federal petition, Yandell alleged that (a)

the police failed to collect 2 bags of suspicious white powder, blood stained rugs, bloody

clothes, and blood trail evidence, (b) the prosecution introduced knowingly false and

misleading information regarding the trajectory of a bullet that made a bullet hole in a couch,

(c) a criminalist failed to test a bullet for fingerprints, (d) the prosecution failed to investigate

a handgun found in the bushes to see if it could be linked to an unidentified bullet recovered

from Dino's body, (e) the police failed to investigate a second bullet hole in Dino's bedroom

wall, and (f) the police failed to collect a pipe that witness Mark used to smoke drugs. 

See Petition, pp. 14-19. Yandell's state habeas petition alleged numerous instances of police

and prosecutorial misconduct, but did not specify the failure to investigate a second bullet

hole in Dino's bedroom wall as one of those instances of misconduct.

The failure to investigate the second bullet hole was mentioned in the California

Supreme Court, albeit in a way that virtually guaranteed it would fail to lead to any relief. 

Four months after Yandell filed his habeas petition in the California Supreme Court, he filed

a document entitled "Supplemental Exhibit in Support Of Writ of Habeas Corpus. Ground

IV. Prosecutorial Misconduct." The text of the Supplemental Exhibit stated that Exhibit H

attached to the Supplemental Exhibit was a Contra Costa Sheriff's report that Yandell had

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received on April 10, 2006. The Supplemental Exhibit stated that Exhibit H supported

Yandell's "police/prosecution misconduct [claim] for failure to test and investigate crucial

key evidence," corroborated one witness' testimony about the number of gunshots,

contradicted the prosecutor's theory at trial that only five shots were fired, and "clearly

proves prosecution's violation of petitioner's U.S. Constitutional rights to due process, and

fair trial, U.S.C.A. 5, 14, by failing to conduct forensics tests on bullet-hole in victim Dino

Gutierrez bedroom wall as indicated by police report." Id. at 1-2. Exhibit H was a sheriff's

report that stated that on July 10, 2001 – about 5-6 weeks after the shooting – the deputyauthor went with the deputy D.A. and inspector to view the scene for a better understanding

of what occurred; while they were at the scene, a resident pointed out a bullet hole in Dino's

bedroom wall. The author wrote that the hole "does not appear to be a recent gunshot but I

intend to have the lab return and check the hole." Exh. H to Supplemental Exhibit. The

Supplemental Exhibit did not tell the California Supreme Court that part of the misconduct

argument had been omitted from the original petition and was now being added; instead it

just mentioned an additional claim and did so in such a roundabout way – with the bullet hole

claim being just one of several things that Exhibit H purportedly demonstrated – that it is

unreasonable to expect that the court understood the Supplemental Exhibit to be the

presentation of an additional claim of police/prosecutorial misconduct. 

Although this court must read pro se litigant's filings liberally for purposes of

resolving exhaustion problems, see Peterson v. Lampert, 319 F.3d 1153, 1159 (9th Cir. 2003)

(en banc), it also must keep in mind that the purpose of the exhaustion requirement is to give

the State the initial opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged violations of its prisoners'

federal rights. Tucking the new claim away in a Supplemental Exhibit did not fairly present

it to the California Supreme Court. It was almost a certainty that mentioning the claim only

in a Supplemental Exhibit filed four months after the habeas petition – where there was no

request to amend the petition, where there was no explanation that the Supplemental Exhibit

was presenting a new and additional claim of misconduct, and where the attachment (Exhibit

H) was not at all self-explanatory insofar as it purported to show misconduct – would not

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result in any relief from the California Supreme Court. The claim that the police and

prosecutors engaged in misconduct by failing to investigate the bullet hole was not fairly

presented to the California Supreme Court and therefore is not exhausted. 

Yandell's petition contains both exhausted and unexhausted claims and therefore is

what is referred to as a "mixed" petition. See Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 277 (2005). 

The court cannot adjudicate the merits of a habeas petition containing any claim as to which

state remedies have not been exhausted, such as a mixed petition. See Rose v. Lundy, 455

U.S. at 522.

Due to a critical one-year statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas petitions

under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), see 28 U.S.C.

§ 2244(d), the court is reluctant to dismiss the mixed petition (and possibly cause a later-filed

petition to be time-barred) without giving Yandell the opportunity to elect whether to

proceed with just his exhausted claims, or to try to exhaust the unexhausted claim before

having this court consider all three claims. Accordingly, instead of an outright dismissal of

the action, the court will allow Yandell to choose whether he wants to – 

(1) dismiss the unexhausted claim and go forward in this action with only the two

exhausted claims, or 

(2) dismiss this action and return to state court to exhaust all claims before filing a

new federal petition presenting all of his claims, or 

(3) file a motion for a stay of these proceedings while he exhausts his unexhausted

claim in the California Supreme Court. 

Yandell is cautioned that the options have risks which he should take into account in

deciding which option to choose. If he chooses option (1) and goes forward with only his

exhausted claims, he may face dismissal of any later-filed petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). 

If he chooses option (2), dismissing this action and returning to state court to exhaust all

claims before filing a new federal petition, his new federal petition may be rejected as timebarred. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). If he chooses option (3), he must file a motion in this court

to obtain a stay and (if the motion is granted) then must act diligently to file in the California

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Supreme Court, to obtain a decision from the California Supreme Court on his unexhausted

claim, and to return to this court. And under option (3), this action stalls: this court will do

nothing further to resolve the case while petitioner is diligently seeking relief in state court.

In Rhines, the U.S. Supreme Court discussed the stay-and-abeyance procedure for

mixed habeas petitions. The Court cautioned district courts against being too liberal in

allowing a stay because a stay works against several of the purposes of the AEDPA in that it

"frustrates AEDPA's objective of encouraging finality by allowing a petitioner to delay the

resolution of the federal proceeding" and "undermines AEDPA's goal of streamlining federal

habeas proceedings by decreasing a petitioner's incentive to exhaust all his claims in state

court prior to filing his federal petition." Rhines, 544 U.S. at 277. A stay and abeyance "is

only appropriate when the district court determines there was good cause for the petitioner's

failure to exhaust his claims first in state court," the claims are not meritless, and there are no

intentionally dilatory litigation tactics by the petitioner. Id. at 277-78. Any stay must be

limited in time to avoid indefinite delay. Id. Reasonable time limits would be 30 days to get

to state court, as long as necessary in state court, and 30 days to get back to federal court

after the final rejection of the claims by the state court. See id. at 278; Kelly v. Small, 315

F.3d at 1071. 

CONCLUSION 

Respondent's motion to dismiss is GRANTED in part. (Docket # 23.) Petitioner must

serve and file no later than January 18, 2008, a notice in which he states whether he elects to

(1) dismiss the unexhausted claim and go forward in this action with only the remaining

claims, or (2) dismiss this action and return to state court to exhaust all of his claims before

returning to federal court to present all of his claims in a new petition, or (3) moves for a stay

of these proceedings while he exhausts his state court remedies for the unexhausted claim. If

he chooses Option (1) or Option (2), his filing need not be a long document; it is sufficient if

he files a one-page document entitled "Election By Petitioner" and states simply: "Petitioner

elects to proceed under option ___ provided in the court's Order Granting Motion To Dismiss

And Requiring Election By Petitioner." Petitioner would have to insert a number in place of

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the blank space to indicate which of the first two options he chooses. If he chooses Option

(3), petitioner must file a motion for a stay in which he explains why he failed to exhaust his

unexhausted claims in state court before presenting them to this court, that his claims are not

meritless, and that he is not intentionally delaying resolution of his constitutional claims. He

must serve and file the motion for a stay no later than January 18, 2008. If petitioner does

not choose one of the three options or file a motion by the deadline, the court will dismiss the

action. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: January 2, 2008 

Marilyn Hall Patel

United States District Judge

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