Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-55249/USCOURTS-ca9-11-55249-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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The Honorable Myron H. Bright, Senior Circuit Judge for the United *

States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JENNIFER LYNN HENDERSON,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

DEBORAH K. JOHNSON, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 11-55249

D.C. No.

8:11-cv-00128-

PSG-RZ

ORDER AND

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Philip S. Gutierrez, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 8, 2012—Pasadena, California

Filed January 3, 2013

Before: Myron H. Bright, Susan P. Graber,

*

and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Order;

Per Curiam Opinion

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2 HENDERSON V. JOHNSON

 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

**

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

SUMMARY

**

Habeas Corpus

The panel reversed the district court’s summary dismissal,

without leave to amend, of a mixed 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas

corpus petition for failure to exhaust state remedies, and

remanded for consideration of all exhausted claims.

The panel held that the district court erred as a matter of

law by dismissing the petition pursuant to Sherwood v.

Tomkins, 716 F.2d 632 (9th Cir. 1983) (holding that district

court may not adjudicate federal habeas petition while

petitioner’s direct state appeal is pending). The panel

explained that Sherwood does not undermine precedent

requiring district courts to first grant leave to amend and, if

requested, to consider a petitioner’s eligibility for a stay

under either Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005) (stay of

entire petition), or Kelly v. Small, 315 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir.

2003) (stay of exhausted claims only). Moreover, given the

parties’ agreement that the state courts have now considered

and rejected all of Henderson’s claims, the panel held that all

claims in the federal petition should be allowed to proceed.

COUNSEL

Fay Arfa, Fay Arfa, a Law Corporation, Los Angeles,

California, for Petitioner-Appellant.

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HENDERSON V. JOHNSON 3

William M. Wood, Supervising Deputy Attorney General,

San Diego, California, for Respondent-Appellee.

ORDER

The request to publish the unpublished memorandum

disposition is GRANTED. The memorandum disposition

filed December 13, 2012, is redesignated as a per curiam

opinion with modifications.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Jennifer Lynn Henderson, who is currently serving two

consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole,

appeals from the district court’s summary dismissal of her

habeas petition for failure to exhaust state remedies. We

conclude that the district court erred in dismissing

Henderson’s petition without offering her leave to amend.

We reverse and remand for the consideration of all exhausted

claims.

Henderson was convicted of two counts of murder in

April 2007. The convictions became final in 2009 after a

California Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions and

denied a petition for rehearing, and the California Supreme

Court denied review. Henderson filed a habeas petition in

state court in January 2011, which was later dismissed as

untimely. Henderson also filed a timely federal habeas

petition in January 2011, several days after her state habeas

filing. Henderson’s federal petition was “mixed,” that is, it

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4 HENDERSON V. JOHNSON

contained then-unexhausted claims raised in Henderson’s

concurrent state petition, as well as several claims that

Henderson had previously exhausted.

The district court summarily dismissed Henderson’s

federal habeas petition. Citing Sherwood v. Tomkins,

716 F.2d 632 (9th Cir. 1983), the district court determined

that “[t]he Sherwood doctrine requires the petition’s

dismissal” and that “[a] would-be federal habeas petitioner

generally must await the outcome of any pending state-court

challenges to his conviction before proceeding in federal

court.” Henderson filed a motion to reconsider, arguing that

Sherwood was outdated and inapplicable, and that she was

entitled to a stay while exhausting her claims in state court or,

at a minimum, to amend her petition to delete the

unexhausted claims and proceed.

The district court reconsidered but again dismissed

Henderson’s petition, concluding that Sherwood was still

good law and that “[t]here is no valid reason for this case to

proceed at the same time as the prior-filed state habeas

action.” The district court determined that cases regarding

stay and abeyance of mixed petitions were distinguishable

and failed to address Henderson’s request for leave to amend.

Federal courts may not adjudicatemixed habeas petitions,

that is, those containing both exhausted and unexhausted

claims. Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 518–19 (1982).

However, we have explained that a petitioner who files a

mixed petition must, at a minimum, be offered leave to

amend the petition to delete any unexhausted claims and to

proceed on the exhausted claims. See, e.g., Jefferson v.

Budge, 419 F.3d 1013, 1016–17 (9th Cir. 2005) (reversing

and remanding the dismissal of a mixed habeas petition

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HENDERSON V. JOHNSON 5

because the district court failed to offer the petitioner the

opportunity to amend his petition to abandon the unexhausted

claims); Kelly v. Small, 315 F.3d 1063, 1069–70 (9th Cir.

2003) (reversing the dismissal of a mixed petition and

remanding “so that the district court can offer Petitioner the

opportunity to dismiss [the unexhausted] claims and proceed

to the merits of the others”), overruled in part on other

grounds by Robbins v. Carey, 481 F.3d 1143 (9th Cir. 2007);

Anthony v. Cambra, 236 F.3d 568, 574 (9th Cir. 2000)

(“[D]istrict courts must provide habeas litigants with the

opportunity to amend their mixed petitions by striking

unexhausted claims.”); Jarvis v. Nelson, 440 F.2d 13, 14 (9th

Cir. 1971) (per curiam) (“[A] petition for habeas corpus

should not be dismissed without leave to amend unless it

appears that no tenable claim for relief can be pleaded were

such leave granted.”); see also Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S.

269, 278 (2005) (concluding that even where a stay was

inappropriate, at a minimum the district court should allow a

petitioner to delete the unexhausted claims and proceed with

the exhausted claims only).

Sherwood is distinguishable, and the district court erred

as a matter of law by dismissing Henderson’s petition.

Sherwood stands for the proposition that a district court may

not adjudicate a federal habeas petition while a petitioner’s

direct state appeal is pending. 716 F.2d at 634 (“When, as in

the present case, an appeal of a state criminal conviction is

pending, a would-be habeas corpus petitioner must await the

outcome of his appeal before hisstate remedies are exhausted

. . . .”). Although district courts cannot adjudicate mixed

petitions, Sherwood does not undermine the important

precedent requiring district courts first to grant leave to

amend and, if requested, to consider a petitioner’s eligibility

for a stay under Rhines, 544 U.S. at 275–77 (stay of entire

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petition), or under Kelly, 315 F.3d at 1070–71 (stay of

exhausted claims only). The district court erred by failing to

allow Henderson leave to amend her petition before

dismissal, and by refusing to address Henderson’s request for

relief under Rhines or Kelly.

Moreover, the parties agree that the California courts have

now considered and rejected all of Henderson’s habeas

claims. Therefore, her federal habeas petition contains only

exhausted claims and should be allowed to proceed.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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