Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-4_07-cv-00560/USCOURTS-azd-4_07-cv-00560-1/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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WO

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Wesley Ian Aaron,

Petitioner,

v.

Dora B. Schriro, et al.,

Respondents.

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CV07-560-TUC-DCB (JJM)

ORDER

The Court finds that the Supreme Court has not clearly established that a repeat-offender

sentencing scheme is unconstitutional which allows defendants convicted of multiple

criminal charges, consolidated for disposition by trial or plea, to be sentenced less severely

than defendants with multiple prior convictions arising from separate dispositions. Because

this remains an open question in Supreme Court jurisprudence, habeas corpus provides no

grounds for relief.

BACKGROUND

On March 11, 2008, the Petition was referred to Magistrate Judge Jacqueline

Marshall for a Report and Recommendation (R&R) in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §

636(b)(1) and LRCiv. 72, Rules of Practice of the United States District Court for the

District of Arizona.

On February 14, 2011, Judge Marshall recommended dismissing the habeas petition,

pursuant to the state court’s reliance on United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114 (1979). 

Alternatively, she recommended that the question raised by the Petitioner remains open and

undecided by Supreme Court jurisprudence and that habeas relief is, therefore, foreclosed. 

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 1As to this offense, the simple robbery and second degree burglary charges were dismissed

prior to trial.

 2A.R.S. § 13-604, held unconstitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000),

to the extent release status was decided by the court, not jury. State v. Gross, 31 P.3d 815, 817

(Ariz. App. 2001); A.R.S. § 13-702.02 repealed by Laws 2008, Ch. 301, § 25, eff. January 1,

2009.

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(R&R at 7.) This Court agrees with the Magistrate Judge’s alternative conclusion and

dismisses the Petition, accordingly.

OBJECTIONS

Petitioner filed written objections to the R&R, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and Fed.

R. Civ.P.72(b). Petitioner challenges Arizona’s statutory repeat offender sentencing scheme

for including a provision increasing punishment for repeat offenders, unless they waive their

right to pursue severance of charges for trial. Lower sentences apply where charges of the

same or similar character are disposed of in one proceeding. 

The Petitioner was convicted in a consolidated trial for armed robbery, one count of

simple robbery, three counts of first degree burglary, one count of second degree burglary,

kidnaping, and four counts of aggravated assault arising out of four separate incidents that

occurred on December 29, 2002, December 30, 2002,1

 December 31, 2002, and January 7,

2003. Along with the consolidated indictment, the State filed an Allegation of Offenses Not

Committed on the Same Occasion, Consolidated for Trial, pursuant to A.R.S. 13-702.02 and

A.R.S. 13-604.2

 

Under Arizona’s repeat offender statute, A.R.S. § 13-604(K) (2003), the presumptive

sentence for the third armed robbery would have been twenty-eight years. Under A.R.S. §

13-604(S) (2003), sequential convictions on the armed robbery, burglary in the first degree,

kidnaping, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon/dangerous instrument charges

would have been “two or more” prior historical convictions for offenses of a dangerous

nature and would have resulted in an enhanced sentence of life, without eligibility for

suspension of sentence, probation, pardon or release from confinement until he had served

not less than twenty-five years or the sentence was commuted. 

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Under A.R.S. § 13-702.02(2003), however, if these offenses, not committed on the same

occasion, where consolidated for trial, the Defendant could comparatively receive a reduced

sentence of 15.75 years. 

Petitioner asserts that the harsher sentences imposed if charges are severed for trial

unconstitutionally coerced him into forgoing his right to sever one charge and into giving up

his right to testify on that charge. He argued to the trial court and to the state appellate court

as he does here that the sentencing scheme created by A.R.S. 13-604 and 13-702 imposes a

harsher sentence solely where the charges are severed for trial, which violates Fifth

Amendment constitutional and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection principles. (R&R at

2-3 (citing Ex. A (Motion to Sever), p.2)). 

Petitioner argues that the statutory scheme violates the Equal Protection Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminates arbitrarily between defendants convicted of

multi-occasion offenses, who exercise their rights to severance and those who do not. 

Petitioner argues that the statutory scheme violates the Fifth Amendment because choosing

severance will often be necessary to protect a defendant’s right against self-incrimination or

to testify and overall be necessary to obtain a fair trial. 

Petitioner argues that the state court failed to make the requisite “rational basis”

determination required by the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. See

Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 631 (1996) (explaining that for laws that neither burden a

fundamental right nor target a suspect class, the supreme court will uphold a legislative

classification so long as it bears a rational relationship to some legitimate end). This

requires a showing that the classification at issue bears some fair relationship to a legitimate

public purpose. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216 (1982). Petitioner argues that the state

court failed to make the requisite “strict scrutiny” determination required when a

classification involves a fundamental right, like the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause,

because the state court did not consider whether the statutory scheme was precisely tailored

to serve a compelling governmental interest. Id. at 216-217.

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Instead, Petitioner argues, the state court and the Magistrate Judge misapplied Supreme

Court law when it relied on Batchelder to find the statutory scheme is constitutional in

respect to his equal protection claim. 

In support of his due process claim, he relies on Supreme Court cases finding it

unconstitutional to penalize the assertion of a constitutional right, United States v. Jackson,

390 U.S. 570 (1968), such as when a prosecutor files new, more serious charges, arising out

of the same conduct, in response to a defendant’s exercise of his statutory right to file an

appeal de novo, Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21 (1974), or where a defendant is compelled

to choose between testifying as the first witness or not at all, Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S.

605 (1972). Petitioner argues that in this case, the state court failed to answer “‘the

threshold question [of] whether compelling the election impairs to an appreciable extent’ –

both the right to trial/testimonial fairness and the bedrock constitutional right to bodily

liberty.” (Objection at 12 (citing McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 213 (1971),

overruled on other grounds Crampton v. Ohio, 408 U.S. 941 (1972)).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Report and Recommendation: 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).

The duties of the district court in connection with a R&R by a Magistrate Judge are set

forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). The district court may “accept,

reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the

magistrate judge.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b), 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Where the parties object to a

R&R, a district court judge “shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the

[R&R] to which objection is made.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140,

149-50 (1985). When no objections are filed, the district court need not review the R&R de

novo. Wang v. Masaitis, 416 F.3d 992, 1000 n. 13 (9th Cir.2005); United States v. ReynaTapia, 328 F.3d 1114, 1121-22 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc).

This Court's ruling is a de novo determination as to those portions of the R&R to which

there are objections. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). To the extent that no objection has been

made, arguments to the contrary have been waived. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A)

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(objections are waived if they are not filed within ten days of service of the R&R), see also

McCall v. Andrus, 628 F.2d 1185, 1187 (9th Cir. 1980) (failure to object to magistrate's

report waives right to do so on appeal); Advisory Committee Notes to Fed. R. Civ. P. 72

(citing Campbell v. United States Dist. Court Northern Dist. California, 501 F.2d 196, 206

(9th Cir. 1974) (when no timely objection is filed, the court need only satisfy itself that there

is no clear error on the face of the record in order to accept the recommendation).

Habeas Corpus: 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal

court must deny a habeas petition where the state court has resolved the claim on the merits,

unless the state court decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,

clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.”

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

A state court's decision is contrary to clearly established law when it either “applies a

rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court's] cases” or

“confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of this Court

and nevertheless arrives at a result different from our precedent.” Williams v. Taylor, 529

U.S. 362, 405-406 (2000). A state court unreasonably applies clearly established law when

it “identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme Court’s] decisions but

unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.” Lockyer v. Andrade,

538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 413).

Under the “unreasonable application” clause, the state court decision must be more than

incorrect or erroneous. Lockyer, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003); Renico v. Lett, 130 S.Ct. 1855,

1862 (2010). Rather, the state court’s decision “must be objectively unreasonable,” not just

incorrect or erroneous. Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. at 75-76 (2006). Habeas relief is

warranted for an unreasonable application of law, where the state court decision is “based on

the application of a governing legal principle to a set of facts different from those of the case

in which the principle was announced,”id. at 76, accord Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S.

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930 (2007), but only when the principle “clearly extend[s]” to the new set of facts, Wright v.

Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 125 (2008) (per curiam) (emphasis added). 

Under either clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), this Court must determine whether at the

time the state court rendered its decision on the merits, there existed clearly established

Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court

has defined “clearly established Federal law” under § 2254(d)(1) to be “‘the holdings, as

opposed to the dicta, of [the] Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court

decision.’” Musladin, 549 U.S. at 74 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 412). 

A review of the Supreme Court's recent case law suggests that when a state court may

have found a principled distinction between the case, sub judice, and Supreme Court case

law, then the law is not clearly established for the state-court case. Murdoch v. Castro, 609

F.3d 983, 991 (9th Cir. 2010). 

For example, in Musladin the Supreme Court vacated a decision of this circuit,

Musladin v. Lamarque, 427 F.3d 653, 661 (9th Cir.2005) (Musladin I), which held that the

state court unreasonably applied clearly established federal law by allowing the victim's

family members, in a murder trial, to wear buttons depicting the victim while in the presence

of the jury. This circuit relied on two Supreme Court cases: Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S.

501 (1976), and Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560 (1986). In Williams, the Court found that

when a defendant appears before the jury in prison garb it is so likely to influence the jury

throughout the trial that it creates an unacceptable risk of impermissible factors coming into

play and violates the defendant’s right to a fair trial. Williams, 425 at 505-06. The Court

applied this same logic in Flynn, but held that the presence of extra security personnel in the

courtroom during trial did not necessarily violate the Constitution because, unlike the

situation in Williams, it was not “inherently prejudicial.” Flynn, 475 U.S. at 569. In

Musladin I, the circuit court granted habeas relief because the presence of the victim's family

in the courtroom while wearing buttons was inherently prejudicial and found the state

court’s decision was an unreasonable application of the test described in Williams and Flynn.

Musladin I, 427 F.3d at 658-61.

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The Supreme Court reversed, finding that there was no clearly established federal law to

apply because Williams and Flynn dealt with government-sponsored practices, and Musladin

challenged courtroom conduct by private actors. The Supreme Court explained, “‘Given the

lack of holdings from [the Supreme Court] regarding the potentially prejudicial effect of

spectators' courtroom conduct of the kind involved here, it cannot be said that the state court

‘unreasonabl[y] appli[ed] clearly established Federal law.’” Murdoch, 609 F.3d at 991

(quoting Musladin, 549 U.S. at 77). 

“[] Under the highly deferential standard established by AEDPA and the Supreme

Court, as long as the state court could have found a principled reason not to apply the

Court's precedents to the current case, [the federal courts] may not grant habeas relief.” 

Murdoch, 609 F.3d at 995.

In Murdoch, the court considered whether the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause

must yield to attorney-client privilege. The court considered Supreme Court cases

examining conflicts between the Confrontation Clause and other rights and privileges,

including the marital privilege, Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), the Fifth

Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415 (1965),

the state’s interest in the confidentiality of adjudications of juvenile delinquency, Davis v.

Alaska, 415 U.S. 308 (1974), and Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998),

where the Supreme Court said it would not consider the question of whether the attorneyclient privilege might yield in the face of constitutional rights. The court found the Supreme

Court had not considered the question. Consequently, there was no clearly established

federal law on the issue, and the state court could not be said to have unreasonably applied

it. Murdoch, 609 F.3d at 995-996.

Against this highly deferential backdrop, the Court considers the Petition. The starting

point is the last reasoned decision by a state court. Baker v. Fleming, 423 F.3d 1085, 1091

(9th Cir. 2005).

/////

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MEMORANDUM DECISION, MARCH 16, 2006

The state court understood that Aaron wanted to testify about the January robbery, but

not the December robberies, (Decision ¶ 4), and that he argued the sentencing scheme was

unconstitutional “because it coerced him into giving up his fundamental Fifth Amendment

rights in order to get a lower sentence under A.R.S. 13-702.02,” id. ¶5. It noted that the

Fifth Amendment guarantees that a criminal defendant may not be compelled to testify or

prevented from testifying in his own defense, and the right to sever offenses which have

been joined only because they are of the same or similar character protects these rights. Id. 

¶ 4. 

The state court recognized that “a defendant may have a right, even of constitutional

dimensions, to follow whichever course he chooses, the Constitution does not by that token

always forbid requiring him to choose.” (Decision ¶ 4 (citing McGautha, 402 U.S. at 213);

(R&R at 9 (same)). The state court also noted that the “relevant inquiry ‘is whether

compelling the election impairs to an appreciable extent any of the policies behind the right

involved.’” Id.

The state court framed the Fifth Amendment claim as follows: “whether Aaron’s

decision to forgo severance of the charges and proceed to the consolidated trial was

unconstitutionally coerced by the possibility of increased sentences under § 13-604.” 

(Decision ¶¶ 4-5.)

The state found no cases directly addressing the issue, but noted analogous situations in

which a defendant was required to make difficult choices involving Fifth Amendment rights,

including Supreme Court cases as follows: Spevack v. Klein, 385 U.S. 511, 515 (1967)

(quoting Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 614 (1965) to explain that a penalty “is any

sanction which makes the assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege costly”); Garrity v.

New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 497-98 (1967) (asking police officers to forfeit jobs or

incriminate themselves was an unconstitutional demand); Slochower v. New York Board of

Higher Education, 350 U.S. 551, 558-59 (1956) (discharging a teacher based solely on

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invocation of Fifth Amendment rights was unconstitutional). (Decision ¶ 8.) The court

applied the Supreme Court’s logic in McGautha to Aaron’s case. (Decision ¶ 9.)

The state court found, “[I]n the context of Fifth Amendment rights, unless a defendant

suffers a penalty solely from choosing to exercise those rights, requiring the defendant to

make difficult choices does not automatically result in a constitutional violation.” (Decision

¶9.) The court found that Aaron’s desire to testify on some but not all of the charges was not

the main cause of the potentially higher sentences. “Rather, committing armed robbery on

multiple occasions was the primary cause of his harsher sentences,” id., and waiving

severance reduced his exposure to enhanced punishments.

The state court also considered Petitioner’s argument that “the sentencing scheme

violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the state and federal constitutions because it

subjects two identical defendants who are charged with multiple offenses to different

mandatory sentences based solely on whether their trials are separate or consolidated.” 

(Decision ¶ 12.) The Supreme Court in Batchelder, 442 U.S. at 123-124, found that “if ‘an

act violates more than one criminal statute, the Government may prosecute [] under either so

long as it does not discriminate against any class of defendants.’” (Decision ¶ 1.) There is

no constitutional violation where a prosecutor chooses among potential sentencing statutes. 

Id. The state court found no equal protection violation here because the prosecutor may

choose between applying the more harsh punishments under 13-604 or the more lenient

sentencing statute 13-702.02.

CLEARLY ESTABLISHED FEDERAL LAW

Whether the law is clearly established is a threshold question under section 2254(d)(1)

because the AEDPA “‘requires federal habeas courts to deny relief that is contingent upon a

rule of law not clearly established at the time the state court conviction became final.’” 

Welch v. Workman, ___ F.3d ____, ___, 2011 WL 547279 * 5 (10th Cir. (Okla.), 2011)

(quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 380 (2000)). Clearly established law refers to the

Supreme Court’s “holdings, as opposed to the dicta.” Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 71. Musladin

instructs that “Supreme Court holdings- the exclusive touchstone for clearly established

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federal law- must be construed narrowly and consist only of something akin to on-point

holdings.” House v. Hatch, 527 F.3d 1010, 1015 (10th Cir. 2008). “[And], Musladin clarified

that the threshold determination that there is no clearly established federal law is analytically

dispositive in the § 2254(d)(1) analysis.” Id. at 1017. 

Petitioner argues that Batchelder does not apply because it involved two statutes, each

mandating a different penalty for identical criminal conduct, and the settled rule that

prosecutorial choice does not offend the constitution. The Supreme Court found that

prosecutorial discretion is the same whether the prosecutor is making a charging decision

under one of two statutes with different elements or choosing between statutes with identical

elements and different penalties. Batchelder, 442 U.S. at 124-125. The Court found that it

did not violate the equal protection clause for the prosecutor to be influenced by the

penalties available upon conviction because the defendant has no constitutional right to

chose a penalty scheme. Id. at 125.

 Petitioner argues that the Arizona statutes at issue here, themselves, provide the

criteria, rather than leaving it to the prosecutor to choose “a criterion, trusting him not to

choose an arbitrary or irrational one.” (Objection at 5.) Petitioner challenges the criterion,

which is the consolidation or severance of charges for trial, as being arbitrary or irrational

and as burdening his fundamental right to choose severance to protect his Fifth Amendment

rights against self-incrimination and to testify.

Petitioner argues, “Because Batchelder is inapposite, and therefore does not constitute

‘clearly established precedent,’ not only did the state court unreasonably apply Batchelder, it

also decided Aaron’s case contrary to other clearly established Supreme Court precedent by

confirming the equal protection validity of the challenged statutory classification without

applying either the rational basis test or the strict scrutiny test to a putative governmental

objective.” Id. at 3. 

Petitioner presents his equal protection challenge as a “garden-variety statutory

classification case . . ., ” and argues that the state court should have applied the “rational

basis” test to determine whether the challenged statutory scheme bears some fair relationship

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to a legitimate public purpose. Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216. Because the statutory scheme

burdens a fundamental right, the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, the state court

should have also applied the “strict scrutiny” test to determine whether the scheme has been

precisely tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. Id. at 216-17.

The discussion in the R&R describes Batchelder as the “closest relevant Supreme Court

authority,” (R&R at 5), and as the only Supreme Court decision “that can arguably be

construed as ‘clearly established precedent’ on the issue at hand,” id. at 7. The R&R offers a

discussion, based on a criminal procedure treatise by Professors Lafave, Israel and King,

which identifies three types of situations in which a defendant’s conduct may fall within two

statutes: 1) where one statute defines a lesser included offense of the other and they carry

different penalties; 2) where the statutes overlap and carry different penalties, and 3) where

the statutes are identical. Id. at 7-8. The R&R identifies the first as the situation considered

in Batchelder and the third as the situation here. Id. at 8. The R&R notes that Batchelder

has been criticized for “inadvertently failing to recognize the potential equal protection

mischief that might occur when two criminal statues are identical in every respect except for

their respective penalties.” (R&R at 7 (citing State v. Williams, 175 P.3d 1029, 1034 (Utah

2007)). Finally, the Magistrate Judge recognizes that there is a “notable wrinkle” to directly

applying Batchelder to the facts of this case, which is that the Petitioner asserts a violation

of his Fifth Amendment right to testify “on his own behalf in relation to one of the charged

incidents because he was not able to sever the charge without subjecting himself to increased

punishment for doing so.” Id. at 8.

When a Supreme Court decision does not “squarely address” the issue in the case or

establish a legal principle that “clearly extends” to the new context, it cannot be said, under

the AEDPA, that there is “clearly established” Supreme Court precedent addressing the

issue and so we must defer to the state court’s decision. Murdoch, 609 F.3d at 991-996. 

“[]Under the highly deferential standard established by AEDPA and the Supreme Court, as

long as the state court could have found a principled reason not to apply the Court’s

precedents to the current case, we may not grant habeas relief.” Id. at 995. Because there

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are principled reasons, as identified in the R&R, for not applying Batchelder to the

Petitioner’s case, Batchelder may not serve as clearly established federal law, as determined

by the Supreme Court, for purposes of habeas review and relief. 

Petitioner’s proffer of Romer v. Evans and Plyler v. Doe as clearly established federal

law applicable to his case also fails. “‘[C]learly established law consists of Supreme Court

holdings in cases where the facts are at least closely-related or similar to the case sub judice. 

Although the legal rule at issue need not have had its genesis in the closely-related or similar

factual context, the Supreme Court must have expressly extended the legal rule to that

context.’” Welch v. Workman, 2011 WL 547279 * 5 (Okla 2011) (quoting House, 527 F.3d

at 1016 (relying on Musladin, 549 U.S. 76; Van Patten, 128 S. Ct. at 746).

In Romer, the Supreme Court applied the rational basis test and found the Equal

Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment was violated by state law that prohibited all

branches of the government from acting to protect homosexual persons from discrimination. 

In Plyler, the Supreme Court found that a state law withholding state funds for education

from children who were not “legally admitted” into the United States failed a stricter rational

basis test. The Court found the children were neither a protected class nor was education a

fundamental right, but nevertheless found the suspect nature of the classification and the

importance of education violated the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Petitioner fails to provide any citation to Supreme Court law, which has applied the

legal rules relied on by him, either the rational basis test or strict scrutiny test, to an equal

protection challenge closely related to or in a similar context to the case at hand.

In addition to applying Batchelder to the equal protection claim, the state court applied

McGautha to determine the merits of the Petitioner’s Fifth Amendment Due Process claim. 

Petitioner also submits United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570 (1968); Blackledge v. Perry,

417 U.S. 21 (1974), and Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605, 611-13 (1972). Petitioner’s due

process argument is that Arizona’s statutory scheme forced him to forgo severance of the

charges and proceed with a consolidated trial. He alleges infringement of his constitutional

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rights to testify in his defense as to the January charges and his right against selfincrimination as to the December charges.

The strongest case in Petitioner’s favor is Jackson, where the Supreme Court considered

the Federal Kidnaping Act which provided for the death penalty if the person was harmed

and a jury verdict recommended it. For all others, punishment was prison up to life. The

Supreme Court held that the penalty provision in the statute was unconstitutional because it

impaired the free exercise of the constitutional right to a trial by a jury. 

The Supreme Court noted that, “if the provision had no other purpose or effect than to

chill the assertion of constitutional rights by penalizing those who choose to exercise them,

then it would be patently unconstitutional.” Jackson, 390 U.S. at 581. The Supreme Court

considered Congress’ objectives, and explained “the question is not whether the chilling

effect is ‘incidental’ rather than intentional; the question is whether that effect is

unnecessary and therefore excessive.” Id. at 582. Finding the goal of limiting the death

penalty to cases in which a jury recommends it to be entirely legitimate, the Supreme Court

found it could be achieved without penalizing those defendants who plead not guilty and

demand a jury trial. Id.

The state court relied on McGautha, where the Supreme Court considered an Ohio

statute that provided for a unitary determination of guilt and the death penalty by a jury after

a single trial. In McGautha, the Court discussed Jackson and noted that it addressed the

question outside the context of the constitutional requirement that in capital cases a jury

must impose the death penalty. McGautha, 402 U.S. at 209. The Court discussed Spencer

v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554 (1967) where it had rejected the contention that the Due Process

Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment required a bifurcated trial so that evidence relevant

solely to the issue of punishment would not prejudice the capital case as to guilt. Id. at 209-

210.

Under the Ohio single-trial procedure considered in McGautha, the defendant could

remain silent on the issue of guilt only at the cost of surrendering any chance to plead his

case on the issue of punishment. Relying on a trilogy of Supreme Court cases from 1970,

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involving guilty pleas and waivers of various Fifth Amendment rights made in order to

obtain a benefit and avoid a burden which could not otherwise have been constitutionally

imposed, id. at 212, the Supreme Court held that Ohio’s unitary trial system was

constitutional.

The Court held that the “criminal process, like the rest of the legal system, is replete

with situations requiring ‘the making of difficult judgments’ as to which course to follow . . .

Although a defendant may have a right, even of constitutional dimension, to follow

whichever course he chooses, the Constitution does not by that token always forbid

requiring him to choose.” (R&R at 9 (citing McGautha, 402 U.S. at 213.)

In McGautha, the Court was considering unitary trials in death penalty cases, which

involved a defendant’s right to remain silent at his trial or to speak on his own behalf at the

time of sentencing. In this case, the Petitioner asked the state court to consider Arizona’s

statutory penalty scheme applicable to multi-offenders, which involves the right to remain

silent or to testify at the time of trial. In McGautha, a defendant wishing to exercise both

rights had to choose between the two. Here, a defendant wishing to exercise all his

constitutional rights could do so, but had to choose between harsher or more lenient

penalties. This Court finds that for the narrow purpose of habeas review, McGautha is not

clearly established Supreme Court precedent squarely addressing the issue or establishing a

legal principle that clearly extends in the context of the Petitioner’s case. 

As noted by the Magistrate Judge, under McGautha, “the threshold question is whether

compelling the election impairs to an appreciable extent any of the policies behind the rights

involved.” Id.; Decision ¶ 4. The Petitioner provides no Supreme Court precedent for

answering this question in the context of sentencing statutes like those at issue in this case,

which provide varying degrees of enhanced penalties for repeat offenders with reduced

penalties where charges are consolidated, thereby, causing defendants to choose between

self-incrimination or not testifying in their own defense. Whether this impairs to an

appreciable extent the policies behind the Fifth Amendment remains a question which is

open and unanswered by the Supreme Court.

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 3 This Court agrees with the state court’s conclusion that “[t]he sentencing scheme may

act as a deterrent to seeking severance of consolidated charges, but a defendant is faced with

many difficult decisions throughout the course of a criminal proceeding.” (Decision ¶ 9.)

The Court has reviewed the ex parte proffer of evidence as to the testimony precluded

by the consolidation of all the charges for trial, when Defendant waived his right to sever the

January charge to avoid the harsher punishments for repeat offenders under A.R.S. 13-604. The

Court finds no support for an argument that he was denied a fair trial. (R&R at 9 (citing United

States v. Lane, 474 U.S. 438, 446 n. 8 (1986).

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As to the Petitioner’s equal protection and Fifth Amendment due process claims, the

Court finds there was no unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the Arizona state court could not have

unreasonably applied it, and the Court must deny habeas corpus relief.

CONCLUSION

After de novo review of the issues raised in the Petitioner’s objections, this Court agrees

with the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by the Magistrate Judge in her

recommendation to dismiss the Petition because the question raised by the Petitioner

remains open and undecided by Supreme Court jurisprudence.

The Court adds that it agrees with the Batchelder and McGautha analysis found in both

the R&R and the state court’s decision.3

 But, that is not the question this Court is tasked to

answer under the AEDPA, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). Because there is no clearly established

federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court, this Court must defer to the state court’s

findings on the merits of the Petitioner’s constitutional claims.

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that the Report and Recommendation is adopted as the Opinion of

the Court.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 1) is

DISMISSED.

/ / /

/ / /

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IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall enter Judgment

accordingly.

DATED this 31st day of March, 2011.

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