Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03423/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03423-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas Leroy Hagen
Appellant
Rusty Rogerson
Appellee
State of Iowa
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable James E. Gritzner, United States District Judge for the

Southern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3423

___________

Thomas Leroy Hagen, *

*

Petitioner-Appellant, * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

v. * Southern District of Iowa.

* 

State of Iowa; * [UNPUBLISHED]

Rusty Rogerson, Warden, *

*

Respondents-Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: June 21, 2005

Filed: June 24, 2005

___________

Before MURPHY, BYE and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

After Thomas Hagen was convicted of three Iowa felonies in 1999, he twice

initiated postconviction relief (PCR) proceedings in state court. Both applications

were denied, and he failed to appeal in either case. In this habeas petition he raises

claims first asserted in the PCR proceedings and argues that his failure to appeal the

disposition in those cases should be excused because he received ineffective

assistance from his court appointed counsel. The district court1

 denied Hagen's

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petition on the grounds that he had procedurally defaulted the claims by failing to

appeal and that the alleged ineffectiveness of postconviction counsel could not excuse

the default, and Hagen appeals. We affirm.

In 1999 an Iowa jury convicted Hagen of first degree burglary, going armed

with intent, and felony stalking, and the trial court sentenced him to thirty years. On

direct appeal Hagen raised a single claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on

which the Iowa Supreme Court declined to rule, but it was preserved for possible

postconviction relief. Under Iowa law Hagen had a statutory right to effective

assistance of counsel during the PCR process. Iowa Code § 82.5 (1998); Dunbar v.

State, 515 N.W.2d 12, 14-15 (Iowa 1994). 

With the assistance of court appointed counsel, Hagen initiated PCR

proceedings on April 16, 2001, raising three separate claims of ineffective assistance

by his trial counsel. The trial court denied his application on procedural and

substantive grounds, and Hagen did not appeal. He later filed a second PCR

application alleging that the government had unconstitutionally withheld favorable

evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The claim was

dismissed due to Hagen's failure to raise it in his first PCR application. He again

failed to appeal.

On November 6, 2003, Hagen filed this petition challenging the

constitutionality of his custody based on allegations of ineffective assistance and

Brady violations. The state moved to dismiss on the grounds that Hagen had

procedurally defaulted all of the claims in state court by failing to appeal the denials

of his PCR applications. While conceding that he had defaulted the claims, Hagen

alleged that his court appointed counsel had ineffectively assisted him during

postconviction review by advising that appeals of his PCR applications would be

fruitless. Because he had a state statutory right to the effective assistance of counsel

during postconviction review, Hagen argues that the ineffectiveness of his counsel's

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assistance was sufficient cause to excuse the default under the rule of Coleman v.

Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 752-53 (1991). 

The district court held that under Coleman, ineffective assistance excuses

procedural default only if the petitioner had a constitutional right to effective

assistance, a right Hagen lacked during postconviction review. The court dismissed

the petition but granted a certificate of appealability on the question of whether

procedural default is excused under Coleman if the petitioner was deprived of a

statutory right to the effective assistance of counsel. In reviewing the denial of

Hagen's habeas petition, we examine the district court's legal conclusions de novo.

King v. Bowersox, 291 F.3d 539, 540 (8th Cir. 2002).

When a petitioner has defaulted his federal claims in state court under an

independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review is barred

unless the petitioner is able to demonstrate both cause for the default and actual

prejudice from violation of federal law. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. A cause is

sufficient to excuse procedural default only when it is external to the petitioner, that

is not fairly attributable to the petitioner himself. Id. at 753. Ineffective assistance

is external if it can be imputed to the state due to the existence of a constitutional

right to the effective assistance of counsel. Id. at 753-54. Hagen had no right to the

effective assistance of counsel during state postconviction proceedings, however, and

instead relies on a state statutory right to such assistance. Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481

U.S. 551, 559 (1987). As a result any ineffectiveness on the part of Hagen's

postconviction counsel cannot be imputed to the state. Because Hagen has not shown

that his default was the result of any external cause, that default cannot be excused

and federal habeas review of his claims is barred. 

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

___________________________

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