Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-15-03686/USCOURTS-ca6-15-03686-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ernie L. Moore
Appellee
Clifton Onunwor
Appellant

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 16a0384n.06

No. 15-3686

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

CLIFTON ONUNWOR,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

ERNIE L. MOORE, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE NORTHERN 

DISTRICT OF OHIO

BEFORE: KETHLEDGE and WHITE, Circuit Judges; and COHN, District Judge.*

HELENE N. WHITE, Circuit Judge. Clifton Onunwor appeals the district court’s 

dismissal of his petition for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court 

found Onunwor’s claims procedurally defaulted for failure to comply with a state procedural 

rule. We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Onunwor’s petition. To the extent Onunwor 

raises claims on appeal for which he was not granted a certificate of appealability, we DISMISS

for lack of jurisdiction.

I.

Clifton Onunwor was convicted of the aggravated murder of his mother and related 

charges in connection with her 2008 shooting death. While his direct appeal was pending, 

Onunwor filed a petition for postconviction relief in the Ohio Court of Common Pleas arguing

that 1) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate Onunwor’s phone records, which 

 

*

The Honorable Avern Cohn, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District 

of Michigan, sitting by designation.

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Onunwor alleged revealed exculpatory evidence and impeached the testimony of several 

prosecution witnesses, 2) the State withheld exculpatory evidence, and 3) the phone records and 

additional witness statements demonstrated that Onunwor is actually innocent. In January 2012, 

the Court of Common Pleas denied Onunwor’s petition without a hearing, concluding with 

respect to his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim that the phone records did not exonerate 

him, and that the records would not have impeached the prosecution’s witnesses to such a degree 

that the outcome of the trial would have been different. 

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, holding, inter alia, that it was “prevented from 

examining [Onunwor’s] alleged ineffective assistance of counsel claim due to his failure to 

furnish the court with the transcripts and exhibits from his trial.” State v. Onunwor, No. 97895, 

2012 WL 4951137, *4 (Ohio Ct. App. Oct. 18, 2012). The court reasoned that Ohio law places 

the burden on the appellant to produce the transcripts necessary for evaluating a lower court’s 

decision; that it could not evaluate whether the trial court properly denied the postconviction 

petition without reviewing the trial transcripts; and that without such transcripts, the court must 

“presume regularity in the proceedings below.” Id. The court noted, however, that its review of 

the phone records did not reveal exculpatory evidence.

1

 Id. at *4-5.

Onunwor then filed in the Ohio Court of Appeals an application for reconsideration and 

motion to supplement the record with the trial transcripts, explaining that he believed the 

transcripts were already part of the record because he had filed them on direct appeal, and due to 

the requirement in Ohio Revised Code § 2953.1(C) that the postconviction trial court review the 

trial transcript. Onunwor’s postconviction counsel Erika Cunliffe (Cunliffe) noted in the motion 

 

1

The court also held that Onunwor’s prosecutorial-misconduct claim was barred by res 

judicata because he could have raised it on direct appeal. Onunwor, 2012 WL 4951137, at *3.

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that she had represented “numerous” petitioners appealing from denials of state postconviction 

relief and “[t]he presence of the trial transcript ha[d] never been an issue.” (PID 1609 n.1.) The 

Ohio Court of Appeals denied the application for reconsideration and the Ohio Supreme Court 

declined jurisdiction. 

Through new assigned counsel, Onunwor filed the instant § 2254 petition, arguing his 

trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and obtain his cell phone records, which he 

asserts would have impeached the testimony of the only two State witnesses who testified about

“prior calculation and design,” a required element of aggravated murder. Onunwor also 

contended the cell phone records would have demonstrated that the cell phone he purportedly 

used to cover up the murder was deactivated at the time. Finally, Onunwor requested an 

opportunity to conduct discovery to factually develop his claim that the State withheld favorable 

evidence.2 Warden Ernie Moore (the Warden) responded that Onunwor procedurally defaulted 

his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims by failing to provide the trial transcripts to the Ohio 

Court of Appeals as required by Ohio Appellate Rule 9(B), and, in the alternative, that the 

petition failed on the merits. 

Onunwor filed a Traverse, and on the same day filed a motion for discovery, requesting 

discovery regarding which cell-phone records the State turned over to defense counsel prior to 

trial. In an Order dated April 1, 2015, a magistrate judge denied the motion for discovery. 

Onunwor filed objections to this Order, but the district court did not rule on them. 

On April 30, 2015, the magistrate judge recommended the district court dismiss 

Onunwor’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims as procedurally defaulted because Onunwor 

 

2 Onunwor did not assert a stand-alone due-process claim for prosecutorial misconduct, 

noting only, “Mr. Onunwor presents a potential habeas claim for violation of his due process 

[rights] and the right to a fair trial, that remains undeveloped.” (PID 87.)

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failed to comply with Ohio Appellate Rule 9(B) in appealing the denial of his state 

postconviction petition. Onunwor objected to the Report and Recommendation, raising the same 

arguments made in his prior filings, and contending that the magistrate judge erred in not 

considering an affidavit from state-postconviction counsel Cunliffe, in which she asserted that in 

her prior postconviction cases in Ohio appellate courts, the presence of the transcript had not 

been an issue. The district court rejected Onunwor’s objections and adopted the Report and

Recommendation in its entirety, but granted Onunwor a certificate of appealability on the court’s 

procedural rulings. 

II.

Procedural default bars federal habeas review where a “state prisoner has defaulted his 

federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule[,]

. . . unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice,” or “that 

failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Coleman v. 

Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). We review de novo a district court’s determination that 

procedural default forecloses review of a petitioner’s claims. Atkins v. Holloway, 792 F.3d 654, 

657 (6th Cir. 2015).

A.

This court will find a claim procedurally defaulted if the petitioner fails “to obtain 

consideration of [the] claim by a state court . . . due to a state procedural rule that prevents the 

state courts from reaching the merits of the petitioner’s claim.” Lundgren v. Mitchell, 440 F.3d 

754, 763 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting Seymour v. Walker, 224 F.3d 542, 549-50 (6th Cir. 2000)) 

(internal quotation marks omitted); see also Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 80, 84-87 (1977). 

Thus, a claim is procedurally barred where:

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(1) [T]he petitioner failed to comply with a state procedural rule that is applicable 

to the petitioner’s claim; (2) the state courts actually enforced the procedural rule 

in the petitioner’s case; and (3) the procedural forfeiture is an “adequate and 

independent” state ground foreclosing review of a federal constitutional claim.

Willis v. Smith, 351 F.3d 741, 745 (6th Cir. 2003).

For a state procedural rule to be adequate, it must be “‘firmly established’ and ‘regularly 

followed’ by the time it was applied.” Monzo v. Edwards, 281 F.3d 568, 577 (6th Cir. 2002) 

(quoting Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-24 (1991)). “Failure to comply with wellestablished and normally enforced procedural rules usually constitutes ‘adequate and 

independent’ state grounds for foreclosing review.” Lundgren, 440 F.3d at 763.

The Ohio Court of Appeals denied Onunwor’s postconviction appeal on his ineffectiveassistance claim for failure to comply with Ohio Appellate Rule 9(B), which provides that “it is 

the obligation of the appellant to ensure that the proceedings the appellant considers necessary 

for inclusion in the record . . . are transcribed in a form that meets the specifications of App. R. 

9(B)(6),” Ohio App. R. 9(B)(1), and that “[t]he appellant shall order the transcript in writing and 

shall file a copy of the transcript order with the clerk of the trial court,” id. 9(B)(3). The rule also 

provides alternative means of complying with the latter requirement where no transcript exists. 

See id. 9(B)(4), (C), (D). Ohio courts have interpreted Rule 9(B) as recognizing that “[t]he duty 

to provide a transcript for appellate review falls upon the appellant . . . because an appellant 

bears the burden of showing error by reference to matters in the record.” Knapp v. Edwards 

Labs., 400 N.E.2d 384, 385 (Ohio 1980) (per curiam). Consequently, “[w]hen portions of the 

transcript necessary for resolution of assigned errors are omitted from the record, the reviewing 

court has nothing to pass upon and thus, as to those assigned errors, the court has no choice but 

to presume the validity of the lower court’s proceedings, and affirm.” Id.; see also State ex rel. 

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Bardwell v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Comm’rs, 937 N.E.2d 1274, 1278 (Ohio 2010); Yates v. 

Brown, 925 N.E.2d 669, 675 (Ohio Ct. App. 2010).

Onunwor concedes that he did not file the trial transcripts with the state court of appeals 

in appealing the denial of his state postconviction petition, and that the Ohio Court of Appeals 

enforced Appellate Rule 9(B) in dismissing his postconviction appeal, but argues that there is 

“doubt” as to whether he failed to comply with the rule because he filed the transcripts on direct 

appeal, and that the rule is not “well-established and normally enforced,” and thus cannot serve 

as the basis for procedural default. (Onunwor Br. 42.)

Although the district court relied only on Knapp and the text of Rule 9 in finding 

Onunwor’s claims procedurally defaulted, Ohio courts regularly cite both for the proposition that 

“the appellant has the duty to provide a transcript for appellate review,” State v. Conner, 948

N.E.2d 497, 501 (Ohio Ct. App. 2011), and invoke this rule where the appellant has failed to file 

a transcript that is necessary to permit consideration of the assigned errors. See, e.g., State ex rel. 

Bardwell, 937 N.E.2d at 1278; Krost v. Baltz, No. 80252, 2002 WL 1348221, *1-2 (Ohio Ct. 

App. June 20, 2002); State v. Estrada, 710 N.E.2d 1168, 1170 (Ohio Ct. App. 1998); Chaney v. 

East, 646 N.E.2d 1138, 1140 (Ohio Ct. App. 1994). And, in Gonzales v. Wolfe, 290 F. App’x 

799 (6th Cir. 2008), this court held that Ohio Appellate Rule 9(B) was an adequate and 

independent state ground to bar federal review of the petitioner’s claim. Id. at 804-05.

Although those cases involved direct appeals, Ohio courts have applied Rule 9(B) and 

Knapp in appeals from the denial of postconviction relief where the petitioner failed to provide 

the appellate court with a transcript of the original trial proceedings and that transcript was 

necessary to resolution of the assigned errors. See, e.g., State v. Perry, No. 2010-CA-00185, 

2011 WL 302143, *13-14 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan 24, 2011); State v. Wright, No. 08AP-1095, 2009 

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WL 2872994, *3 (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 8, 2009); State v. McCuller, No. 89834, 2007 WL 

4200634, *2 & n.7 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 29, 2007); State v. Socha, No. 80002, 2002 WL 538754,

*6 (Ohio Ct. App. Apr. 11, 2002); State v. Wilson, No. 72740, 1998 WL 241933, *1-3 (Ohio Ct. 

App. May 14, 1998); State v. Roberts, 585 N.E.2d 934, 936 (Ohio Ct. App. 1991). These cases 

refute Onunwor’s assertion that the rule has been applied differently in the context of 

postconviction appeals where the relevant trial transcript was filed in the direct appellate

proceedings.

3

Ohio Revised Code § 2953.21(C)’s requirement that a postconviction trial court review, 

among other things, the “court reporter’s transcript,” does not render Rule 9(B) ambiguous in the 

context of postconviction appeals. At best, this provision suggests that a trial transcript is

accessible to the appeals court, presuming the postconviction trial court adhered to the statute 

and reviewed the transcript.

4

 However, it does not negate the clear Ohio precedent based on 

Rule 9(B) and Knapp placing the burden on the appellant to ensure transcripts necessary to 

adjudicating assigned errors are filed with the appellate court. That Ohio courts have applied 

Rule 9(B) in postconviction appeals where the relevant transcript was from the original trial 

proceedings—thus presumably would have been reviewed by the postconviction trial court 

pursuant to § 2953.21(C)—further undermines Onunwor’s contention that § 2953.21(C) creates 

ambiguity in Rule 9(B)’s application in this context. And, in any event, we must defer to the 

 

3 Although it is unclear whether transcripts were filed on direct appeal in all of these 

cases, in at least two—both from the Eighth District Court of Appeals, which heard Onunwor’s 

appeal—the direct-appeal opinion references specific trial testimony, suggesting that the trial 

transcripts were filed on direct review. See State v. McCuller, No. 86592, 2006 WL 199047, *1-

2 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan. 26, 2006); State v. Socha, No. 76913, 2001 WL 498613, *1-2 (Ohio Ct. 

App. May 10, 2001).

4 Although the postconviction trial court appears to have considered the transcript in this 

case, it is unclear how it obtained that transcript.

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Ohio courts’ interpretation of their own rule. Israfil v. Russell, 276 F.3d 768, 771 (6th Cir. 

2001).

Nor does Cunliffe’s affidavit demonstrate that Rule 9(B) is not firmly established or 

regularly followed. Cunliffe attested that she had handled “several appeals from dismissals of 

petitions for post conviction relief,” and that in those appeals, she had not “supplemented the 

record with the transcript from the original appeal” because “it was [her] understanding that the 

Court of Appeals would simply access the trial transcript from the courthouse basement, where it 

is kept.” (PID 98.) However, in Ohio, “[t]ranscripts are not always a necessity in postconviction 

relief cases” because postconviction petitions can raise matters outside the record. State v. 

Fields, 736 N.E.2d 933, 936 (Ohio Ct. App. 1999). Thus, without knowing the context of those 

cases, the court cannot determine whether they present instances of the Ohio appellate courts 

ignoring Rule 9(B). And, although Cunliffe cited two cases where she had not filed the trial 

transcripts in appealing the denial of postconviction relief, but the court of appeals nonetheless 

“took note of the trial proceedings,” (see PID 1609 n.9), two isolated cases are “insufficient to 

defeat an otherwise ‘strict and regular’ practice.” See Coe v. Bell, 161 F.3d 320, 331 (6th Cir. 

1998); see also Franklin v. Anderson, 434 F.3d 412, 421 (6th Cir. 2006) (distinguishing 

inadequate rule before it from cases where a rule is well established, but the courts allow an 

“occasional act of grace”). Thus, we agree with the district court that Onunwor procedurally 

defaulted his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims.

B.

A petitioner may obtain relief despite procedural default “only by showing that there was 

cause for the default and prejudice resulting from the default, or that a miscarriage of justice will 

result from enforcing the procedural default in the petitioner’s case.” Seymour, 224 F.3d at 550. 

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To demonstrate cause, a petitioner must show “that some objective factor external to the defense 

impeded counsel’s efforts to comply with the State’s procedural rule.” Lundgren, 440 F.3d at 

763-64 (quoting Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986)). Onunwor contends that 

Cunliffe’s ineffective assistance in failing to file the trial transcript with the postconviction 

appellate court establishes cause to excuse the default.5 

“Attorney error may constitute cause [to excuse procedural default] if it rises to the level 

of constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel.” Willis, 351 F.3d at 745; see also Murray, 

477 U.S. at 488. However, because there is “no constitutional right to an attorney in state postconviction proceedings,” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 725, ineffective assistance of postconviction

counsel may only establish cause for procedural default in limited circumstances:

Where, under state law, claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel must be 

raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding, a procedural default will not bar a 

federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at 

trial if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel 

in that proceeding was ineffective.

Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309, 1320 (2012) (emphasis added); see also Trevino v. Thaler, 

133 S. Ct. 1911, 1921 (2013) (holding that Martinez applies where a “state procedural 

framework, by reason of its design and operation, makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a 

defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial 

counsel on direct appeal”).

Even assuming the Martinez-Trevino framework applies to Ohio postconviction 

petitions,6 Cunliffe’s failure to file the trial transcripts in the postconviction appeal cannot 

 

5 Although Onunwor maintains his innocence, he does not argue procedural default 

should be excused based on a fundamental miscarriage of justice.

6

This court has held that Martinez does not apply in Ohio because the state permits 

raising ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims on direct appeal. Moore v. Mitchell, 708 F.3d 

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provide cause for the default. Onunwor does not assert cause based on postconviction counsel’s 

performance in an initial-review collateral proceeding; rather, he argues his postconviction 

counsel was ineffective on appeal from the denial of state postconviction relief. In Martinez, the 

Supreme Court explicitly stated that its holding did not extend to “appeals from initial-review 

collateral proceedings.” 132 S. Ct. at 1320. Accordingly, this court has held that “the MartinezTrevino exception does not extend to attorney error at post-conviction appellate proceedings 

because those proceedings are not the ‘first occasion’ at which an inmate could meaningfully 

raise an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim.” Atkins, 792 F.3d at 661 (quoting West v. 

Carpenter, 790 F.3d 693, 698 (6th Cir. 2015)) (emphasis in original); see also Williams v. 

Mitchell, 792 F.3d 606, 615 (6th Cir. 2015). Thus, any error by postconviction appellate counsel 

cannot excuse procedural default in this case.

III.

Onunwor also contends this court should remand because the district court has not yet 

ruled on his objections to the magistrate judge’s Order denying his motion to conduct discovery. 

However, the district court did not grant a certificate of appealability on this issue, nor has 

Onunwor requested one. Without a certificate of appealability, this court does not have 

jurisdiction to decide this issue. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A); see also United States v. Bryant, 

246 F.3d 650, 653 (6th Cir. 2001). 

 

760, 785 (6th Cir. 2013). The Sixth Circuit has not yet ruled on whether Trevino applies in Ohio, 

but has indicated that it may apply to cases such as Onunwor’s, where ineffective-assistance-ofcounsel claims rely on evidence outside the record, and therefore generally are not raised on 

direct review. See McGuire v. Warden, Chillicothe Corr. Inst., 738 F.3d 741, 751-52 (6th Cir. 

2013). However, the court need not decide this issue here.

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IV.

For these reasons, we AFFIRM in part and DISMISS in part.

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AVERN COHN, District Judge, concurring. I concur in the result reached by the lead 

opinion that Onunwor’s claims are procedurally defaulted for failure to comply with a state court 

procedural rule that requires counsel to furnish the court with a copy of the transcript and 

exhibits from his trial. I fail to understand, however, why when it was obvious that the 

transcripts were not filed, that the Ohio appellate courts did not direct counsel to do so. It seems 

this was a simple solution to a technical error. This is particularly so where there appears to be 

no dispute that the transcript was filed on Onunwor’s direct appeal and therefore was already 

part of the file of the case. Onunwor lost the right to have his claims heard on the merits as a 

consequence of his counsel’s negligence and a strict adherence to a procedural rule. This is a 

demonstration where the procedural default doctrine in habeas jurisprudence does little to 

advance justice and simply exalts form over substance. Baron Parke would have been pleased 

with the outcome.

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