1The Hon. Michael J. Melloy, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa, sitting by designation.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 99-1660WM

_____________

Leamon White, *

*

Appellant, *

* On Appeal from the United

v. * States District Court

* for the Western District

* of Missouri.

Michael S. Bowersox, *

Superintendent, *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: December 13, 1999

 Resubmitted on Supplemental Briefs: February 10, 2000

Filed: March 14, 2000

___________

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD and LOKEN, Circuit Judges, and MELLOY,1 District

Judge.

___________

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
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Leamon White appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The

District Court held that all of Mr. White's claims were procedurally barred, except

those adequately raised by his first amended post-conviction motion in the state courts.

We reverse and remand for further proceedings on the merits of those claims the

District Court held to be procedurally barred. We hold that the state procedural rule

that barred Mr. White's second amended motion was inadequate to bar federal

consideration of these claims. We affirm the remaining portion of the District Court's

judgment. We agree with that Court that the claims it found open on federal habeas are

without merit.

I.

Mr. White was tried and convicted of first degree murder. He was sentenced to

death. Mr. White appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which ultimately affirmed

his conviction. While Mr. White's direct appeal was proceeding, he filed a pro se

motion in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, for post-conviction relief.

Mr. White's post-conviction motion became entangled in procedural difficulties because

his court-appointed attorneys failed to file a timely amended motion on his behalf.

Under Missouri law, this failure constituted "abandonment," and Mr. White was owed

some remedy for his attorneys' failures. As a remedy, the Missouri courts treated as

timely the first, but not the second, of two untimely motions filed by Mr. White's

attorneys. They limited the remedy to the first motion on the ground that Mr. White

had improperly signed a "blank verification." The predominant issue on appeal is

whether the procedural rule barring the second motion was an adequate state ground.

This issue is practically determinative of Mr. White's habeas petition because almost

all of the claims raised in the first motion, which was hastily drafted, were procedurally

defaulted due to inadequate fact pleading. 

On August 17, 1989, Mr. White filed his pro se motion for post-conviction relief

in the Circuit Court pursuant to Mo. R. Crim. P. 29.15. On September 25, 1989, the
2Mo. R. Crim. P. 29.15 provides: "The movant shall verify the motion, declaring

that he has listed all grounds for relief known to him and acknowledging his

understanding that he waives any ground for relief known to him that is not listed in the

motion."

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Court appointed the Missouri Public Defender's Office to represent Mr. White in postconviction proceedings. Under the Rule, counsel has a duty to file an amended motion

if, after consulting with the movant, there appear to be grounds for doing so. Just five

days before the amended motion was due, the Missouri Public Defender's Office

assigned an attorney, Larry Pace, to represent Mr. White. 

On October 20, 1989, Mr. Pace entered his appearance. He moved for and was

granted an extension, until November 23, 1989, to file an amended motion. Under Rule

29.15, this was the only extension allowed. On November 9, 1989, fourteen days

before the amended motion had to be filed, Mr. Pace improperly withdrew from the

case without permission of the Court. It is now undisputed that this constituted

abandonment under Missouri law. The Public Defender's Office replaced him with a

second attorney, Joe Locascio. At that time, Mr. Pace had not yet begun to write an

amended motion, had not secured the files of Mr. White's trial attorneys, and had not

met with Mr. White.

Five days later and nine days before the final deadline, Mr. Locascio met with

Mr. White to discuss his post-conviction motion. This was Mr. White's first meeting

with any attorney to discuss his post-conviction motion. While at the prison, Mr.

Locascio had Mr. White sign a "blank" verification, to be added to the amended motion

once it was written.2 Mr. Locascio did this because Rule 29.15 motions are void unless

verified by the movant. With time so short, he felt there would be no opportunity to

obtain the verification properly after the motion was written. 
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Despite this short-cut with the verification, Mr. Locascio missed the

November 23, 1989, deadline for filing Mr. White's amended motion. As the Supreme

Court of Missouri later held, this constituted a second instance of abandonment under

Missouri law. On November 27, 1989, Mr. Locascio filed the amended motion, four

days late, and a separate motion for a thirty-day extension to file a second amended

motion. Although the Circuit Court lacked the jurisdiction to do so, it granted leave to

file a second motion and an extension until January 9, 1990. Mr. Locascio filed a

second amended motion on January 8, 1990. Because the Court lacked jurisdiction to

grant the extension, this motion was later ruled untimely. On August 1, 1990, the

Circuit Court denied relief on all of Mr. White's post-conviction motions. 

On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a

determination of whether Mr. White's first and second attorneys had abandoned him.

White v. State, 813 S.W.2d 862 (Mo. 1991) (en banc) ("White I"). Under Rule 29.15,

it was the duty of appointed counsel to determine whether sufficient facts were asserted

in the pro se motion to support the claims that it raised; to determine whether the

movant had included in the pro se motion all claims for post-conviction relief known

to the movant; and to correct any deficiencies in the pro se motion by filing an amended

motion. Although there was no right to effective assistance of post-conviction counsel,

Missouri provided a remedy, as a matter of state law, where appointed counsel

"abandoned" his client by completely failing to perform these statutory duties. Luleff

v. State, 807 S.W.2d 495 (Mo. 1991) (en banc). The Missouri Supreme Court,

therefore, remanded for determination of whether Mr. White's first and second

attorneys had abandoned him by withdrawing without leave of court, by failing to file

a timely amended motion, and by failing to obtain a proper verification of the amended

motion. On remand, the Circuit Court found no abandonment, but it was again reversed

on appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court.

The Missouri Supreme Court found abandonment but provided only a limited

remedy because Mr. White had signed the "blank" verification. White v. State, 873
3The Missouri Supreme Court also requested an investigation by Missouri's Chief

Disciplinary Counsel to determine whether any ethical rules had been broken by the

Public Defender's Office or the two attorneys.

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S.W.2d 590 (Mo. 1994) (en banc) ("White II"). The Missouri Supreme Court held that

Mr. White had been abandoned when his first attorney withdrew without court

permission. This constituted abandonment because Mr. White's "second counsel did

not have enough time to file a timely amended motion after he entered his appearance."

Id. at 597. Additionally, the Court found that Mr. White had been abandoned when

his second attorney failed to file a timely amended motion.3 The Court found that "no

action or inaction by [Mr. White] contributed to the delayed filing." Ibid.

As a remedy, the Missouri Supreme Court forgave the untimely filing of the first

amended motion. The Court, however, refused to apply this remedy to the second

amended motion. The Court reasoned, first, that Mr. White had been abandoned only

with respect to the timing of the first amended motion, not with respect to its content.

Second, the Court considered that Mr. White had waived any claim that the first

amended motion was incomplete when he signed the "blank" verification: "By signing

the verification in blank, defendant knew or should have known that he was an active

participant in falsely verifying a document that had not yet been written." Id. at 595.

The Missouri Supreme Court remanded to the Circuit Court for consideration

only of those claims made in Mr. White's first amended motion. The Circuit Court

denied all of Mr. White's claims. On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed.

White v. State, 939 S.W.2d 887 (Mo. 1997) (en banc) ("White III"). The Missouri

Supreme Court addressed only six of Mr. White's twenty-eight claims on the merits.

The Court held that the rest of Mr. White's claims were procedurally defaulted due to

the inadequate pleading of the first amended motion. Specifically, the Court found that
4Our holding that consideration of the second amended petition was not barred

by an adequate state procedural ground makes it unnecessary to consider the adequacy

of the state pleading rules held to bar most of the claims in the first amended petition.

We likewise need not consider petitioner's assertion that his actual innocence excuses

any procedural default.

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in twenty-two of his claims, Mr. White had failed to plead sufficient facts to warrant

relief.4

On December 26, 1997, Mr. White filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus

in the District Court. The Court held that the Missouri Supreme Court's rejection of the

second amended motion was based on an independent and adequate state ground.

Likewise, the Court held that Missouri's fact-pleading requirement was an independent

and adequate state ground. Accordingly, the District Court found that all of Mr.

White's claims were procedurally barred, except those six claims that the Missouri

Supreme Court had found adequately raised in the first amended motion. On these six

claims, the District Court ruled against Mr. White on the merits. Three of these claims

have been appealed, along with the District Court's ruling on procedural bar.

II.

Federal review of a habeas petition is barred when a state court dismisses or

rejects a prisoner's claims on independent and adequate state grounds unless a

petitioner can demonstrate either (1) cause and prejudice or (2) actual innocence.

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). Procedural default of a claim under

state law may constitute an independent and adequate state ground, Harris v. Reed, 489

U.S. 255, 262 (1989), but only if the state procedural rule is firmly established,

regularly followed, and readily ascertainable. Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-4

(1991). The underlying principle is "that failure to follow state procedures will warrant

withdrawal of a federal remedy only if those procedures provided the habeas petitioner
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with a fair opportunity to seek relief in state court." Easter v. Endell, 37 F.3d 1343,

1347 (8th Cir. 1994). Or, as Justice Holmes expressed it, "[w]hatever springes the

State may set for those who are endeavoring to assert rights that the State confers, the

assertion of federal rights, when plainly and reasonably made, is not to be defeated

under the name of local practice." Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U.S. 22, 24 (1923). We

believe that Mr. White was denied a fair opportunity to seek relief in this case because

the procedural rule that barred his second amended petition was neither firmly

established nor readily ascertainable. 

The procedural default in this case was based on two limitations of Missouri's

remedy for abandonment newly introduced in Mr. White's own case. First, the

Missouri Supreme Court held that Mr. White's second amended motion was not entitled

to consideration because he had been abandoned only as to the timing of his first

amended motion, but not as to its content. At the time of Mr. White's case, the

Missouri Supreme Court had just recently decided that there should be a remedy for

attorney abandonment in post-conviction proceedings. The Court had stated a general

rule that relief was appropriate where the attorney, and not the movant, was responsible

for the untimeliness or improper verification of the motion. Mr. White's case, White

II, was the first in which the distinction between timing and content was announced and

employed to limit the remedy available to an abandoned defendant. 

Even in retrospect, the basis for this distinction is unclear to us. The Missouri

Supreme Court found that Mr. White's first attorney had abandoned him by leaving his

second attorney without time to file a timely motion. We cannot see why such an

abandonment, forcing Mr. White's second attorney to prepare and write a motion in

fourteen days, would not include the content of the motion. Mr. White's attorney

lacked the time to write a motion because he lacked the time to write its content. With

no concern for content, one day would have been sufficient. As confusing as this

distinction is in retrospect, we have no trouble finding that neither Mr. White nor his
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attorneys could reasonably have anticipated any such rule in advance of its first

application in Mr. White's own case.

Before White II, the Missouri Supreme Court had held that where abandonment

occurred new counsel would be appointed and an extension provided as necessary to

file an amended motion. Luleff v. State, 807 S.W.2d 495 (Mo. 1991) (en banc);

Bradey v. State, 811 S.W.2d 379 (Mo. 1991) (en banc). In White II, the Missouri

Supreme Court stated a new rule limiting the remedy for abandonment. The State of

Missouri argues vigorously that this limit was implicit in, and correctly derived from,

Missouri's prior precedents. The State's argument, however, is not determinative of

the issue before us. Even though a rule appears in retrospect to form part of a

consistent pattern of procedures, it should not be applied as a procedural default if the

defendant could not be deemed to have been apprised of its existence. Ford v. Georgia,

498 U.S. at 423. The limitation on extensions announced in Mr. White's case is

dependent upon the distinction, discussed above, between abandonment as to timeliness

and abandonment as to content. For the reasons already discussed, we cannot say that

Mr. White was fairly apprised of its existence. Accordingly, even if, as Missouri

argues, this rule forms a consistent pattern with prior precedents, we could not apply

it as a procedural default in this case. 

As a second ground for limiting Mr. White's abandonment remedy, the Missouri

Supreme Court held that Mr. White had waived any claim that he had been abandoned

as to the content of the motions when he signed the "blank" verification. This waiver

principle was, again, first announced in Mr. White's own case, White II. The Court

based this principle on the fact that Mr. White knew or should have known he was an

active participant in falsely verifying a document that had not yet been written. The

Missouri Supreme Court was free to interpret its procedural rules in this way.

Nevertheless, we do not see how, before the decision in Mr. White's own case, anyone

could have known that signing this sort of open-ended verification constituted a waiver

of remedies for abandonment.
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To begin with, before White II, there was no Missouri precedent relating to the

signing of "blank" verifications. Moreover, in White I, the Missouri Supreme Court

itself suggested that the blame for the "blank" verification might fall on the second

attorney who asked Mr. White to sign it; the Court remanded Mr. White's case to the

Circuit Court for a determination of whether the attorney's actions in procuring the

improper verification constituted abandonment. In the absence of any precedent, we

do not see how Mr. White could have known the legal significance of the improper

verification before the Missouri Supreme Court did. In sum, this principle was also

neither readily ascertainable nor firmly established at the time of Mr. White's case. 

Given the state of the law at the time, Mr. White did not have a fair opportunity

to seek relief in this case. Mr. White was presented with a very difficult decision when

his attorneys abandoned him: to lose all of his claims in an untimely motion or to sign

an improper verification and hope that the motion would be at least timely. The new

principles announced by the Missouri Supreme Court in his case were not available to

guide him in making that decision. Because these principles were neither readily

ascertainable nor firmly established, the procedural default that ensued cannot be

considered an adequate state ground to bar federal review. 

III.

Mr. White also appeals the District Court's denial of three claims that the District

Court found were not procedurally defaulted. First, Mr. White argues that he received

ineffective assistance of counsel on his direct appeal. At Mr. White's trial, the Court

sustained the prosecutor's motion to strike for cause a venireman, Mr. Layson, over Mr.

White's lawyers' objection. The Court had found that Mr. Layson had admitted his bias

against the prosecutor; that he was a "loose cannon," likely to share extrajudicial

knowledge with other jurors; and that he was a danger to both prosecutor and

defendant. Mr. White's attorney failed to argue on direct appeal that Mr. Layson had

been improperly removed. Mr. White contends that the trial judge's decision was
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groundless because Mr. Layson showed no indication of bias. Mr. White concludes,

therefore, that failure to raise this "sure" argument on appeal constituted ineffective

assistance of counsel.

Largely for the reasons given by the District Court, we reject this argument.

Absent contrary evidence, we must assume that Mr. White's appellate counsel failed

to raise this claim for reasons of strategy. Roe v. Delo, 160 F.3d 416, 418 (8th Cir.

1998). There is no contrary evidence in this case. We cannot accept Mr. White's

argument that Mr. Layson showed no indication of bias and that this would be a

successful claim on appeal. According to the record, Mr. Layson indicated that he

believed the prosecutor was lying because he failed to mention the possibility of

conviction on a lesser offense. Mr. Layson then engaged in an involved disagreement

with the trial judge and the prosecutor about the nature of the penalty phase of the trial.

Under Missouri law, the trial court has "broad discretion to determine the qualifications

of prospective jurors." State v. Parker, 886 S.W.2d 908, 919 (Mo. 1994) (en banc).

There were no clear grounds in the record for challenging the trial court's discretionary

determination that Mr. Layson was biased and a "loose cannon," dangerous to both the

prosecutor and Mr. White. Mr. Layson's own words support that conclusion. 

 

Second, Mr. White argues that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel

because of his attorneys' conflict of interest. At various points during the trial, Mr.

White's attorneys asked him, before the court, to endorse or acknowledge certain

decisions made with respect to his defense. Mr. White argues that his attorneys were

motivated by a desire to protect themselves from ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

claims, and that their questions revealed confidential and damaging trial strategies to

the court and the prosecutor. Like the District Court, we cannot accept Mr. White's

argument. Mr. White relies on Blanco v. Singletary, 943 F.2d 1477, 1500 (11th Cir.

1991). Unlike Blanco, however, where attorneys conceded to the court during the

sentencing phase that there was no mitigating evidence for their client, Mr. White can
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assert no prejudice here. It is true that Mr. White was asked questions to make sure

that he understood his rights and that he acquiesced in certain strategic decisions. In

doing so, however, no damaging admissions or revelations were communicated to the

Court or the prosecutor. Asking such questions was not improper, but even if it had

been, no relief would be appropriate, because no prejudice to Mr. White resulted.

Third, Mr. White argues that judicial bias deprived him of due process.

Specifically, Mr. White maintains that the Missouri Circuit Court in considering his

claims of abandonment had an ex parte communication with the prosecutor about the

proper scope of an evidentiary hearing. Mr. White also claims that the Court adopted

verbatim the prosecutor's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law after this

hearing. Even assuming that the Court did something improper, Mr. White cannot

show any prejudice from this episode. The Missouri Supreme Court completely

vacated the Circuit Court's decision on appeal and found abandonment. Any prejudice

to Mr. White that might have occurred either from the conversation or by the verbatim

adoption of findings was eliminated by the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Again, we affirm the decision of the District Court.

Accordingly, we reverse in part, affirm in part, and remand to the District Court

for consideration of Mr. White's constitutional claims, except those claims that the

District Court has already addressed on the merits.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.