Source: https://cbaclelegalconnection.com/tag/aedpa/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:19:22+00:00

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The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Williams on Tuesday, June 23, 2015.
Jeffrey Dan Williams was convicted on federal drug and firearm charges in the late 1990s. He unsuccessfully challenged his convictions multiple times in state and federal court. In November 2010, he filed his fifth request for postconviction relief, in which he claimed at least five Tulsa police officers who were involved in the investigation in his case were investigated for corruption, including planting evidence and perjury in criminal cases. The Tenth Circuit denied Williams’ motion to file a second or subsequent habeas petition due to lack of supporting evidence but allowed him to refile a motion for authorization containing complete descriptions of all relevant facts, with supporting evidence. Williams attempted to comply but the Tenth Circuit found the evidence insufficient and denied the motion.
Williams next filed a pro se “Motion to Withdraw and Nullify Guilty Plea” in district court in January 2012, arguing that the officers involved in the corruption investigation had “engaged in the same type of illegal conduct” in Williams’ case. Williams attached evidence undermining the testimony of the DEA agent used to support the quantity findings at Williams’ sentencing. The district court construed the motion as an F.R.C.P. 60(d)(3) request, appointed counsel for Williams, ordered the parties to conduct discovery, and held an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing the district court heard testimony from multiple witnesses that supported Williams’ fraud claims. The district court issued an opinion and order vacating Williams’ judgment and sentence and dismissing the third superseding indictment. The court found that the Tulsa Police officers committed a fraud on the court that required Williams’ convictions to be set aside. Alternatively, the district court granted Williams’ motion to withdraw his guilty plea based on the court’s common law authority to prevent a miscarriage of justice. The district court distinguished an intervening Tenth Circuit decision, United States v. Baker, which held that motions alleging fraud on the court should be treated as second or successive petitions, noting that the court sua sponte invoked its authority to construe Williams’ motion as a fraud on the court. The government appealed.
The Tenth Circuit agreed with the government that AEDPA divested the district court of authority to rule on the motion, characterizing it as a second or successive petition for habeas relief. The Tenth Circuit found the district court did not properly invoke its inherent authority to correct fraud on the court and therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Explaining that for AEDPA purposes it looks at the substance of a motion and not the title, the Tenth Circuit found that Williams’ motion challenged his underlying conviction, falling squarely in the definition of a second or successive habeas petition for AEDPA purposes. Although an exception existed for newly discovered factual bases for relief, that exception did not apply in Williams’ case because his claims of corruption existed from its inception. The Tenth Circuit clarified that newly discovered proof is not the same as a newly discovered factual basis, so although the evidence supporting Williams’ corruption claims had not yet been uncovered at the time of his first appeal, the basis of the claims existed. Because Williams failed to obtain certification from the Tenth Circuit before filing his motion, he was prohibited from filing a second or successive habeas motion.
The Tenth Circuit next rejected the district court’s characterization that it was acting sua sponte to correct the fraud on the court. The Tenth Circuit explained that in the years following AEDPA’s enactment, the court’s authority to remedy fraud on the court was narrowed, and in Baker, the Tenth Circuit further limited a court’s authority in cases where the defendant has already had fair habeas review. The Tenth Circuit dismissed the district court’s statement that it was acting sua sponte, finding instead that it acted on the successive application for habeas relief because it considered the new claims and evidence contained in Williams’ motion. The Tenth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision to vacate Williams’ convictions based on fraud on the conviction court.
The Tenth Circuit also found the district court was not free to exercise its common law authority to prevent a miscarriage of justice, noting it must be constrained by the limits set by Congress. Because Williams did not first obtain certification from the Tenth Circuit to appeal, the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the miscarriage of justice claims.
Finally, the Tenth Circuit evaluated Williams’ motion as a request to file a second or successive petition, which it granted in part. The Tenth Circuit evaluated Williams’ new evidence and the testimony of the witnesses supporting his fraud claims, and found that only his firearm conviction would be affected by the new evidence since Williams did not contest every search or all evidence gained by the police as obtained by corruption. In fact, the Tenth Circuit found that the evidence tended to support Williams’ possession charges.
The Tenth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. The Tenth Circuit granted Williams’ motion to file a second or successive habeas petition as related to the firearm charge. Judge Bacharach dissented, arguing the Circuit should have respected the district court’s assertion that it acted sua sponte.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Doe v. Jones on Tuesday, August 12, 2014.
John Doe, a federal prisoner, was convicted of first-degree murder in Oklahoma and sentenced to life without parole. He was separately convicted in federal court of bank robbery, which took place in connection with the Oklahoma murder. His direct appeal to the murder conviction was unsuccessful and he did not appeal further or file a habeas petition in federal court. While serving the federal life sentence in Texas, he was convicted of murdering a fellow inmate and sentenced to death.
Following the imposition of the death sentence, Doe contends that new evidence came to light that established his actual innocence for the Oklahoma murder and federal robbery. He filed a petition for post-conviction relief in state court and the instant § 2254 petition in federal court two days before the expiration of the one-year statute of limitations for habeas petitions. He also filed a motion to stay the federal § 2254 petition pending outcome of the state court case. He raised the actual innocence claim both as a new constitutional claim and a “gateway” to introduce time-barred constitutional claims such as ineffective assistance of counsel and suppression of exculpatory evidence. The district court judge, adopting the recommendations of a magistrate, dismissed the § 2254 petition without prejudice. It also denied his motion to alter and amend judgment and his request for a certificate of appealability.
The Tenth Circuit reviewed prisoners’ requirements to exhaust all state remedies in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005). The Tenth Circuit discussed that before Rhines and before the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, there was no time limit for filing federal habeas petitions and there was no need for prisoners to raise all claims in state court prior to filing in federal court. However, Rhines and the AEDPA limited these filings and required habeas petitions to be filed within one year of the date the judgment became final. Circuit case law suggested that petitioners nearing the end of the one-year limitations period should file their state court claims and also file § 2254 petitions in the federal district court, asking the district court to stay the proceeding until resolution of the state court claims in order to preserve their federal remedies. Based on a 2010 Tenth Circuit opinion, the magistrate in this case determined that the limitations period would be tolled by the actual innocence claim so a stay was not warranted. During the pendency of this appeal, the Supreme Court decided that a credible showing of actual innocence provides an outright equitable exception to AEDPA’s statute of limitations. Therefore, the petitioner in this case does not have a legitimate concern that his federal claims will be time-barred.
The district court’s dismissal was affirmed.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in Howell v. Trammell on Thursday, September 5, 2013.
This appeal considers two petitions for habeas relief arising from the murder conviction and death sentence of Michael Wayne Howell. The conviction resulted from a crime spree Howell and Mona Lisa Watson committed. On direct appeal, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction but reversed his death sentence and remanded for resentencing based on juror misconduct during the penalty phase of the trial. He was resentenced to death.
Howell’s first habeas petition was in 2002. After the Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia ruled that states could not impose capital punishment on persons with mental impairments, the Tenth Circuit abated that petition and allowed Howell to pursue a mental-disability challenge to his sentence in Oklahoma state court.
In 2005, a state court jury found that Howell was not mentally retarded after an Atkins hearing. Howell then filed a second habeas petition, alleging seventeen grounds for relief from his mental-disability trial, in addition to the five grounds remaining from his first petition that that were never considered by this court. The district court denied all relief and declined to grant a certificate of appealability (COA). The Tenth Circuit denied a COA on the second petition but addressed his first habeas petition that had been held in abeyance and Howell’s motion to reconsider his COA request.
Howell raised multiple challenges to his original guilt phase trial, including that (1) the juror misconduct responsible for reversing his first death sentence also required granting him a new trial on guilt; (2) the admission of Watson’s preliminary hearing testimony at their joint trial violated his Confrontation Clause rights; and (3) one juror’s failure to fully disclose his prior employment history deprived Howell of a fair and impartial jury. He also claimed that (4) his Confrontation Clause rights were violated when Watson’s former attorneys were allowed to testify about prior communications with Watson during his and Watson’s joint trial, a claim which Howell says the OCCA failed to address. He also argued that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective in revealing to the jury that Howell was already on death row during his retrial for sentencing. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of relief on all these claims.
Regarding his second habeas petition, Howell sought a COA on four issues: (1) the applicable burden of proof in Atkins proceedings; (2) prosecutorial misconduct at jury selection; (3) ineffective assistance of counsel; and (4) insufficient evidence to support the jury’s mental retardation finding. Under AEDPA deference standard of review, the court found no reason to grant COA and dismissed his second habeas petition appeal.

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