Source: https://habeascorpusblog.typepad.com/habeas_corpus_blog/standard-of-review/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 10:49:14+00:00

Document:
I am happy to report that my powers of prediction were off! And this is good news for habeas petitioners.
Last week, in my post about Johnson v. Williams, I stated that a likely casualty of Williams would be Pearson v. Winston. As I mentioned previously, in that case, the Fourth Circuit concluded that, where the state court failed to develop the factual record with respect to petitioner's claims, there was no adjudication on the merits. In that situation, there would be de novo review and the federal courts could consider new evidence. It seemed like a likely candidate for a GVR after Williams.
But the good news is that the Court denied the State's cert. petition on Monday. Here's a link to the order list. Thank you relist watch on SCOTUSblog for pointing that out.
So Winston remains good law and, for now, offers a potential path around Pinholster.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its long awaited decision in Johnson v. Williams. The Court held that, for purposes of §2254(d), when a state court rules against a defendant in an opinion that rejects some of the defendant’s claims but does not expressly address a federal claim, a federal habeas court must presume, subject to rebuttal, that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits.
I have to say that this decision has left me a little perplexed and a lot upset. My inflammatory opinion is that the Court's current antipathy towards habeas has led it to issue an opinion that is simply divorced from any conceivable purpose of habeas corpus review. While inflammatory, I believe that it is compltely justified.
Here's what I mean: For various reasons, state courts often fail to address constitutional claims in their decisions even though defendants specifically raise them. To me, the whole point of the "adjudicated on the merits" language was a check on the state courts. It basically said to them, "you can have a tremendous amount of deference, but you need to actually adjudicate the claim to get it." It encouraged the state courts to address constitutional claims. It took some of the harshness out of the restrictions on habeas review wrought by the AEDPA because it was saying that you don't need habeas review because your constitutional rights will be protected in state courts.
Now, that's not true. The state courts have permission now to ignore the constitutional issue and still get deference. I think this is going to have a deleterious effect on constitutional rights. It creates an incentive for state courts to ignore them, knowing that a critical check in the system has been loosened. It's not controversial to say that the original purpose of habeas review was to be a check on the state courts to make sure that constitutional rights were being adequately protected. This decision is clearly contrary to what habeas was originally meant to be.
But it's not even consistent with the new purported purposes of habeas under the AEDPA. This current Court has repeatedly stated that the purpose of the AEDPA was to make the state courts the primary forum for litigating constitutional claims and that habeas was just to prevent extreme malfunctions in that process. Well, how is this decision consistent with that? Under Williams, state courts don't even have to address constitutional claims and now there is a presumption that they are entitled to the super-high, "difficult to meet" deference of 2254(d). What about that logic is consistent with having the state courts as the primary forum for litigating constitutional claims? And, shouldn't the fact that the state courts failed to address a constitutional claim be evidence of a malfunction in the system? Isn't that consistent with giving the federal courts more power to step in? It's not logical. It should be the opposite.
It's nothing more than antipathy for habeas guiding the result.
Oh wait, there's the irrebutable presumption. Doesn't that make it better? The most I can say for it is that it gives petitioner's a chance. But I really have no idea how that's going to play out. I mean, why isn't that overcome when the state specifically fails to address the constitutional issue? I really have no clue at this point what else the Court is asking a petitioner to do to overcome the presumption.
At this point, I think I'd like to break out the uncommon sense meter. Try explaining to a layman that in habeas law there is a presumption that an issue was decided on the merits even though there was no actual decision on the merits on that issue. Just try. I dare you. You are going to sound pretty crazy. I think this may be a new high score on the meter. And that says a lot.
But what's most depressing about all of this is that every judge on the Court agrees with the notion that silence=adjudicated on the merits.* There is not a single judge on the Court right now that is willing to take a principled stand that federal courts should be stepping in when the state courts fail in their responsibility to address constitutional claims. It's really, really sad.
*To note, Scalia would have gone even further and not had the presumption.
One other likely casaulty of Williams is the Fourth Circuit's decision in Pearson v. Winston. In that case, the Fourth Circuit concluded that, where the state court failed to develop the factual record with respect to petitioner's claims, there was no adjudication on the merits. In that situation, there would be de novo review and the federal courts could consider new evidence. It was a logical path around the unfairness of Pinholster. I am not sure if this logic will be upheld after Williams. The cert. petition in that case was being held by the Court.* I am guessing that it's going to be GVR'd after the next conference.
*Actually, the hold in that case was what had originally gotten me worried about what was going to happen in Williams. As I originally discussed, it did not appear from the argument in Williams that the Court was going to go this far with its opinion. But there really wasn't a reason to hold Winston unless the Court was going to go in the direction that it did. Now that it has gone this far, it has an impact on what happened in that case.
I have complained on here multiple times about how the decision in Pinholster has resulted in unfairness in a significant way: a state court’s decision to limit the factual record on which to analyze a constitution claim is given preclusive effect in federal court. In more practical terms, what I am saying is that, even where a state court’s decision to reject a request for an evidentiary hearing was unreasonable, there is nothing a federal court can do about it.
* To note, the Ninth Circuit did order Detrich en banc on October 3 (see my en banc reheard post). As a result, "The three-judge panel opinion shall not be cited as precedent by or to any court of the Ninth Circuit." Technically, I am not citing it to any court of the Ninth Circuit, so it's okay. Also the en banc order did not say that the panel decision was vacated, so it's technically still on the books. At the same time, the dissent in Detrich did take issue with the majority considering new evidence under 2254(d)(2). So, I guess the en banc in Dietrich could end up vitiating this part of the decision.
*That’s a quote from a recent decision in Hibbler v. Benedetti. I will say nothing more about that decision as [D/D] my new office represents petitioner in that case.
Actually, this reasoning pre-dates Pinholster. Chief Judge Kozinski created it in a case called Taylor v. Maddox. It’s a must-read. In Taylor, CJK outlines the different ways in which a state court’s factual findings can be unreasonable. He describes this as an “intrinsic” analysis, as opposed to an “extrinsic” analysis. An “intrinsic” analysis is one that solely looks at the state court record. An “extrinsic” one is one that considers evidence outside of the state court record. Follow me so far?
The importance of this distinction has to do with the two different subsections in 2254 that address the level of deference to be given to state court factual findings: 2254(d)(2) and 2254(e)(1). 2254(d)(2) talks about factual findings that are unreasonable. 2254(e)(1) grants state court fact findings a presumption of correctness that may only be overcome by clear and convincing evidence. The Supreme Court has yet to address the interplay of these two subsections. They granted cert. on it a couple of years ago in Wood v. Allen, but did not end up addressing it in the opinion.
In the meantime, there is CJK's analysis in Taylor. He did his logical best to reconcile two provisions that are very difficult to reconcile. He basically said that a court should first engage in an intrinsic analysis under 2254(d)(2). If the factual finding survives the intrinsic analysis, then it gets cloaked (CJK used "dressed") with the presumption of correctness under 2254(e)(1). A petitioner can uncloak (or, I guess, undress) those findings with extrinsic evidence, i.e. new evidence outside the state court record.
I love the logic of it. But I am worried that the “extrinsic” aspect of 2254(e)(1) is inconsistent with the holding of Pinholster. If there is nothing unreasonable about what the state court did under 2254(d), I am not sure if a federal court will be allowed to consider any evidence outside the state court record in its eventual analysis under 2254(d)(1). Taylor's analysis currently does allow that.
Or maybe I should be viewing it in the reverse. If CJK was correct in his reading of the statute and this is the only way to reconcile these two provisions, then Pinholster’s interpretation of 2254(d)(1) is inconsistent with how the rest of the statute operates. Is that a way to challenge Pinholster? It’s a nice dream I guess, but that ship may have already sailed. At the same time, it's difficult to see how a petitioner can overcome a presumption of correctness without relying on all available evidence, including evidence outside the state court record. According to CJK in Taylor, that is precisely what the AEDPA allows under 2254(e)(1).
Complicated stuff, made even more complicated by the unfairness of Pinholster. But at least, for now, the Ninth Circuit does allow for a way around Pinholster when the state court unreasonably denies a request for an evidentiary hearing.
In a later post, I'll discuss another interesting post-Pinholster case that addresses new evidence presented in a federal habeas petition. That case is called Gonzalez v. Wong.
Back in June, I had an article published in the Criminal Law Reporter that focused on the numerous (what I call) lack-of-deference summary reversals from the Supreme Court in habeas cases over the preceding 14 months.
The thesis of the article is essentially that the Supreme Court has been increasing its use of the summary reversal in habeas cases to send a message to the lower courts that the Court was keeping a close eye on every habeas grant to make sure that the federal courts were engaging in the appropriate amount of deference to the state courts under the 2254(d) standard of review or else face the public embarrassment of a summary reversal.
I then applied that thesis to the Second Circuit's highly unusual about face in Rivera v. Cuomo. The Second Circuit obviously received the Court's message. I argue that the circuit court's fear of a Supreme Court summary reversal was the main motivation for reversing its own prior habeas grant.
Dusting Off the Old Blogging Machine . . .
Thought that today would be a good day to jump back into some habeas corpus blogging due to the two very interesting summary orders out of the Second Circuit today.
This post will cover Montstream v. Superintendent, 11-802-pr.
Petitioner pled guilty to, among other things, manslaughter and possession of a weapon and was given consecutive sentences. Petitioner argued that this was illegal/unconstitutional because sentences for crime A committed with a weapon and the possession of that same weapon with the intent to use it unlawfully cannot run consecutively when the intent to use the weapon was solely based on the commission of crime A. Very recently, the New York Court of Appeals confirmed that this was true. Hence, petitioner's consecutive sentences are, at the very least, illegal under state law. The question though for habeas is: are they unconstitutional under the Double Jeopardy Clause? Or more relevant for habeas purposes: is it an unreasonable application of clearly established double jeopardy principles for the state courts to uphold the sentences?
The Second Circuit concludes that petitioner has not met this standard. The court frames the issue as: whether a state court's erroneous application of a state concurrent sentence statute violates double jeopardy? Relying upon some Supreme Court precedent, petitioner argued that the only sentences that the Legislature authorizes can survive double jeopardy.
This is where the deference comes in. The Second Circuit states, "Reasonable judges may well find that argument persuasive were the issue presented for de novo review." However, the rejection of that argument would not be unreasonable. It pointed out that there was no Supreme Court precedent that dictated that conclusion, particularly where the NY statute limiting consecutive sentences gives broader protection than the double jeopardy clause. The Supreme Court has never held that state legislatures have the power to expand double jeopardy protections in that way. The Second Circuit concluded that it is "at least a debatable question whether the Court would extend its [prior] holdings" in the manner that petitioner suggests. Because it is debatable, then it cannot win on habeas.
And, in a conclusion that does not quite follow from the rest of the opinion, the Second Circuit says: "There can be no dispute, however, that the Supreme Court itself has never clearly answered the question. It follows, therefore, that we must dismiss [the] petition."
Pretty geeky. Don't expect an image macro in ever post from now on.
Update: I edited this a little for clarity. And I completely forgot to include the "Oh Boy" video. I can't believe I neglected to do that, considering that's why I used "Oh Boy" in the title. That's now at the bottom of the post.
Today, the Supreme Court issued another per curiam summary reversal. It was in the previous relisted case of Bobby v. Dixon. Unlike last week's, this one is unanimous.
But this one is causing me a great deal of concern. I have previously written how I believe that the decision from last term in Harrington v. Richter was a game changer. Here is where we see just how profound that impact is. But it's not necessarily in the result in this case. It's hard to say that Richter was outcome determinative in this summary reversal. It looks as if the Sixth Circuit didn't do a great job justifying their opinion.
But the language that the Court uses here builds upon Richter in a really troubling way. As we all know by now, in order to get relief under 2254(d)(1), a petitioner must show that the state court's decision was an "unreasonable" application of clearly established law. Although the Court had previously stated that "unreasonable" was difficult to quantify and qualify, the Court last term in Richter changed that and gave it a precise meaning. To show that something is "unreasonable" a petitioner must show "that the state court’s ruling onthe claim being presented in federal court was so lackingin justification that there was an error well understoodand comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." When I read this, it felt to me like this standard was nearly impossible to meet.
And now the entire Supreme Court -- and I mean all 9 judges -- is saying just that. The Court says that, to meet this standard, the state court's error must be "grievous."
Definition of grievous: flagrant; outrageous; atrocious.
Synonyms (from same link): deplorable, lamentable, calamitous, heinous, flagitious, dreadful, shameful, iniquitous.
Later, the Court says that the state court's error must be "egregious."
Definition of egregious: extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant.
Synonyms (from same link): gross, outrageous, notorious.
I wish I was making a joke here, but what happened to "unreasonable"? Grievous and egregious? They are not even synonyms for unreasonable. It's a step up from unreasonable.
That's the impact of that new standard in Richter. It has moved the needle so far to the right that the showing is no longer "unreasonable." The burdensome Richter standard has created the space for the Court to use descriptive words that go beyond "unreasonable." Now, a petitioner must show that the state court's decision was extraordinarily or outrageously bad. Of course, that is not what the statute says. But, unfortunately, that is now the test. Just mindblowing to me.
(1) resulted in a decision that was an outrageously or extraordinarily wrong application of clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States . . .
Not quire sure what comes next. Seriously, what adjective is worse than "grievous" or "egregious"? Actually, wait, don't answer that question. I am worred that the Court will consider using it in the next summary reversal.
Second Circuit issued a summary order today in Cortijo v. Bennett, 10-2348-pr. Mostly straightforward, but I'll note one thing in the analysis section.
ANALYSIS: Just wanted to point out that the new, nearly impossible to meet definition of "unreasonable" that the Supreme Court created in Richter is beginning to filter down into the lower courts. This is not the first time that I have seen it used, but I thought I'd mention it.
“[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786-87 (2011).
I haven't really discussed this too much around here, but that new definition of what makes something unreasonable silently overruled Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 409-11 (2000) (O'Connor, J., concurring, but writing for the majority on this part), in which the Supreme Court rejected an almost identical definition, stating that it added an unjustified subjective extra layer to the analysis. But now the Supreme Court has simply replaced the previously improper "all reasonable jurists" test set forth in Williams with the just as subjective "all fairminded judges" test. Haven't I said that this may be the worst ever Supreme Court term for habeas petitioners?

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 §2254
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.