Source: https://openjurist.org/237/f3d/147
Timestamp: 2017-08-21 12:46:57
Document Index: 201528089

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2254', '§ 2244', '§ 125', '§ 1915', '§ 2244', '§ 2254', '§ 2254']

237 F3d 147 James Williams v. Christopher Artuz | OpenJurist
237 F. 3d 147 - James Williams v. Christopher Artuz
237 F3d 147 James Williams v. Christopher Artuz
237 F.3d 147 (2nd Cir. 2001)
JAMES WILLIAMS, Petitioner-Appellant,
CHRISTOPHER ARTUZ, Respondent-Appellee.
Docket No. 99-2195
Argued: August 29, 2000
James Williams appeals from Judge Schwartz's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Appellant contends that the state trial court's restrictions on entering and exiting the courtroom during a key witness's testimony deprived him of a constitutionally required public trial under Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 48 (1984), even though the court did not exclude the public from any portion of the trial. The state argues, first, that the petition was untimely and, second, that no closure within the meaning of Waller took place. We hold that appellant's petition was timely because a state prisoner's conviction becomes final for purposes of the one-year limitations period under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A) ("AEDPA"), when a writ of certiorari has been denied by the United States Supreme Court or the time for seeking such a writ has expired. As to the merits, we hold that the state appellate court did not issue a ruling contrary to, nor did it unreasonably apply, Waller when it ruled that the trial court's order limiting courtroom entrance and exit during the testimony of a key witness, but not excluding the public from any portion of the trial, does not violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. We therefore affirm.
Appellant was charged with murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees under N.Y. Penal Law §§ 125.25(1)-(2), 265.03, and 265.02(4). The case went to trial before a jury in New York Supreme Court on January 23, 1991. On the morning of January 28, the state called Nicole Powell, the sole witness connecting appellant to the murder. Early in Powell's testimony, the trial judge found it necessary to admonish spectators in the courtroom to "[b]e quiet, . . . and sit down. If there's any talking you can go out and not come back." Shortly before the afternoon session of Powell's testimony, the trial judge instructed court officers to control entry to or exit from the courtroom during the remainder of Powell's testimony by locking the courtroom doors. Spectators were informed by the court officers that anyone who wished to enter or leave the courtroom before Powell's testimony could do so, but once her testimony began, spectators would be permitted to enter or leave only during breaks. However, the trial judge made no announcement of the closure on the record at that time. Whether a court officer informed the parties of the intended procedure off the record is disputed.
The district judge adopted the magistrate judge's Report and Recommendation in its entirety, dismissed the petition, and denied a certificate of appealability pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3), stating that any appeal would not be taken in good faith. See Williams v. Artuz, No. 97 Civ. 8740, slip op. at 1-2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 5, 1999) (unpublished order). Appellant filed a notice of appeal and sought a certificate of appealability and the assignment of counsel. We assigned counsel and granted a certificate of appealability limited to the Sixth Amendment claim.
Appellant's Sixth Amendment claim does not purport to arise from a decision of the United States Supreme Court rendered subsequent to his conviction. AEDPA imposes a one-year limitations period for petitions based on law existing at the time of the conviction, such as appellant's, starting from "the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). Although appellant filed his habeas petition within one year of the Supreme Court's denial of his petition for a writ of certiorari, more than one year had elapsed after the New York Court of Appeals' final denial of leave to appeal. The state contends that the petition was untimely under AEDPA because the limitations period ran from the conclusion of direct review in the state courts. We disagree.
We have stated in dicta that "direct review," as used in Section 2244(d)(1)(A), refers to direct review by both the state courts and the United States Supreme Court, so that a petitioner's "conviction bec[omes] final for [AEDPA] purposes when his time to seek direct review in the United States Supreme Court by writ of certiorari expire[s]." Ross v. Artuz, 150 F.3d 97, 98 (2d Cir. 1998); accord Acosta v. Artuz, 221 F.3d 117, 120 (2d Cir. 2000); Smith v. McGinnis, 208 F.3d 13, 15 & n.1 (2d Cir. 2000).1 Earlier, we took the opposite view in dicta in Reyes v. Keane, 90 F.3d 676, 678 (2d Cir. 1996), overruled on other grounds by Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 336 (1997).2
The circuits that have addressed this precise issue -- as well as several district courts in this circuit -- have held that "direct review," as used in Section 2244(d)(1)(A), includes direct review by the United States Supreme Court via writ of certiorari, and that the limitations period for state prisoners therefore begins to run only after the denial of certiorari or the expiration of time for seeking certiorari. See, e.g., Bowen v. Roe, 188 F.3d 1157, 1158-60 (9th Cir. 1999); Smith v. Bowersox, 159 F.3d 345, 347-48 (8th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1187 (1999); Leslie v. Artuz, 72 F. Supp. 2d 267, 274-75 (S.D.N.Y. 1999); Carracedo v. Artuz, 51 F. Supp. 2d 283, 284 (S.D.N.Y. 1999); Manley v. Kelley, 60 F. Supp. 2d 121, 122 (S.D.N.Y. 1998).
We agree and conclude that appellant's petition was timely. As the Eighth Circuit recently stated, "[r]eview of a state criminal conviction by the Supreme Court of the United States is considered direct review of the conviction," and it is clear that federal courts have long considered "the phrase 'final by the conclusion of direct review' to include an opportunity to seek certiorari." Smith, 159 F.3d at 347. "When Congress elects to use terminology that has become commonplace in court decisions in a particular field of law, the rules of statutory construction call for us to define the statute's terms in harmony with that accepted judicial meaning." Id. We agree and hold that the AEDPA limitations period specified in Section 2244(d)(1)(A) does not begin to run until the completion of direct appellate review in the state court system and either the completion of certiorari proceedings in the United States Supreme Court, or -- if the prisoner elects not to file a petition for certiorari -- the time to seek direct review via certiorari has expired. Appellant's petition, which was filed within one year of the denial of certiorari, is therefore timely, and we proceed to the merits.
Under AEDPA, a federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 only if the state court's ruling is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); accord Williams v. Taylor, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 1523 (2000) (O'Connor, J., writing for the Court).
It is clear that Waller -- which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1984 -- was "clearly established" in 1996, when the First Department affirmed appellant's conviction. See Williams v. Taylor, 120 S.Ct. at 1523 ("[The phrase, 'clearly established Federal law,'] refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme] Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision."). Waller holds that a courtroom closure will pass muster under the Sixth Amendment if the following four-factor test is met: "[1] the party seeking to close the hearing must advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced, [2] the closure must be no broader than necessary to protect that interest, [3] the trial court must consider reasonable alternatives to closing the proceeding, and [4] it must make findings adequate to support the closure." 467 U.S. at 48 (citing Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 511-12 (1984)).
Waller applied the above test to a complete courtroom closure during the entirety of a seven-day suppression hearing, during which the matters arguably justifying closure appear to have been limited to only two-and-a-half hours of the proceeding. See id. at 42. In the instant case, however, both parties agree that the closure was neither complete -- insofar as it did not exclude the public for any portion of the trial -- nor did it last for the entire trial. Rather, the locking of the courtroom doors excluded initially those members of the public who arrived late to court on the afternoon of January 28, 1991 and thereafter members of the public who had no notice of the limited times for entry into the courtroom and arrived while Powell was testifying. Further, those procedures were in place only during Powell's testimony and not during any other part of the proceedings. We therefore cannot say that the First Department's decision in the instant case was "contrary to" Waller, because it did not "appl[y] a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court's] cases," nor did it "confront[] a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrive[] at a result different from [its] precedent." Williams v. Taylor, 120 S.Ct. at 1519-20.
In the present case, the trial judge concluded that traffic in and out of the courtroom and disruptions in the gallery were preventing the jury from devoting its exclusive attention to a key witness. Locking the courtroom doors to restrict the flow of traffic into and out of the courtroom without denying access to any person who arrived on time was, therefore, a "reasonable time, place, and manner restriction[] . . . in the interest of the fair administration of justice." Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 581 n.18 (1980) (plurality opinion).
Finally, we address appellant's claim that his conviction is constitutionally invalid because he was not informed of the closure before it occurred on January 28.3 We are aware of no Supreme Court holding that states that a trial court's failure to provide notice to the parties of its implementation of temporal access limitations constitutes a violation of the Sixth Amendment, and appellant points to none. The district court was therefore barred, by AEDPA, from granting relief on this claim. See Williams v. Taylor, 120 S.Ct. at 1523.
Although Ross has been cited -- in this circuit and elsewhere -- for the proposition that the AEDPA limitations period for a state prisoner does not run until after the time to seek direct review via certiorari has expired, see, e.g., Acosta, 221 F.3d at 120; Smith, 208 F.3d at 15 n.1; Bowen v. Roe, 188 F.3d 1157, 1159 (9th Cir. 1999); Kapral v. United States, 166 F.3d 565, 575 (3d Cir. 1999); Manley v. Kelley, 60 F. Supp.2d 121, 122 (S.D.N.Y. 1998), that proposition was not necessary to the holding, because Ross's petition was filed more than one year after his conviction became final whether measured by the denial of leave to appeal by the New York Court of Appeals or the expiration of his time to petition for certiorari. The issue decided in Ross was whether prisoners whose convictions became final prior to the effective date of AEDPA have a one-year grace period starting on the effective date. See Ross, 150 F.3d at 103.