Source: https://m.openjurist.org/269/f3d/544/in-re-john-w-byrd-jr
Timestamp: 2018-10-21 01:49:03
Document Index: 134934770

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2244', '§ 2254', '§ 2244', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2244', '§2244', '§ 2244', '§2244', '§ 2244', '§2244', '§2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§2244']

269 F3d 544 In Re: John W Byrd Jr | OpenJurist
269 F. 3d 544 - In Re: John W Byrd Jr
269 F3d 544 In Re: John W Byrd Jr
269 F.3d 544 (6th Cir. 2001)
In re: John W. Byrd, Jr., Movant.
Byrd was convicted by a jury and sentenced in 1983. He was originally scheduled to be executed on January 27, 1984. Byrd's convictions and sentences were upheld on direct appeal to the Ohio Court of Appeals, see State v. Byrd, No. C-830676, B-831662 (Ohio Ct. App. Feb. 5 1986), on direct appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, see State v. Byrd, 512 N.E.2d 611 (Ohio 1987), and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. See Byrd v. Ohio, 484 U.S.1037 (1988). Byrd also filed a motion for a new trial in December 1983, which the trial court denied in September 1989. The Ohio Court of Appeals upheld the trial court, see State v. Byrd, No. C-890659 (Ohio Ct. App. Feb. 13, 1991), and the Ohio Supreme Court subsequently declined jurisdiction. See State v. Byrd, 574 N.E.2d 1092 (Ohio 1991).
Under the AEDPA, a petitioner is required, prior to filing a second or successive habeas corpus petition in the district court, to seek authorization "in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A).3Under the AEDPA, a second or successive habeas corpus application under § 2254 that was not presented in a prior application "shall be dismissed unless" the applicant shows "the factual predicate" for his new claim of innocence "could not have been discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence," or that the claim "relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(2)(A) & (B).4
The Hanserd court noted that under pre-AEDPA jurisprudence, a federal prisoner who wished to file a second or subsequent § 2255 motion was required to prove in the district court either that the motion did not constitute "abuse of the writ" or that he had made a "colorable showing of factual innocence," as required by McCleskey. Id. at 928. The court determined that Hanserd satisfied both of these criteria, because he could show both "cause" and "prejudice" for failing to raise the Bailey issue in the first motion. The court found that Hanserd had demonstrated cause for his failure to raise the issue in his first motion because at the time, this Court had supported a broad definition of "use" under the statute and had specifically rejected the claim in his direct appeal. Id. at 929. Hanserd also made a sufficient showing of both prejudice and actual innocence, because "it appear[ed] from the record that he pleaded guilty and was convicted for conduct that is, underBailey, not criminal." Id. The Hanserd court therefore concluded that "under the old abuse-of the-writ standard Hanserd would be entitled to raise his Bailey claim in a § 2255 motion." Id.
We, therefore, analyzed the effect that AEDPA had on a claim, such as that raised by Hanserd, which would have survived the old "abuse-of-the-writ" test, see McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 494-95, . . . (1991), under the Supreme Court's decision in Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 280, 114 S.Ct 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229. We concluded that AEDPA does not apply to a movant seeking to raise a Bailey claim after having filed a pre-AEDPA motion to vacate because applying AEDPA would have a retroactive effect on the movant's pre-AEDPA conduct, i.e., he would be barred from filing a second motion to vacate under AEDPA whereas, before the Act, he would have been permitted to file his second motion.
The Hanserd exception, as clarified by Sonshine and Green, does not apply here. Sonshine makes clear that the AEDPA gatekeeping provisions of § 2244(b)(2) cannot be avoided simply because the initial habeas petition was filed pre-AEDPA. Furthermore, it is apparent from Hanserd, Sonshine, and Green that the exception applies where the petitioner was unable because of the then-current state of the law to raise a claim in his first federal petition. In Hanserd, the movant's request was based on an intervening Supreme Court decision that gave the movant an argument that he could not have previously raised in his initial habeas petition. Thus, the movant in Hanserd had cause to excuse his abuse of the writ. He also obviously established prejudice, since the Bailey decision made it clear that Hanserd had been convicted for innocent behavior. The movants in Sonshine and Green could not establish cause because the new claims they sought to raise were not new or novel.
In short, Byrd was on notice, as early as the filing of his first federal habeas petition in 1994, that his actual innocence claim, which he had admittedly known about since 1989, could have been raised and would have excused the procedural default of failing to raise it in the state courts. Instead, Byrd's actual innocence claim lay dormant through the filing and appeal of his first federal habeas petition and denial of certiorari, not to mention both the state appellate process and postconviction proceedings,6 and was not resurrected until January 2001, nearly twelve years later after Byrd admittedly became aware of it. Thus, unlike the movant in Hanserd, Byrd could have raised his actual innocence claim in his first, pre-AEDPA federal habeas petition. And Byrd actually knew this. In an "Application for Stay of Proceedings to Allow Investigation and Discovery of Potential Claims and For Leave to Amend Petition to Comply With McClesky v. Zant, 113 S.Ct. 1454 (1991)," filed on March 7, 1994, he stated:
Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 18 (1963) (construing 1948 version of §2244; holding that new-claim successive petitions were barred "only if there had been some abuse of the writ," which the Court described as above). See also United States v. MacDonald, 966 F.2d 854, 860 (4th Cir. 1992) (holding that defense counsel's strategic decision to withhold certain evidence did not amount to cause; stating that "[s]uch deliberate by-pass clearly cannot survive abuse of the writ analysis on a second habeas appeal"; citing McCleskey); Gunn v. Newsome, 881 F.2d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 1989) ("If the petitioner knowingly and deliberately withheld the claim from a prior petition, then he has abused the writ."). Furthermore, as the Supreme Court's discussion in McCleskey of the history of the abuse of the writ doctrine makes clear, Byrd's deliberate abandonment of his actual innocence claim, although not the only example of conduct that disentitled a petitioner to relief, is the classic one. See McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 479-90 (discussing the origins and meaning of the abuse of the writ doctrine).
[a]mong other things, our order granted Petitioner "120 days to allow for further investigation and discovery of possible habeas claims," id. at 1187-88 [Collins v. Byrd, 510 U.S. 1185 (1994) (Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of the application to vacate stay of execution)] . . . as well as "leave . . . to amend the petition within sixty (60) days of this order to include any newly discovered claims[.] Id. at 1187-88[.]
Federal courts retain the authority to issue the writ of habeas corpus in a further, narrow class of cases despite a petitioner's failure to show cause for a procedural default. These are extraordinary instances when a constitutional violation probably has caused the conviction of one innocent of the crime. We have described this class of cases as implicating a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Murray v. Carrier, supra, 477 U.S. at 485, 106 S.Ct., at 2643.
Byrd acknowledges these facts in his Memorandum in Support, but nonetheless attempts to explain the inconsistency with his affidavits as "understandable" because "[t]wenty year old defendants who go on trial are not eager to be convicted of serious crimes with long sentences." Byrd's Memorandum in Support at 39. Byrd further attempts to minimize the absolute contradictions by proclaiming that "Brewer readily admits in his 2001 affidavit that his trial testimony was not truthful." Id. The question for this Court then is: "Was Brewer lying in 1983, was Brewer lying in 1989, or is he lying now?" This is certainly not the kind of "clear and convincing evidence" that would prevent any reasonable juror from finding Byrd eligible for the death penalty.
Byrd's renewed attacks on trial witness Armstead's credibility, to the extent they are not barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1), do not provide "actual innocence" sufficient to excuse an abuse of the writ. Cf. Clark v. Lewis, 1 F.3d 814, 824 (9th Cir. 1993) (allegation that prosecution witness could have been impeached by allegedly withheld evidence did not constitute a credible claim of "actual innocence"sufficient to show that the petitioner was actually innocent of the death penalty).
Byrd does not characterize his motion as such. Rather, the motion is styled as "John Byrd's Motion [to] Determine Whether 28 U.S.C. §2244(b) of the AEDPA Applies to His Case." As relief, he requests that "this Court [] determine that § 2244 of the AEDPA does not apply to him." In the alternative he "asks the Court to grant a stay and remand his case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing into whether his evidence meets Schlup's actual innocence gateway standard for filing a second petition." He also states that "[i]f the Court determines that §2244(b) does not apply to Byrd's case, he will immediately file in the district court the second habeas petition he tendered to this motion." However cast, Byrd is seeking the permission required by 28 U.S.C. §2244(b)(3)(A) to file as second habeas petition.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(C), "[t]he court of appeals may authorize the filing of a second or successive application only if it determines that the application makes prima facie showing that the application satisfies the requirements of this subsection." Furthermore, "[t]he grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to file a second or successive application shall not be appealable and shall not be the subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari." 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E). See also In re King, 190 F.3d 479 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (holding that denial of permission to file a second or successive habeas petition under AEDPA is not subject to en banc review). Although Byrd's initial federal habeas petition predated the effective date of the AEDPA, this attempt at filing a second habeas petition is clearly governed by the AEDPA. Cf. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (2000) (holding that an appeal from the dismissal of a habeas corpus petition after the effective date of the AEDPA is governed by AEDPA, regardless of whether the habeas petition was filed in the district court before or after AEDPA's effective date). See also Steward v. Martinez-Villareal, 523 U.S. 637, 643 (1998) (noting that had the prisoner's current request for relief been a second application, it "plainly should have been dismissed" under § 2244(b) of the AEDPA, even though his initial federal habeas petition was filed in 1993, prior to the enactment of the AEDPA.
Section 2244(b)(2) contains a third basis for permitting a second or successive petition, that is not relevant in this case.
Understanding the procedural posture of this matter is critical to an understanding of why there is no legal basis upon which a stay of execution and a continuation of this matter may be granted. Byrd concedes that the initial determination of whether the AEDPA applies to this case must be made by this court, and not the district court. The vehicle for obtaining that determination is a motion under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(3) for an order authorizing the filing of a successive petition. Had Byrd simply filed his petition in the district court, that court would have been required under our precedent to transfer the matter here for our determination of whether to authorize the filing. See In re Sims, 111 F.3d 45, 47 (6th Cir. 1997). In short, all roads lead to the requirement that Byrd specifically move for authority to file a successive petition.
Having been constrained to treat Byrd's motion as a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A), a majority of this panel has concluded that the motion must be denied because the AEDPA does apply to Byrd's attempt to obtain habeas relief, and that Byrd cannot satisfy the requirements imposed by the AEDPA on the filing of a successive habeas petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (b)(2) and (C). And that conclusion is neither appealable nor is it permitted to be the subject of a petition for rehearing or a petition for certiorari. See 28 U.S.C. §2244(E).