Opinion ID: 172410
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether McCormick is in custody under Lackawanna

Text: In Lackawanna County District Attorney v. Coss, 532 U.S. at 394, 121 S.Ct. 1567, the Supreme Court refined the rule of Maleng, 490 U.S. at 488, 109 S.Ct. 1923. Maleng held that a habeas petitioner does not remain in custody under a conviction after the sentence imposed for it has fully expired, merely because that prior conviction could be or actually was used to enhance the sentences imposed for any subsequent crimes of which he is convicted. Maleng, 490 U.S. at 492, 109 S.Ct. 1923. However, if a petition putatively challenging an earlier conviction for which the petitioner is no longer in custody can be read as asserting a challenge to a later sentence on which he remains in custody, on the ground that the later sentence was enhanced by the allegedly invalid prior conviction, the petitioner has satisfied the `in custody' requirement for federal habeas jurisdiction. Id. at 493-94, 109 S.Ct. 1923. Maleng left undecided the question whether the [earlier] conviction itself may be subject to challenge in the attack upon the [later] sentences which it was used to enhance. Id. at 494, 109 S.Ct. 1923. The Court answered that question in the negative in Lackawanna, holding that once a state conviction is no longer open to direct or collateral attack in its own right, a habeas petitioner generally may not challenge, on the ground that the expired conviction was unconstitutionally obtained, a later sentence that was enhanced by that expired conviction. Lackawanna, 532 U.S. at 403-04, 121 S.Ct. 1567. The Lackawanna Court crafted an exception to this general rule, however, for  § 2254 petitions that challenge an enhanced sentence on the basis that the prior conviction used to enhance the sentence was obtained where there was a failure to appoint counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment, as set forth in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). Lackawanna, 532 U.S. at 404, 121 S.Ct. 1567 (additional citation omitted). A plurality of the Court went on to recognize a second exception to the general rule: cases in which a petitioner has, through no fault of his own, no means of obtaining timely review of a constitutional claim. Id. at 405, 121 S.Ct. 1567. We have recognized the plurality's second exception as good law. See Broomes v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 1251, 1254 (10th Cir.2004). Crucial to the Lackawanna exceptions is the requirement that [a]s with any § 2254 petition, a petitioner seeking to invoke the exceptions must satisfy the procedural prerequisites for relief[,] including, for example, exhaustion of remedies. Lackawanna, 532 U.S. at 404, 121 S.Ct. 1567. Exhaustion is a doctrine of comity and federalism dictat[ing] that state courts must have the first opportunity to decide a [habeas] petitioner's claims. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 273, 125 S.Ct. 1528. [I]t would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation.... Id. at 274, 125 S.Ct. 1528 (quotation omitted). In sum, the substance of a habeas petitioner's federal claims must be fairly presented to the state courts before they can be raised in federal court, and petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating that he has exhausted his available state remedies. Oyler, 23 F.3d at 300 (citations omitted); see also Sup.Ct. R. 20.4(a); Caver v. Straub, 349 F.3d 340, 345 (6th Cir.2003). [6] Before we may reach the merits of McCormick's claim to the Lackawanna exceptions, then, there are two threshold requirements that must be met. First, we must be able to construe the petition  which lists McCormick's 2001 convictions as the judgment of conviction under attack  as a challenge to his 2004 sentence as enhanced by the 2001 convictions. Second, McCormick must demonstrate that he has fairly presented to the state courts, Oyler, 23 F.3d at 300, that challenge to the enhancement of his 2004 sentence.