Opinion ID: 174346
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Threshold Procedural Requirements

Text: Respondents submit that we should not address the merits of petitioners' vagueness challenges to New York's depraved indifference murder statute for procedural reasons. As to Mannix, respondent argues that he waived his habeas claims by failing to file timely objections to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation in the district court. See Small v. Sec'y of Health & Human Servs., 892 F.2d 15, 16 (2d Cir.1989); see also Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 155, 106 S.Ct. 466, 88 L.Ed.2d 435 (1985). Mannix concedes that his objections to the magistrate's report were never received by the district court. And, it is clear from the record that the district court was not on notice of Mannix's objections at the time it accepted the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge. Mannix, 390 F.Supp.2d at 282 (noting that [n]o objections ha[d] been filed). Nonetheless, Mannix contends that his objections were timely filed under the prison mailbox rule because he delivered them to prison officials on June 3, 2005. See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 270, 108 S.Ct. 2379, 101 L.Ed.2d 245 (1988); Fed. R.App. P. 4(c)(1). We need not specifically decide whether the prison mailbox rule applies in the context of objections to a report and recommendation, cf. Noble v. Kelly, 246 F.3d 93, 97 (2d Cir.2001), or whether Mannix's objections were waived through lack of diligence on his part, compare Huizar v. Carey, 273 F.3d 1220, 1223 (9th Cir.2001), with Allen v. Culliver, 471 F.3d 1196, 1198 (11th Cir.2006), because the waiver rule is nonjurisdictional, Spence v. Superintendent, Great Meadow Corr. Facility, 219 F.3d 162, 174 (2d Cir.2000), and we conclude, in any event, that Mannix's claims fail on the merits. As to Archer, respondent asserts that his claim should be deemed exhausted and procedurally defaulted. See, e.g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729-30, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). Archer maintains that the state waived its procedural default defense by failing to raise it in the district court. Before AEDPA, it was well established that procedural default is normally a defense that the State is obligated to raise and preserve if it is not to lose the right to assert the defense thereafter. Trest v. Cain, 522 U.S. 87, 89, 118 S.Ct. 478, 139 L.Ed.2d 444 (1997) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Under AEDPA, however, [a] State shall not be deemed to have waived the exhaustion requirement or be estopped from reliance upon the requirement unless the State, through counsel, expressly waives the requirement. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(3); see also Lurie v. Wittner, 228 F.3d 113, 123 (2d Cir.2000). Again, we need not decide whether AEDPA disfavors a state's waiver of its procedural default defense when that default is based on petitioner's failure properly to exhaust, compare Franklin v. Johnson, 290 F.3d 1223, 1231 (9th Cir. 2002), with McNair v. Campbell, 416 F.3d 1291, 1305-06, n. 13 (11th Cir.2005), because, Archer's claim, like Mannix's, fails in any event on the merits, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(2); see also Zarvela v. Artuz, 364 F.3d 415, 417 (2d Cir.2004).