Opinion ID: 763540
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exhaustion and Procedural Bar

Text: 14 Normally, before habeas relief may be granted a Petitioner is required to exhaust his remedies in state courts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). Additionally, such relief is unavailable for federal claims defaulted in state court on an adequate and independent state ground, absent a showing of cause for the default and prejudice resulting therefrom, or a showing that the failure to grant habeas relief would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991). 15 Respondent conceded that Petitioner had exhausted his ineffective assistance claim as presented, and argued on the merits that the failure to file a petition for rehearing was solely a matter of state law for which habeas would not lie. See Aplt.App. at 116, 124-26, 285. As construed by the district court, however, Respondent argued that any Cooper claim in the federal petition was both unexhausted and procedurally barred because it had not been raised on state direct appeal. See id. at 286, 297. The district court apparently agreed and further remarked that references to Cooper contained in Petitioner's state post-conviction pleadings were insufficient to adequately raise the issue before the state courts; however, it determined that exhaustion of this claim would be futile because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals would find the claim procedurally barred for failure to raise it on direct appeal. See Coleman, 501 U.S. at 735 n. 1, 111 S.Ct. 2546. The district court observed that the Oklahoma courts had fully resolved Petitioner's competency. 16 In determining whether a state procedural bar rule is an adequate and independent ground to bar federal review of a constitutional claim, a federal habeas court must apply the state's rule in effect at the time of the purported procedural default. See Rogers, 173 F.3d at 1289-90; Walker, 167 F.3d at 1344-45. No argument that an incorrect standard was used to determine competency was made at the time of Petitioner's direct appeal (1992-93) which occurred prior to Cooper. 17 In support of its conclusion that the state courts would find the claim procedurally barred, the district court cited Walker v. State, 933 P.2d 327, 338-39 (Okla.Crim.App.1997), a capital case finding Cooper claims barred if not raised on direct appeal under the 1995 amendments to Oklahoma's capital post-conviction procedures, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22, § 1089(C)(1) & (D)(9)(a) & (b) (West 1999 Cum.Supp.). See also Rogers v. State, 934 P.2d 1093, 1096 (Okla.Crim.App.1997) (capital case stating that We have declined to apply Cooper on post-conviction review.) (footnote omitted). In this non-capital case, it is not at all clear that Oklahoma would find the Cooper claim barred for failure to raise it on direct appeal under the applicable statutory provision, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22, § 1086 (West 1986). See Valdez v. State, 933 P.2d 931, 933 n. 7 (Okla.Crim.App.1997) (under § 1086, Cooper as an intervening change in the law could be applied to collateral proceedings); Rojem v. State, 829 P.2d 683, 684 (Okla.Crim.App.1992) (non-capital case). Regardless, even in capital cases, we have declined to apply Oklahoma's statutory procedural bar to Cooper claims not raised on direct appeal where the direct appeal predated the Supreme Court's 1996 Cooper decision. See Rogers, 173 F.3d at 1289-90; Walker, 167 F.3d at 1345. The district court's decision to consider the Cooper claim on the merits was not without support.