Opinion ID: 787126
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Procedural Default Consideration on State Collateral Review

Text: 39 On state collateral review, the Michigan Supreme Court denied petitioner leave to appeal the trial court's denial of his motion for relief from judgment on the ground that petitioner failed to meet the burden of establishing entitlement to relief under M.C.R. 6.508(D). People v. Hicks, 463 Mich. 978, 623 N.W.2d 599 (2001). In so holding, the state court did not specify whether it was relying upon a particular subsection of M.C.R. 6.508(D). Before the district court, petitioner and respondent argued about whether the Michigan Supreme Court's denial rested upon an adequate and independent state procedural law and, in particular, about whether it relied upon subsection (3) of M.C.R. 6.508(D). M.C.R. 6.508(D)(3) provides: 40 The court may not grant relief to the defendant if the motion... alleges grounds for relief, other than jurisdictional defects, which could have been raised on appeal from the conviction and sentence or in a prior motion under this subchapter [of post-appeal relief], unless the defendant demonstrates (a) good cause for failure to raise such grounds on appeal or in the prior [post-appeal] motion, and (b) actual prejudice from the alleged irregularities that support the claim for relief. 41 Respondent argued that, in denying petitioner relief under M.C.R. § 6.508(D), the Michigan Supreme Court implicitly relied upon subsection (3). Respondent argued that subsection (3) applied because, although petitioner had presented the factual predicate for his Confrontation Clause claim to the Michigan courts on direct review by virtue of his prosecutorial misconduct claim, he had not presented the legal argument for that claim until state collateral review. Petitioner concedes that he did not expressly present his Confrontation Clause claim on direct review. However, petitioner does argue that he fairly presented his Confrontation Clause claim to the Michigan Court of Appeals on direct review based solely on his presentation of the factual predicate. Accordingly, petitioner argues that there was no basis for procedural default under M.C.R. 6.508(D)(3). Alternatively, petitioner argued that appellate counsel's failure to raise the Confrontation Clause claim on direct review constituted ineffective assistance so as to excuse such default. In support, petitioner claimed that appellate counsel buried the Confrontation Clause issue, the most significant constitutional deprivation in th[e] case, in a garden-variety prosecutorial misconduct claim, and that, to the extent that his Confrontation Clause claim is meritorious, such ineffective assistance sufficiently prejudiced him. Respondent countered that petitioner's appellate counsel did not render ineffective assistance by framing the underlying factual predicate as a prosecutorial misconduct claim — the normal and accepted legal theory — rather than as a Confrontation Clause claim — an unusual and creative legal theory. Petitioner also asserted that the Michigan Supreme Court's arbitrary and ambiguous form order denying him leave to appeal his post-conviction motion for relief from judgment did not constitute an adequate state procedural ground. 42 The district court held that the Michigan Supreme Court, in denying petitioner leave to appeal his motion for relief from judgment under M.C.R. 6.508(D), relied upon subsection (2), not (3). 9 Hicks v. Straub, 239 F.Supp.2d 697, 706-07 (E.D.Mich.2003). M.C.R. 6.508(D)(2) provides: 43 The court may not grant relief to the defendant if the motion... alleges grounds for relief which were decided against the defendant in a prior appeal or proceeding under this subchapter [of post-appeal relief], unless the defendant establishes that a retroactive change in the law has undermined the prior decision; 44 In so holding, the district court reasoned that, although [p]etitioner could have presented his Confrontation Clause claim in a clearer manner, he fairly presented [it] to the Michigan state courts on direct review. Id. at 706. The district court underscored that petitioner, in his brief to the Michigan Court of Appeals, argued that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by relaying in his opening statement petitioner's alleged confession to the murder and then subsequently failing, because of a lack of due diligence, to produce that inmate as a witness at trial. Id. Relying upon McMeans v. Brigano, 228 F.3d 674, 681 (6th Cir.2000), the district court concluded that the facts underlying the prosecutorial misconduct claim ... [that petitioner presented] in his state court briefs were `well within the mainstream of constitutional law' [on the Confrontation Clause] such that the Michigan state courts should have recognized and addressed the Confrontation Clause issue. Id. In further support, the district court posited that petitioner had expressly presented his Confrontation Clause claim, as such, on state collateral review, and that the Michigan trial court, on such review, had agreed with the prosecutor that petitioner's motion for relief from judgment only presented claims that he had previously presented to the state courts on direct review. 10 Id. According to the district court, because petitioner fairly presented his Confrontation Clause claim to the Michigan courts on direct review, the courts, not petitioner, bear the blame for their failure to recognize and to rule upon that claim. Id. The district court found that the state courts' failure to recognize and to address petitioner's fairly-presented Confrontation Clause claim in denying petitioner relief on direct review constituted a constructive denial of that claim for purposes of M.C.R. 6.508(D)(2). Id. at 707. After finding that the Michigan Supreme Court denied petitioner leave to appeal under M.C.R. 6.508(D)(2), the court held that this state procedural law is inadequate to bar federal habeas review because it is simply a rule of res judicata barring a defendant from re [-]litigating claims in a motion for relief from judgment which were decided adversely to him in a prior state court decision. 11 Id. Thus, the district court found that petitioner had not procedurally defaulted his Confrontation Clause claim on state collateral review. Id. 45