Opinion ID: 70846
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Swain Claim

Text: Hill alleges the prosecutor in his 1979 trial followed his historical practice of using peremptory challenges to strike African-American citizens from the jury panel based on their race. Hill contends this prosecutor's intentional discrimination against African-Americans in the selection of the jury violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights as stated in Swain v. Alabama. Hill did not raise a Swain claim at trial, on direct appeal, or in either of his state collateral petitions. The district court found presented to the district court, the court properly ignored it in rejecting Hill's Beck claim. Hill had procedurally defaulted his Swain claim under Alabama law. The court dismissed the claim after concluding Hill had failed to establish either cause and prejudice or manifest injustice excusing the default. Citing Murray v. Carrier, Hill argues the ineffective assistance of his counsel at trial and appeal excuses the default of his Swain claim. Hill raised his ineffectiveness-as-cause argument for the first time in his motion to alter or amend the district court's final judgment. Since this argument was not fairly presented to the district court, we will not grant relief on this basis. Even assuming this argument was properly before us, we find it to be without merit. In Carrier, the Supreme Court recognized that when counsel is ineffective under the standard of Strickland v. Washington, this may serve as cause within the meaning of Wainwright v. Sykes. Carrier, 477 U.S. at 488, 106 S.Ct. at 2645. The Court cautioned, however, that the exhaustion doctrine generally requires that a claim of ineffective assistance be presented to the state courts as an independent claim before it may be used to establish cause for a procedural default. Id. at 488-89, 106 S.Ct. at 2645-46. Hill acknowledges Carrier 's exhaustion requirement, but claims it does not prevent his citing his counsel's ineffectiveness as cause. Hill notes procedural default and exhaustion are distinct concepts within habeas corpus law. He contends Carrier allows petitioners to rely on ineffective assistance as cause whenever an independent claim has been exhausted regardless of whether it is also procedurally defaulted. The State counters Hill should not be permitted to rely on his counsel's performance as cause when he has procedurally defaulted on his ineffective assistance claims in state court. Initially, we note the issue of whether a procedurally-defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of counsel can serve as cause under Carrier has not yet been decided in this circuit. See Jackson v. Herring, 42 F.3d 1350, 1358-59 n. 7, 1362 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 38, 132 L.Ed.2d 919 (1995). Citing Hollis v. Davis, 941 F.2d 1471 (11th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 938, 112 S.Ct. 1478, 117 L.Ed.2d 621 (1992) and other cases, Hill states this Court has limited Carrier to barring from serving as cause only unexhausted as opposed to procedurally-defaulted claims of ineffective assistance. We do not read Hollis or any other precedent in such a manner. In Hollis, the petitioner argued his trial counsel's ineffective assistance served as cause to excuse the default of a claim that African-American citizens had been excluded from the grand and petit juries that indicted and convicted him. Hollis, 941 F.2d at 1476-79. Although the petitioner in Hollis had not exhausted his ineffective assistance claim in Alabama state court, we concluded he could rely on this cause argument because it would have been futile for him to return to state court to press this claim. Id. at 1479. The petitioner had filed at least three previous pro se collateral petitions in state court. Id. at 1473. Each time the state court dismissed the petition without reaching the merits. Id. We noted the petitioner's illiteracy, when combined with his inscrutable handwriting, had greatly hindered his attempts to obtain post-conviction relief in the state courts. Id. Given these particular facts in Hollis, we concluded it would have been futile for the petitioner to exhaust his ineffective assistance of counsel claim as required by Carrier. Id. at 1479. We do not see how our decision in Hollis has any bearing on the question of whether Hill can cite as cause a procedurally-defaulted claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Unlike Hill, the petitioner in Hollis never defaulted his claim of ineffective assistance in state court. Furthermore, we found it would have been futile for the petitioner in Hollis to exhaust an ineffective assistance of counsel claim given the unique circumstances of his pro se status in state court, his illiteracy, and the fact that on three separate occasions he had failed to get an Alabama court to review the merits of his petition. Such circumstances do not exist in this case. Neither Hollis nor the rest of our precedent evince a reluctance to find Carrier prohibits petitioners from relying on procedurally-defaulted ineffective assistance claims.17 To the contrary, we conclude Carrier and the rest of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on procedural default dictate that procedurally-defaulted claims of ineffective 17 Hill also cites us to Orazio v. Dugger, 876 F.2d 1508 (11th Cir.1989); Bundy v. Dugger, 850 F.2d 1402 (11th Cir.1988); and Walker v. Davis, 840 F.2d 834 (11th Cir.1988) as indicating this Court has limited Carrier to requiring only that petitioners exhaust their ineffective assistance claims in state court. While these cases addressed the question of exhaustion under Carrier, none of them concerned procedurally-defaulted ineffective assistance claims. It strains both the facts and reasoning in these cases to say we have limited Carrier in the manner Hill suggests. assistance cannot serve as cause to excuse a default of a second claim. In Justus v. Murray, 897 F.2d 709 (4th Cir.1990), the Fourth Circuit rejected a similar effort by a petitioner to use a procedurally-defaulted ineffective assistance of counsel claim to excuse the default of several underlying substantive claims. The Justus court recognized Carrier 's reasoning is predicated on a sense of respect for the procedural default rule in the appellate context. Justus, 897 F.2d at 714. While the procedural default rule may further different goals than the exhaustion doctrine, this does not mean these goals are not implicated when a federal court reviews a procedurally-defaulted claim of ineffective assistance when it is asserted as cause under Carrier. See id. at 713. The procedural default rule has its foundations in the principles of comity and judicial efficiency. See Sykes, 433 U.S. at 87-88, 97 S.Ct. at 2506-7. To allow a federal court to review a defaulted claim of ineffective assistance under the guise of a cause analysis would ignore the fact that under the procedural rules of Alabama and other states, the petitioner has forfeited his right to have that claim reviewed by a state court. This hardly amounts to respect for a state's right to enforce its procedural rules. This is especially troubling given that almost any procedural default of a constitutional claim can be characterized as an attorney's error. Using a procedurally-defaulted ineffective assistance claim to open the door to review of underlying, defaulted, substantive claims would render state procedural bars meaningless in many cases. We do not believe Sykes and Carrier countenance such a result. We therefore agree with the Fourth Circuit that Carrier stands for more than a petitioner must simply exhaust a claim of ineffective assistance before raising it as cause. Instead, Carrier requires a claim of ineffective assistance be both exhausted and not defaulted in state court before it can be asserted as cause. Justus, 897 F.2d at 714. If the ineffective assistance claim is defaulted, then a petitioner must demonstrate independent cause and prejudice excusing the default of the ineffectiveness claim before that claim can be asserted as cause in relation to a second, substantive claim. Id. In the case before us, Hill cannot meet this burden. Hill defaulted his claims of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel in the Alabama courts, and he has not shown cause or prejudice excusing this default.18 Hill therefore cannot rely on his attorneys' alleged ineffectiveness to excuse the procedural default of his Swain claim.