Opinion ID: 1036479
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: aedpa deference to plain-error review

Text: Section 2254(d)(1) of AEDPA provides that a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner on a Batson claim “adjudicated on the merits” in state court unless the state court’s “decision [is] contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Before this Court Lee does not make a “contrary to” claim but 72 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 73 of 128 argues that the state appellate court’s decision was “an unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law” to the factual record in his case. Id. A threshold feature of the state court’s decision—plain-error review—requires discussion before we get to our “unreasonable application” analysis of that court’s decision. Although Lee did not raise all of his Batson arguments in the trial court, the state appellate court did not apply a state procedural bar or deem those arguments waived. Rather, except for juror Kevin Stevens, the state appellate court reviewed the merits of Lee’s federal Batson claim, albeit for plain error under Alabama appellate rules. See Lee I, 898 So. 2d at 809 (citing Ala. R. App. P. 45A).18 Consequently, the initial issue we must address is whether a state court’s plain-error ruling is an adjudication “on the merits” that may be afforded AEDPA deference. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). This Court has not squarely decided this question, although past decisions have suggested AEDPA deference may apply to plain-error rulings. See Boyd v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 697 F.3d 1320, 1331 (11th Cir. 2012); Frazier v. Bouchard, 661 F.3d 519, 524–27 (11th Cir. 2011); Borden v. Allen, 646 F.3d 785, 812 (11th Cir. 2011); Powell v. Allen, 602 18 In Lee’s direct appeal, the State argued for plain-error review, which the state appellate court then conducted not only of Lee’s Batson claim, but also of other new issues Lee had raised for the first time on direct appeal. See Lee I, 898 So. 2d at 809. Before this Court, Lee does not contend that under Alabama law the state appellate court applied the wrong standard of review. 73 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 74 of 128 F.3d 1263, 1272–73 (11th Cir. 2010); Peoples v. Campbell, 377 F.3d 1208, 1223– 24, 1235–37 (11th Cir. 2004). We now confront this issue and decide that AEDPA deference may apply to a state court’s plain-error ruling. To begin with, we have held repeatedly that a state court’s rejection of a claim under the state’s heightened-fact pleading rule in Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.6(b)19 is a ruling on the merits. See Boyd, 697 F.3d at 1331; Frazier, 661 F.3d at 525; Borden, 646 F.3d at 812; Powell, 602 F.3d at 1272–73. For example, in Frazier v. Bouchard, the § 2254 petitioner asserted an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. 661 F.3d at 522. Frazier had raised the ineffective-assistance claim in his state habeas petition and the state appellate court had dismissed that claim because Frazier had not complied with the state’s heightened fact-pleading rule in Rule 32.6(b). Id. After the district court concluded that Frazier’s federal ineffective-assistance claim was not reviewable because Frazier had procedurally defaulted the claim in state court, this Court reversed. Id. at 524–27. We noted that “though [the state appellate court’s decision] invokes state pleading rules, [it] . . . plainly states that the claim is nonmeritorious, as Frazier failed to state his claim with the specificity required by Alabama’s fact-pleading post-conviction scheme.” Id. at 526–27 (footnote 19 See supra note 9. 74 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 75 of 128 omitted). Accordingly, we held that “Frazier’s ineffective-assistance claim . . . was adjudicated ‘on the merits’” and it was “subject to review under the standards of AEDPA.” Id. at 527; see also Borden, 646 F.3d at 816 (“[A]n Alabama court’s consideration of the sufficiency of the pleadings concerning a federal constitutional claim contained in a Rule 32 petition necessarily entails a determination on the merits of the underlying claim . . . . We therefore must review the merits determination . . . under the deferential standards set forth in AEDPA . . . .”); Powell, 602 F.3d at 1273 (“We thus review the Rule 32 court’s rejection of Powell’s claim as a holding on the merits.”). While the state appellate courts in Frazier, Powell, and Borden denied the claims on pleading grounds, whereas the state appellate court in this case denied Lee’s Batson claim on plain-error review, these cases are instructive. They show that a state court’s dismissal simply for failure to plead with enough specificity is an adjudication of lack of merit entitled to AEDPA deference. We also considered an issue like this one in Peoples v. Campbell. In that capital case, the § 2254 petitioner raised an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, which the district court denied based on a procedural default. Peoples, 377 F.3d at 1231. Before this Court, the petitioner argued that he had raised the claim in the state courts, id. at 1233, and contended it was not procedurally defaulted, id. at 1231. We found “that the [state appellate court] most likely considered the 75 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 76 of 128 constitutionality of [counsel’s] performance as part of its perceived duty, under Rule 45A of the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure, to examine ‘the record’ for plain error.” Id. at 1233. And we said: “Thus, in examining ‘the record’ of such ‘proceedings’ for plain error, the court felt duty bound to determine whether [counsel] had denied [the petitioner] his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel.” Id. We pointed out that the state appellate court had said: “We have . . . carefully considered [the petitioner’s] assertions with reference to his representation by counsel,” and “[w]e are clear to the conclusion that [the petitioner] failed to make out a case of either inadequate or ineffective representation by counsel at trial or on original appeal.” Id. (emphasis omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). This Court concluded that because the state appellate court had reached the merits of Peoples’s ineffective-assistance claim, the claim was not procedurally barred on federal habeas review. Accordingly, applying AEDPA, we reached the same conclusion as the state appellate court—that the ineffective-assistance claim failed on the merits. Id. at 1223–24, 1235–37. As in Peoples, here the state appellate court reviewed Lee’s Batson claim for plain error, under Rule 45A. Although neither Frazier nor Peoples explicitly addressed the issue of whether AEDPA deference applies to a state court’s plainerror analysis, two other circuits have. Both circuits have concluded that when a 76 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 77 of 128 state appellate court applies a plain-error rule in deciding a federal claim, that decision is an adjudication “on the merits” for purposes of § 2254(d)(1) and AEDPA deference. See Douglas v. Workman, 560 F.3d 1156, 1171, 1177–79 (10th Cir. 2009) (holding “when a state court applies plain error review in disposing of a federal claim, the decision is on the merits to the extent that the state court finds the claim lacks merit under federal law”); Fleming v. Metrish, 556 F.3d 520, 530–32 (6th Cir. 2009) (holding that, after state appellate court reviewed for plain error, there was “little question that [the] claim was ‘adjudicated on the merits’ for AEDPA purposes”).20 In Douglas, the § 2254 petitioner argued that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred during his state trial in violation of his federal due process rights. Douglas, 560 F.3d at 1176–77. When Douglas raised this claim on direct appeal, the state appellate court “summarily dismissed [it] under the [state appellate 20 The Eighth Circuit has also applied AEDPA deference to a state appellate court’s plainerror analysis but without an explicit holding on the issue. See Barnett v. Roper, 541 F.3d 804, 813–14 (8th Cir. 2008) (applying AEDPA deference to state appellate court’s plain-error review of § 2254 petitioner’s prosecutorial misconduct claim); Sublett v. Dormire, 217 F.3d 598, 600– 01 (8th Cir. 2000) (after state appellate court reviewed prosecutorial misconduct claim for plain error, holding that “[u]nder the strict standard of review required by the AEDPA, Sublett is not entitled to habeas corpus relief”); James v. Bowersox, 187 F.3d 866, 869 (8th Cir. 1999) (applying AEDPA deference to a state appellate court’s denial of a prosecutorial misconduct claim after the state appellate court reviewed the claim for plain error and labeled it “‘without merit’”); see also Shelton v. Purkett, 563 F.3d 404, 408 (8th Cir. 2009) (assuming without deciding that a claim reviewed by the state appellate court for plain error was reviewable and not barred by a procedural default, “AEDPA mandates a deferential review of a state court decision”). 77 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 78 of 128 court’s] plain error doctrine,” and the Tenth Circuit determined that AEDPA deference applied to that disposition. Id. at 1177–78. The Tenth Circuit explained that “‘[a] state court may deny relief for a federal claim on plain-error review because it finds the claim lacks merit under federal law.’” Id. (quoting Cargle v. Mullin, 317 F.3d 1196, 1206 (10th Cir. 2003)). In a case like that, “‘the state court’s disposition would be entitled to § 2254(d) deference because it was a form of merits review.’” Id. at 1178 (quoting Cargle, 317 F.3d at 1206). In Douglas, the state appellate court stated only that it had “reviewed” the federal claims and “found no plain error.” Id. The Tenth Circuit explained that it was still required to “assume that the [state court’s] review [was] on the merits and thus afford it § 2254(d) deference.” Id.; see also Matthews v. Workman, 577 F.3d 1175, 1186 & n.4 (10th Cir. 2009) (after the state appellate court applied plainerror review to deny the § 2254 petitioner’s federal claims, the Tenth Circuit “assess[ed] this decision through AEDPA’s forgiving lens”). In Lee’s case we do not have to decide whether to assume that all plain-error review entails a decision on the merits because we know that the Alabama appellate court reached the merits of Lee’s Batson claim. The state court opinion here analyzed the merits of Lee’s Batson claim and determined that there was no plain error. See Lee I, 898 So. 2d at 815–17. This is not a case where the state court assumed constitutional error that was plain and only looked to whether to 78 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 79 of 128 notice that plain error under the fourth prong of the plain-error review.21 The observations by the Sixth Circuit in Fleming are noteworthy. In that case, the Sixth Circuit applied AEDPA’s deferential review to the state appellate court’s plain-error analysis of the § 2254 petitioner’s Fifth Amendment claim. Fleming, 556 F.3d at 531–32. This conclusion followed from the Sixth Circuit’s observation that “the first step of the [state appellate court’s] plain-error review essentially required addressing whether an error had occurred—an inquiry which, in this case, could not be accomplished without first adjudicating the merits of [the petitioner’s] claim.” Id. at 532. While plain-error review “made reversal of the state trial court’s judgment less likely” it did not cause the state appellate court to “bypass the merits of [the petitioner’s] claim and thereby avoid triggering AEDPA deference.” Id. Like in Fleming, although the plain-error standard might have made it more difficult for Lee to succeed on direct appeal, the Alabama appellate court’s use of that plain-error standard did not cause its opinion to be anything other than an adjudication “on the merits” entitled to AEDPA deference. See Fleming, 556 F.3d at 532. Accordingly, we hold that when a state appellate court applies plain-error 21 See supra note 17. 79 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 80 of 128 review and in the course of doing so, reaches the merits of a federal claim and concludes there is no plain error, that decision is an adjudication “on the merits” for purposes of § 2254(d) and thus AEDPA deference applies to it. As the Sixth Circuit pointed out in Fleming, it would contravene the comity and federalism principles that underlie AEDPA if we were to ignore the state appellate court’s work and review Lee’s Batson claim de novo. Id. at 532. We decline to do so. The Alabama appellate court’s “substantive reasoning does not simply vanish” just because it applied plain-error review. Id. “Nor does AEDPA.” Id.22