Opinion ID: 632
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Blakely Claims

Text: Here, the district court found that Nesser procedurally defaulted his three claims which are based on alleged violations of Blakely. The record demonstrates that Nesser did not raise a Blakely claim in his reopened state appeal, although Blakely had been decided the previous year. Nor did Nesser take a timely appeal of the August 18, 2005 decision of the Ohio Court of Appeals affirming his sentence. As the respondent notes, had Nesser done so, his case may then have been pending on direct review at the time that the Ohio Supreme Court issued its Foster decision in 2006, and the Ohio Supreme Court might have reviewed his Blakely claim notwithstanding that it was not raised below. See State v. 7 No. 07-3932 Nesser v. Wolfe, Warden Buchanan, No. 05 MA 60, 2006 Ohio App. LEXIS 5649, at - (Ohio App. Oct. 26, 2006). Because Nesser failed to take an appeal, however, such review was and is not available. See State v. Silsby, 894 N.E.2d 667, 670 (Ohio 2008) (review of alleged Foster sentencing error not available in delayed appeal where action was not pending on direct review at the time Foster was decided). Nesser also has not demonstrated cause for his failure to raise a Blakely claim in his reopened appeal. Nesser argues that his second appointed appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to argue that the fact-finding engaged in by the state trial judge as a basis for imposing consecutive sentences was improper. We conclude, however, that Nesser cannot show the necessary prejudice for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim because intervening controlling case law has held that the Sixth Amendment does not exclude a state’s practice of requiring a judge to find certain facts before he sentences the defendant to consecutive, rather than concurrent, terms of imprisonment. See Evans v. Hudson, 575 F.3d 560, 566 (6th Cir. 2009) (discussing Oregon v. Ice, __ U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 711 (2009)).6 Nesser also procedurally defaulted his Blakely claim in his state post-conviction proceedings. Although raised in his August 1, 2005 Motion for Post-Conviction Relief, Nesser’s Blakely claim was rejected by the state trial court, and Nesser failed to appeal that ruling. He can no longer do so 6 We therefore need not reach the adequacy of the Ohio Court of Appeals’s ruling that Nesser’s second motion to reopen was improperly “successive.” We also decline to reach the issue of whether a constitutionally-imposed right to counsel even attached to the proceedings pursuant to Nesser’s reopened appeal under Ohio Rule of Appellate Procedure 26(B). See Lopez v. Wilson, 426 F.3d 339 (6th Cir. 2005) (en banc); Morgan v. Eads, 818 N.E.2d 1157 (Ohio 2004). In those cited cases, this court and the Ohio Supreme Court respectively held that Rule 26(b) proceedings are collateral, post-conviction proceedings, rather than part of the direct criminal appeal, and that there is thus no right to appointed counsel therein. 8 No. 07-3932 Nesser v. Wolfe, Warden because Ohio does not permit delayed appeals in post-conviction proceedings, and this is an adequate and independent ground upon which to deny relief. See Stojetz v. Ishee, 389 F. Supp.2d 858, 885-86 (S.D. Ohio 2005) (citing State v. Nichols, 463 N.E.2d 375, 378 (Ohio 1984)). Finally, although Nesser asserted a Blakely claim in his state habeas petition filed on April 4, 2006, it is well-established under Ohio law that sentencing errors are not jurisdictional and thus are not cognizable in state habeas petitions. State ex rel Shackleford v. Moore, 878 N.E.2d 1035, 1036 (Ohio 2007) (citing earlier cases so holding). Rather, such errors must be raised via appeal or in post-conviction proceedings. Id. For these reasons, the district court correctly held that Nesser is procedurally barred from seeking federal habeas relief based on alleged violations of Blakely.