Opinion ID: 29729
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: crawford’s claims on appeal

Text: 6 Crawford raises four claims rejected by the district court as potential grounds for a COA: (1) ineffective assistance of counsel during the state habeas proceeding in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) “fraud” by his state habeas counsel permitting review of the court’s rulings under FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b); (3) an Eighth Amendment violation arising out of the trial court’s decision not to instruct the jury on parole eligibility; and (4) an equal protection claim on the same grounds as (3).
Crawford argues that his original habeas counsel, Mr. Quinn, was constitutionally ineffective because he filed a petition containing only issues that were already being considered on direct appeal. Crawford identifies several potential issues that Mr. Quinn should have argued on collateral review, including trial counsel’s lack of qualifications as a criminal attorney and trial counsel’s ineffective assistance during the voir dire, guilt/innocence, and punishment stages of the trial. Crawford also notes that trial counsel should have, but failed to, challenge the subject matter jurisdiction of the trial court; he reasons that, because the body was discovered in Louisiana and no proof was ever had that the murder was committed in Texas, only a Louisiana state court could properly have had jurisdiction over his case. 7 The district court considered the questions of habeas counsel’s competency – except for the jurisdictional question, which Crawford raises in this appeal for the first time – and found them to be procedurally barred. Alternatively, the district court found that Crawford’s claims about the competency of habeas counsel are not cognizable under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(i). Crawford presents no new argument as to why the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in rejecting his successive habeas petition as procedurally barred or why the district court erred in finding that his claims about the competency of habeas counsel are not cognizable under § 2254(i). As for the jurisdictional issue, Crawford may not raise it for the first time in this court. See, e.g., Johnson v. Puckett, 176 F.3d 809, 814 (5th Cir. 1999) (“[A] contention not raised by a habeas petitioner in the district court cannot be considered for the first time on appeal from that court’s denial of habeas relief.”). Crawford has failed to demonstrate that jurists of reason would find the district court’s resolution of either issue debatable. Therefore, he has not made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, and we decline to grant a COA.
As his second ground, Crawford argues that the district court should have set aside the decision by the Court of Criminal 8 Appeals that denied relief on his original writ application. He asserts that a federal court can set aside a fraudulently induced state court judgment under FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b) if the fraud amounted to the denial of a federal right. Crawford contends that a “fraud on the court” was committed when Mr. Quinn filed, as his original habeas application, what amounted to nothing more than a carbon copy of Crawford’s petition for direct appeal. While noting that the claim was potentially unexhausted, the district court nevertheless denied it on the merits. See § 2254(b)(2) (2000) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State.”). The court remarked that Crawford failed to demonstrate that Mr. Quinn’s actions constituted a “fraud on the court,” let alone that his actions amounted to the denial of a federal right. Further, the court noted that granting relief on the basis of Rule 60(b) would “transgress the principles of comity and federalism entrenched in the AEDPA.” The court concluded that Crawford’s attacks ultimately amounted to a challenge to the state habeas proceeding itself, a challenge foreclosed by Fifth Circuit precedent. See Rudd v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 317, 319-20 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 122 S. Ct. 477 (2001) (noting that “[a] long line of cases from our circuit dictates that infirmities in state habeas proceedings do not constitute grounds for relief in federal court”) (internal quotation omitted). 9 Crawford raises no new arguments on this appeal that call into question the district court’s analysis of this issue. Because he has failed to demonstrate that reasonable jurists might find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable, we decline to issue a COA on this issue.
Crawford next claims that the trial court’s refusal to instruct the jury regarding the implications of deciding against the death penalty constituted an Eighth Amendment violation. He contends that, because he would not have been eligible for parole until he was ninety-six years old, a decision not to choose the death sentence would effectively constitute a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, thereby entitling him to a parole ineligibility jury instruction. See Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994) (holding that, in states where the alternative sentence to death is life without parole, the jury must be informed of that fact as a potential mitigating factor). He also argues that, because the trial judge had discretion over whether to instruct the jury on the parole issue, similarly situated defendants were not treated alike; according to Crawford, this unequal treatment violated the Equal Protection Clause. The district court rejected this claim as having been raised and correctly disposed of on the merits by the Court of Criminal 10 Appeals. Crawford fails to show that the state court’s denial of relief on this claim involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Rudd, 256 F.3d at 321 (finding Texas sentencing scheme, where life without parole is not the alternative to a death sentence, not to fall within the scope of Simmons). As to the equal protection challenge, Crawford again fails to show that the state court’s denial of relief involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Green v. Johnson, 160 F.3d 1029, 1044 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding that, because capital defendants are not a suspect class, the Texas sentencing scheme is constitutional because a “state may rationally conclude that its capital sentencing scheme would be better served by not requiring that courts inform juries of parole considerations”). Once again, Crawford fails to demonstrate any errors of law or logic in the district court’s analysis of either the Eighth Amendment or equal protection challenges to the Texas system. Because he has failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, we decline to issue a COA on either of these two grounds.