Opinion ID: 1450597
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Procedural Default of Beuke's Claim for Ineffective Assistance of Appellate Counsel

Text: Beuke first argues that the district court erroneously concluded that he procedurally defaulted fifty-eight of his eighty-eight habeas claims. Federal courts must consider four factors when assessing whether a habeas petitioner has procedurally defaulted his claims. Gonzales v. Elo, 233 F.3d 348, 353 (6th Cir.2000); see also Maupin v. Smith, 785 F.2d 135, 138 (6th Cir.1986). Our analysis begins with the first three factors of the procedural default inquiry: First, the court must determine that there is a state procedural rule that is applicable to the petitioner's claim and that the petitioner failed to comply with the rule. Second, the court must decide whether the state courts actually enforced the state procedural sanction. Third, the court must decide whether the state procedural forfeiture is an adequate and independent state ground on which the state can rely to foreclose review of a federal constitutional claim. Jacobs v. Mohr, 265 F.3d 407, 417 (6th Cir.2001) (quoting Maupin, 785 F.2d at 138) (alterations omitted). Once the court determines that a state procedural rule was not complied with and that the rule was an adequate and independent state ground, the court must move to the fourth factor. Maupin, 785 F.2d at 138. The fourth factor allows a petitioner to avoid or excuse procedural default if he demonstrates that there was cause for him to not follow the procedural rule and that he was actually prejudiced by the alleged constitutional error. Id. (quotation omitted). The district court found that Beuke had procedurally defaulted fifty-eight of his eighty-eight claims. Effectively conceding that the first three factors of procedural default are satisfied, Beuke focuses his argument on the fourth factor, contending that his ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim establishes the cause and prejudice to save all of his fifty-eight defaulted claims. We have previously acknowledged that an ineffective-assistance claim can serve as both cause and prejudice, excusing a procedural default in an underlying substantive claim[.] Franklin v. Anderson, 434 F.3d 412, 418 (6th Cir.2006). But the ineffective-assistance claim can serve as cause to excuse the procedural default of another habeas claim only if the habeas petitioner can satisfy the `cause and prejudice' standard with respect to the ineffective-assistance claim itself, that is, only if the ineffective-assistance claim was not itself procedurally defaulted. Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 450-51, 120 S.Ct. 1587, 146 L.Ed.2d 518 (2000) (emphasis added); see also Franklin, 434 F.3d at 418. Accordingly, we must consider whether Beuke procedurally defaulted his ineffective-assistance claim. The district court found that Beuke's ineffective-assistance claim was procedurally defaulted because the Ohio appellate court found that claim to be waived and barred from further review by [Beuke's] failure to move for reconsideration in the Court of Appeals following the denial of his direct appeal. In 1989, Beuke completed his direct appeal and instituted his first petition for postconviction relief, in which he  for the first time  asserted his ineffective-assistance claim. At that time, however, the clearly established precedent in the Ohio First District Court of Appeals mandated that a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel . . . may not be entertained by a trial judge when considering a petition for postconviction relief, but that the petitioner instead should present this claim directly to the state appellate court in a motion for reconsideration. State v. Rone, No. C-820640, 1983 WL 5172, at  (Ohio Ct.App. Aug.31, 1983); see also Hicks v. Collins, 384 F.3d 204, 212 (6th Cir.2004) ([T]he rule was well settled in the court of appeals where [the petitioner] appealed [i.e., the Ohio First District Court of Appeals] that ineffective appellate counsel claims should be asserted in reconsideration applications). Over two years later, in February 1992, the Ohio Supreme Court issued its decision in State v. Murnahan, 63 Ohio St.3d 60, 584 N.E.2d 1204, 1208-09 (1992), which pronounced for the entire state that claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel are not cognizable in post-conviction proceedings, noting instead that such claims should be raised in an application for reconsideration in the court of appeals. Id. at 1208. Four months after the Murnahan decision, and nearly three years after the conclusion of his direct appeal, Beuke filed a motion for reconsideration with the Ohio First District Court of Appeals. Not surprisingly, the court denied the motion, holding that Beuke did not establish good cause for his untimely filing because the law had been well settled in the Ohio First District Court of Appeals that claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel must be brought in a motion for reconsideration. Beuke contends that he cannot be held to have procedurally defaulted this claim because when he filed his motion, the Ohio courts did not have a firmly established and regularly followed procedural rule governing motions for reconsideration. But Beuke's argument ignores the fact that, dating back to 1983, it had been clear to litigants in the Ohio First District Court of Appeals that a criminal defendant must present his ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim in a motion for reconsideration, not in a petition for post-conviction relief. Turning to our circuit's precedent, Beuke argues that his situation is controlled by Franklin v. Anderson, 434 F.3d 412 (6th Cir.2006). We, however, are convinced that this case is controlled by Hicks v. Collins, 384 F.3d 204 (6th Cir. 2004). In Franklin, we held that at the time [the petitioner] filed his Motion for Delayed Reconsideration . . ., the Ohio courts did not have a `firmly established and regularly followed' procedural rule governing the timeliness of such motions. Franklin, 434 F.3d at 418. We viewed the Ohio Supreme Court's decision in Murnahan as creating ambiguities on the timeliness of motions for reconsideration, id. at 418-19, and because Franklin completed his direct appeal soon after Murnahan  while the Ohio courts were in a period of limbo on this issue  we held that Franklin could not be faulted for filing his motion to reconsider in an untimely manner. The Franklin decision specifically distinguished Hicks as a case that applies to a time before Murnahan.  Id. at 420. Unlike the petitioner in Franklin, the petitioner in Hicks completed his direct appeal and instituted his post-conviction relief proceedings prior to the Ohio Supreme Court's decision in Murnahan. Hicks, 384 F.3d at 212. Hicks improperly included his ineffective-assistance claim in his petition for post-conviction relief, and the state trial court dismissed Hick's petition because the Ohio First District Court of Appeals, the district in which Hicks's direct appeal was heard, clearly required an ineffective-assistance claim to be brought in a motion for reconsideration. The Ohio Supreme Court then decided Murnahan, and Hicks waited another seven months after that decision before filing his motion for reconsideration. The Hicks court held that the procedural rule requiring ineffective-assistance claims to be asserted in a timely filed motion for reconsideration was well settled in the court of appeals where Hicks appealed [i.e. the Ohio First District Court of Appeals] and therefore represent[ed] an established adequate and independent state ground upon which to deny Hicks's claim. Id. The procedural history in Beuke's case is nearly identical to that of Hicks. Here, as in Hicks, (1) the petitioner improperly asserted his ineffective-assistance claim in his petition for post-conviction relief in the Ohio First District Court of Appeals; (2) the Ohio Supreme Court issued Murnahan after the trial court dismissed the petitioner's request for post-conviction relief; and (3) the petitioner waited several months following Murnahan to file his motion for reconsideration. Therefore we find that this case is controlled by Hicks, and we conclude, based on that precedent, that Beuke procedurally defaulted his ineffective-assistance claim. In summary, the clearly established rule in the Ohio First District Court of Appeals  adopted long before Beuke concluded his direct appeal  demanded that Beuke present his ineffective-assistance claim in a motion for reconsideration. Beuke initially violated this rule by including his ineffective-assistance claim in his first petition for post-conviction relief. Recognizing his blunder, Beuke filed a motion for reconsideration more than three years after the conclusion of his direct appeal, long after the deadline for filing such a motion had passed. See Ohio App. R. 26. This firmly established and regularly followed procedural rule constitutes an adequate and independent state ground upon which to foreclose judicial review, and Beuke has not established cause and prejudice for his untimely compliance. Accordingly, Beuke, like the petitioner in Hicks, has procedurally defaulted his ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim and, in turn, cannot use that claim as cause and prejudice to excuse his other defaulted claims. See Edwards, 529 U.S. at 450-51, 120 S.Ct. 1587; Franklin, 434 F.3d at 418. We thus affirm the district court's conclusion that Beuke procedurally defaulted fifty-eight of the eighty-eight claims in his habeas petition.