Opinion ID: 4564881
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Nevada’s State Law Adjudication Binds this

Text: Court. Both the federal district court and the panel concluded that the Nevada Supreme Court erred in rejecting Anderson’s double jeopardy claim and relied on that conclusion in granting habeas relief. But the Nevada Supreme Court’s adjudication of Anderson’s double jeopardy appeal on the merits may not be challenged by this court, for two independent reasons. 4 The panel asks in footnote 1 of its concurrence how it “could have addressed . . . the State’s argument that Anderson suffered no prejudice” without reaching and effectively overruling the Nevada Supreme Court’s Double Jeopardy decision. Easy. It could have simply explained that Anderson’s counsel could not possibly have been ineffective for presenting a question to the Nevada Supreme Court that (in the panel’s mistaken view) the Nevada Supreme Court should have decided in Anderson’s favor. And because the only claim Anderson raised in this court was an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, his federal habeas claim necessarily fails. Perhaps what the panel is really asking in its footnote is how could it possibly have granted habeas relief to Anderson without sua sponte reaching out and effectively overturning the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision (that Anderson never challenged). Now that, admittedly, is a harder question. ANDERSON V. NEVEN 27 First, the panel attempted to conjure fault with the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision by recasting it. The Nevada Supreme Court held that “[f]ailure to yield is not a lesser-included offense of DUI causing death because each requires proof of an element the other does not ‘notwithstanding a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes.’” Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095 (quoting Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166 (1977)). On its face, this is a broad and categorical statement. Yet the panel read this as merely a general statement that “failure to yield is not always a lesser included offense.” Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 295 (emphasis added). But that’s not what the Nevada Supreme Court said, and it is quite telling that the panel found it necessary to add words to the Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling to justify the panel’s forced misreading of it. By virtue of its reframed holding and the fact the Nevada Supreme Court did not include the phrase “in this case” in its explication of Nevada law, see Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095, the panel strangely infers that the Nevada Supreme Court must have been speaking about statutory elements generally, rather than Anderson’s specifically pled offenses. Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 295. 5 5 Stranger still, the panel in its concurrence now argues that it its original decision could not have “failed to defer to the Nevada Supreme Court on a question of state law” because “the Nevada Supreme Court never decided a state law question.” That’s not what the panel said in its original decision, which states: “we defer to the Nevada Supreme Court’s conclusion that, as a matter of state law, failure to yield is not always a lesser included offense of DUI causing death.” Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 295 (emphasis added). The Nevada Supreme Court’s categorical statement that “[f]ailure to yield is not a lesser-included offense of DUI causing death because each requires an element the other does not,” Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095 (emphasis added), cannot reasonably be read as anything other than “holding forth on the elements of the state failure28 ANDERSON V. NEVEN Only through that results-driven reading can the panel then claim that it is properly deferring to the Nevada Supreme Court’s binding interpretation of state law, while rejecting the state court’s supposed misapplication of clearly established federal law. This is a deliberately strained misreading of the Nevada Supreme Court’s description of Nevada law. Beyond the fact that one would normally read a court’s legal analysis in the context of the issues actually before the court (here, Anderson’s double jeopardy claim), the decision’s text expressly applies the Nevada Supreme Court’s reasoning to determine “the district court did not err by rejecting Anderson’s claim.” Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095 (emphasis added). Second, even if Anderson had challenged the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy ruling, that ruling turned squarely on that court’s interpretation of the elements of Nevada criminal law, which, like it or not, is binding on this court. Perhaps because lower federal courts seem to forget this, the Supreme Court has had to repeatedly “reemphasize that it is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions.” Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67–68 (1991). 6 to-yield and DUI-causing-death offenses.” The panel was right before it was wrong. 6 See also Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 167 (1977) (“Ohio courts ‘have the final authority to interpret . . . that State’s legislation.’”); Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 416 (1980) (“We accept, as we must, the Supreme Court of Illinois’ identification of the elements of the offenses involved here.”); Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368 (1983) (“We are bound to accept the Missouri court’s construction of that State’s statutes.”); Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 499 (1984) (“We accept, as we must, the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination that the Ohio ANDERSON V. NEVEN 29 Even if we were allowed to slip off our federal robes and try on those of a state supreme court justice, the Nevada Supreme Court’s explication of Nevada’s criminal statutes was far from clearly wrong. The Nevada Supreme Court’s decision, like many state court decisions affirming criminal convictions, is not long on analysis or explanation. It need not be. Even so, on close inspection there is a good basis for thinking that the panel’s forbidden frolic with state criminal law interpretation managed to get both state and federal law wrong. 7 We start with the text of Nevada’s DUI causing death statute. Section 484C.430(1) of Nevada’s revised statutes makes it a felony if someone drives while under the influence of a prohibited substance and Legislature did not intend cumulative punishment for the two pairs of crimes involved here.”). 7 The panel’s concurrence criticizes this next portion of the dissent as “advanc[ing] its own novel theory” of Nevada state law, and responds that “[i]t is enough to say that . . . the State . . . never advanced any such arguments.” Of course it didn’t. Neither Anderson nor the State ever challenged the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy analysis, so there was obviously no reason for the State (or anyone else) to defend it. It is only because the panel in its opinion sua sponte attacked the Nevada Supreme Court’s analysis that the issue has even become relevant. Having embarked on its own “sua sponte adventure through Nevada law” by expressly basing its decision on the conclusion that the Nevada Supreme Court erred on its explication of the elements of Nevada law “in Anderson’s particular case,” Anderson, 797 F. Appx. at 295 (emphasis in original), the panel cannot now so easily ignore the disaster that awaits at the end of its own chosen chapter. If the panel wants to avoid such unpleasant surprises, it probably shouldn’t reach out and decide issues not raised by the parties—especially issues of state law where the state’s highest court has authoritatively spoken. 30 ANDERSON V. NEVEN . . . does any act or neglects any duty imposed by law while driving or in actual physical control of any vehicle on or off the highways of this State, if the act or neglect of duty proximately causes the death of, or substantial bodily harm to, another person .... Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 484C.430(1) (emphasis added). While Anderson and the panel insist on speaking of this language as requiring a “predicate offense,” the statutory language does not actually require a predicate criminal offense to be convicted of DUI causing death. 8 It only requires that the defendant “neglects any duty imposed by law” and that that “neglect of duty proximately causes the death of . . . another person.” Id. The Nevada Supreme Court has never said this element requires a “neglect of duty imposed by criminal law.” To the contrary, the Nevada Supreme Court in discussing Nevada’s DUI causing death statute has elsewhere characterized the “act or neglect of duty” required by that statute as possibly being simply a “negligent act” committed while driving intoxicated. See State v. Johnston, 563 P.2d 1147, 1148 (Nev. 1977). 8 This error continues to plague the panel’s concurrence, where the panel claims in the very first paragraph (and continues the theme throughout) that Anderson’s DUI-causing-death “charging document specifically relied on Anderson’s failure-to-yield offense to establish” the neglect-of-duty element. No. The actual charging document mentioned neither Nevada Revised Statute § 484B.257 (Nevada’s failure-to-yield statute) nor Anderson’s failure-to-yield criminal complaint or conviction. Nor did it say anything about a “predicate offense”—criminal or otherwise. It simply said that Anderson “did neglect his duty imposed by law to yield from a stop sign to oncoming traffic.” ANDERSON V. NEVEN 31 Moving to the text of the “Failure to Yield” statute, it requires Nevada drivers to “stop . . . at a clearly marked stop line . . . . [and] yield the right-of-way.” Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 484B.257(1). By both its plain text and Nevada precedent, the statute imposes two separate duties on drivers. Kerr v. Mills, 483 P.2d 902, 904 (Nev. 1971) (“NRS 484.319 [now NRS 484B.257] imposed . . . a duty to stop ‘at the entrance’ to [the] road, and to yield the right of way to other vehicles ‘approaching so closely on such through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard.’”) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). Failure to fulfill either duty would constitute misdemeanor Failure to Yield. Id. at 904 (“it was the disfavored driver’s duty ‘not only to stop at the stop sign, but also to look carefully’ and permit the favored driver to pass”) (citation omitted). Because misdemeanor Failure to Yield requires the neglect of only one of its two discrete duties, and DUI Causing Death only requires the neglect of one duty for its predicate, the elements of the two crimes would not perfectly overlap to create a double jeopardy issue where the charged individual violated both duties. In Anderson’s case, Anderson both failed to stop at the stop sign and failed to give the right of way to oncoming traffic. The State could charge Anderson with neglecting either as a predicate for Failure to Yield, while using the other as the predicate “neglect of duty” for DUI Causing Death. By neglecting both duties under Failure to Yield, Anderson ensured in his specific case that two different duties could be applied under each charge for Failure to Yield and DUI Causing Death— eliminating any double jeopardy claim. This interpretation is completely consistent with the Nevada Supreme Court’s short but categorical statement in Anderson’s direct appeal that “[f]ailure to yield is not a 32 ANDERSON V. NEVEN lesser-included offense of DUI causing death because each requires proof of an element the other does not ‘notwithstanding a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes.’” Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095 (emphasis added and citation omitted). It is also consistent with Nevada’s legislative intent, as authoritatively described by the Nevada Supreme Court elsewhere and cited in Anderson. See Jenkins v. Fourth Jud. Dist. Ct., 849 P.2d 1055, 1057 (Nev. 1993) (observing “a clear legislative intent to prevent defendants from escaping a conviction for felony DUI through pleading to a ‘lesser charge’”) (citation omitted).