Opinion ID: 52838
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Appellate Delay Due Process Claim

Text: Reed seeks a COA for his claim that he was denied due process by the extended delay in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' resolution of his direct appeal. Reed was convicted and sentenced in March 1983. The record on appeal was approved by the trial court in May 1984, and the case was submitted upon oral argument on April 23, 1986. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not act on Reed's appeal until November 1992, when the court remanded the case for a retroactive Batson hearing. Following the hearing, the trial court filed its findings of fact and conclusions of law on May 6, 1993. The parties submitted briefs in July and September 1993. After another year-and-a-half delay, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued an opinion affirming Reed's conviction on March 29, 1995. Reed argued in his state habeas petition that this extended delay violated his federal due process rights. The state habeas court held that a showing of substantial prejudice to the appellate process is a necessary condition for granting habeas relief. . . . The court decided that Reed ha[d] failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that any delay by the CCA in adjudicating his mandatory direct appeal substantially prejudiced his appeal in any manner. In Reed's federal habeas case, the district court concluded that the state court's decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. The court agreed with the state habeas court that Reed had failed to demonstrate substantial prejudice, arguing that the bulk of any prejudice arising from the delay fell on the State. The court explained that [b]y the time of the retrospective Batson hearing, the prosecutors had forgotten why they exercised their peremptory challenges. The court further noted that developments in Supreme Court caselaw had helped Reed, citing Batson, Miller-El, Tennard, and Smith v. Texas, 543 U.S. 37, 125 S.Ct. 400, 160 L.Ed.2d 303 (2004). The district court therefore rejected Reed's habeas claim and denied him a COA on this issue. Reed now seeks a COA, arguing that the District Court erred in finding that the State was prejudiced more than [himself]. Reed argues that he lost the opportunity to investigate aspects of the case while memories were fresh, or before the State `lost' or destroyed all physical evidence from the crime scene that might have exonerated him. Reed argues that no reasonable jurist could conclude that [he] has any interest in further delaying his vindication, especially when such delay makes that ultimate vindication ever harder to achieve. We need not reach the question of prejudice, however, because we hold that there is no Supreme Court decision sufficiently on point to permit the conclusion that the state court decision was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). That is, there is no Supreme Court decision holding that excessive delay in a direct appeal is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. Reed relies on the numerous circuit court decisions that do so hold, and that explain their holdings as the logical application of Supreme Court precedent. Reed cites Rheuark v. Shaw, 628 F.2d 297, 302 (5th Cir.1980), where this circuit held that due process can be denied by any substantial retardation of the appellate process. . . . We explained that while [t]he Constitution does not require the states to afford a right to appellate review of a criminal conviction, [n]evertheless, when a state provides a right to appeal, it must meet the requirements of due process and equal protection. Id. We cited the Supreme Court decisions Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963) and Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956), in support of this proposition. Other circuits have reasoned similarly. Quoting Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 393, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985), the Third Circuit declared that [i]t is axiomatic that once an appeal as of right has been granted, `the procedures used in deciding appeals must comport with the demands of the Due Process [] Clause[] of the Constitution.' Simmons v. Beyer, 44 F.3d 1160, 1169 (3d Cir.1995). The court went on to explain that [a]lthough the Supreme Court has not explicitly recognized a criminal defendant's right to a speedy appeal, in Burkett v. Cunningham, 826 F.2d 1208 (3d Cir.1987) ( Burkett I ), we held that the Due Process Clause `guarantees a reasonably speedy appeal if the state has chosen to give defendants the right to [appeal].' Id. The Tenth Circuit has also held that a habeas petition may be predicated on a due process violation arising from the state's delay in adjudicating a petitioner's direct criminal appeal. . . . Harris v. Champion, 15 F.3d 1538, 1557 (10th Cir. 1994). In justifying its holding, the court explained that the right to a speedy trial is a fundamental right imposed on the states by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 1558 (citing Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 515, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972)). The court stated that while the Constitution does not require that a state afford a criminal defendant a direct appeal, the Supreme Court has held that: if a State has created appellate courts as an integral part of the . . . system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant, Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. at 18 [76 S.Ct. 585], the procedures used in deciding appeals must comport with the demands of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. Id. (quoting Evitts, 469 U.S. at 393, 105 S.Ct. 830). The court noted that the Supreme Court had held that, to ensure a defendant's right to a meaningful appeal, the State must afford counsel to an indigent defendant, the counsel must be effective, and an indigent defendant must be provided with a free transcript of the trial proceedings. Id. (citing Evitts, 469 U.S. at 396, 105 S.Ct. 830, Douglas, 372 U.S. at 358, 83 S.Ct. 814, and Griffin, 351 U.S. at 19-20, 76 S.Ct. 585). The court concluded that an appeal that is inordinately delayed is as much of a `meaningless ritual' as an appeal that is adjudicated without the benefit of effective counsel or a transcript of the trial court proceedings. Id. (internal citations omitted). In accord with these decisions, the Second Circuit has held that: The Supreme Court has not yet directly addressed the issue of whether the Constitution guarantees a speedy criminal appeal, once an opportunity for an appeal is provided. The lower federal courts, however, have grappled with the question, and it is now clear in this circuit that substantial delay in the state criminal appeal process is a sufficient ground to justify the exercise of federal habeas jurisdiction. Cody v. Henderson, 936 F.2d 715, 718 (2d Cir.1991). Other circuit courts that have held that excessive appellate delay can constitute a due process violation include the Fourth Circuit ( United States v. Johnson, 732 F.2d 379, 381 (4th Cir.1984)), the Ninth Circuit ( United States v. Tucker, 8 F.3d 673, 676 (9th Cir.1993) (en banc)), and the First Circuit ( United States v. Pratt, 645 F.2d 89, 91 (1st Cir.1981)). These decisions reveal that a majority of circuit courts have held that the principle that excessive appellate delay may violate the Due Process Clause is a logical application of Supreme Court precedent concerning the right to a speedy trial, see Barker, and the right to a meaningful appeal where appeal is afforded, see Evitts, Douglas, and Griffin. Nevertheless, consensus of this kind is insufficient under AEDPA to permit this court to overturn a state court decision holding that an appellate delay did not constitute a due process violation. As stated above, AEDPA limits the relevant area of law to which we may look when addressing a habeas petition to clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The Supreme Court has explained that [i]f this Court has not broken sufficient legal ground to establish an asked-for constitutional principle, the lower federal courts cannot themselves establish such a principle with clarity sufficient to satisfy the AEDPA bar. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 381, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). The circuit courts have elaborated on this idea. Citing Williams, the Ninth Circuit held that any principle upon which a habeas petitioner seeks to rely must be found in the holdings of Supreme Court decisions, and that decisions of that Court are the only ones that can form the basis justifying habeas relief. Hernandez v. Small, 282 F.3d 1132, 1140 (9th Cir. 2002). Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit declared that [c]learly established federal law is not the case law of the lower federal courts, including this Court, but rather the holdings of Supreme Court decisions. Putman v. Head, 268 F.3d 1223, 1241 (11th Cir.2001). The Third Circuit has stated that the primary significance of the phrase `as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States' is that federal courts may not grant habeas corpus relief based on the state court's failure to adhere to the precedent of a lower federal court on an issue that the Supreme Court has not addressed. Matteo v. SCI Albion, 171 F.3d 877, 890 (3d Cir.1999). The court noted, however, that we do not believe federal habeas courts are precluded from considering the decisions of the inferior federal courts when evaluating whether the state court's application of the law was reasonable. Id. The court further explained that in certain cases it may be appropriate to consider the decisions of inferior federal courts as helpful amplifications of Supreme Court precedent. Id. The First Circuit has also articulated a nuanced view of the value of lower federal court opinions. In Ouber v. Guarino, 293 F.3d 19, 26 (1st Cir.2002), the court stated that: The AEDPA also requires that the relevant legal rule be clearly established in a Supreme Court holding, rather than in dictum or in holdings of lower federal courts. This does not mean, however, that other federal court decisions are wholly irrelevant to the reasonableness determination. To the extent that inferior federal courts have decided factually similar cases, reference to those decisions is appropriate in assessing the reasonableness vel non of the state court's treatment of the contested issue. Reference to such cases may be especially helpful when the governing Supreme Court precedent articulates a broad principle that applies to a wide variety of factual patterns. (internal citations omitted). The First Circuit has cautioned, however, that the section 2254(d)(1) inquiry  whether the Supreme Court has prescribed a rule that governs the petitioner's claim  requires something more than a recognition that the Supreme Court has articulated a general standard that covers the claim. O'Brien v. Dubois, 145 F.3d 16, 24 (1st Cir.1998). In light of these statements interpreting § 2254(d)(1), we conclude that Reed's habeas claim must fail. We find that the Supreme Court has not broken sufficient legal ground on the subject of appellate delay as a due process violation to satisfy the AEDPA bar. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 381, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Whether appellate delay may constitute a due process violation is an issue that the Supreme Court has not addressed. See Matteo, 171 F.3d at 890. While the conclusion that appellate delay violates the Due Process Clause, as we have seen, can be derived from existing Supreme Court holdings, this derivation requires more than a mere application of Supreme Court precedent to a new factual scenario. See Ouber, 293 F.3d at 26. The Supreme Court-articulated principle upon which the Rheuark, Simmons, and Cody decisions, et al., were based  that where appellate process is offered, it must comply with due process  is an exceedingly general one. Thus, these circuit court decisions were more than helpful amplifications of Supreme Court precedent, see Matteo, 171 F.3d at 890; these decisions broke new legal ground. Accordingly, these circuit court decisions cannot form the basis of a successful habeas claim. We conclude that reasonable jurists would not debate whether the district court erred by rejecting Reed's habeas claim, and we therefore deny Reed a COA.