Opinion ID: 412022
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Decision of the Panel

Text: 5 On Daye's appeal the state pursued its contention that Daye had failed to exhaust his state court remedies, and a majority of the panel concluded that Johnson v. Metz, 609 F.2d 1052 (2d Cir.1979), compelled a ruling that there had been no exhaustion. Writing for the majority, Judge Newman stated as follows: 6 This Court has frequently ruled that the exhaustion requirement is not satisfied unless the habeas petitioner explicitly refers to a federal constitutional standard in presenting his claim to the state courts. Wilson v. Fogg, 571 F.2d 91 (2d Cir.1978); Cameron v. Fastoff, 543 F.2d 971 (2d Cir.1976); United States ex rel. Gibbs v. Zelker, 496 F.2d 991 (2d Cir.1974). We have especially emphasized the importance of identifying a claim as a federal constitutional claim when challenging the conduct of a state court trial judge. Fielding v. LeFevre, 548 F.2d 1102 (2d Cir.1977); United States ex rel. Nelson v. Zelker, 465 F.2d 1121 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1045, 93 S.Ct. 544, 34 L.Ed.2d 497 (1972). 7 Just two years ago we applied this strict approach to exhaustion to a habeas corpus petition indistinguishable from Daye's. Johnson v. Metz, 609 F.2d 1052 (2d Cir.1979). Like Daye, Johnson sought habeas corpus relief because of the excessive and prejudicial intervention of the state court trial judge, and, like Daye, his state court briefs, which made no express mention of the Sixth or Fourteenth Amendments, referred to the denial of a fair and impartial trial and characterized a fair trial as a fundamental element of the judicial process. Though the District Court in Johnson had concluded that the exhaustion requirement had been met and that the petitioner was entitled to relief on the merits, this Court reversed, ruling that Johnson had not presented a federal constitutional claim to the state courts. Even though Johnson's brief in the Appellate Division cited ten decisions of federal courts, his fair trial claim was deemed to be an appeal only to state law or to the supervisory power of the state appellate courts, and thus not the same claim, Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 276, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971), that he was presenting to the federal courts. Johnson v. Metz, supra, 609 F.2d at 1054. 8 663 F.2d at 1156-57; see id. at 1158 (Metzner, J., concurring). Thus, although the majority in the present case saw 9 [little] reason to believe that the articulation of facts (here, excessive and prejudicial court questioning) and consequence (here, denial of a fair and impartial trial) are inadequate to afford state courts, fully aware of their constitutional responsibilities, a fair opportunity to decide whether a conviction accords with constitutional requirements, 10 id. at 1157 (Newman, J.); see id. at 1158 (Metzner, J., concurring), it felt constrained on the basis of Johnson to rule that there had been no exhaustion because Daye's state argument had not explicitly referred to federal constitutional standards. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the dismissal of Daye's petition, without prejudice to his commencing a new habeas proceeding after the exhaustion of state court remedies. 11 Judge Lumbard, in dissent, concluded that the exhaustion requirement had been satisfied because Daye's state appellate brief had repeatedly argued that the trial judge's questioning 'deprived the defendant of his right to a fair trial,'  and [t]he New York courts have recognized that this right rests on constitutional and not merely state law grounds .... Id. at 1160. Judge Lumbard found Johnson v. Metz distinguishable because Daye, unlike the petitioners in Johnson, had relied on New York authorities, e.g., People v. DeJesus, supra, that themselves relied on United States Supreme Court cases in support of the principle that there is a fundamental, constitutional right to a fair trial untainted by judicial partiality. 12 In light of the importance of having a consistent and workable standard by which the courts of the Circuit may judge whether or not state court remedies have been exhausted, a majority of the active judges of the Court voted for en banc rehearing of the panel's decision, limited to the question of exhaustion. We directed the parties to file additional briefs on this issue and invited them to address the question whether Johnson v. Metz should be overruled.