Opinion ID: 2511886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: mr. gardner's new and additional federal ineffective assistance of counsel claim is ultimately denied after he files a second state petition for post-conviction relief in state court

Text: ¶ 33 In 1999, two years after Mr. Gardner filed his first federal habeas corpus petition, he raised in that action a new claim challenging the effectiveness of his appellate counsel for failing to appeal the trial court's instruction to the jury regarding the word knowingly. [125] This claim was added to Mr. Gardner's First Amended Petition on April 21, 2000. [126] The federal district court refused to determine whether or not this claim was procedurally barred under Utah law, and instead directed Mr. Gardner to file a second state petition for post-conviction relief to exhaust the claim. [127] The federal district court held this unexhausted claim in abeyance pending the state court resolution. [128] ¶ 34 Mr. Gardner filed his second state petition for post-conviction relief on May 12, 2000. [129] The State moved for summary judgment and the Utah district court granted the State's motion after reaching the merits of Mr. Gardner's claim. [130] We affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment, but not on the merits. [131] Instead, we affirmed on the alternative ground that it was improper to reach the merits of Mr. Gardner's claim because it was procedurally barred by the 1996 Post-Conviction Remedies Act (PCRA) since he could have brought the claim in his first state petition for post-conviction relief. [132] We also noted that, while we had the power to set aside the procedural bars of the PCRA, any good cause exception to the procedural bar did not apply because Mr. Gardner's claim was not facially plausible. [133] ¶ 35 Upon returning to federal court, Mr. Gardner was informed that our decision did not address the issues the federal court needed it to address. According to the federal district court, federal habeas corpus law required a determination of the question of procedural default based on the law in effect at the time the first state petition for post-conviction relief was filed. [134] The relevant date, it concluded, was 1990. [135] Because we resolved Mr. Gardner's claims according to the law in effect when he filed his second petition for post-conviction relief in state court, the federal district court certified to us the following question: If Mr. Gardner had raised the ineffective assistance of counsel claim at issue in [Mr. Gardner's second state petition for post-conviction relief], in state court in a successive petition in 1990, would the petition have been procedurally barred? [136] We responded by holding that, in 1990, Gardner's successive post-conviction claim regarding the ineffective assistance of counsel would have been procedurally barred because it could have been brought in a prior post-conviction proceeding. The good cause common law exceptions to the procedural bar that we established in Hurst v. Cook were unavailable to Gardner because his successive post-conviction claim is  facially implausible  and therefore would have been summarily dismissed without substantive review on its merits. As a result, Gardner's successive post-conviction petition would have been procedurally barred as a matter of 1990 state law. [137] ¶ 36 Despite our holding that the claim would have been procedurally barred on state law grounds, because we based part of that holding on a threshold finding that Mr. Gardner's claim was of a frivolous nature that would prevent any exception to the procedural bar from applying, the federal district court proceeded with the claim as though we had reached the merits of a federal issue, and thus the federal district court decided to reach the merits. [138] The Tenth Circuit would later find that the federal district court had not needed to reach the merits of the claim because the PCRA bar was an independent state law ground for rejecting Mr. Gardner's claim. [139] The Tenth Circuit concluded that merely because exceptions to that procedural rule might exist, the rule was no less procedural as a result. [140] Nevertheless, on the merits, the federal district court concluded that Mr. Gardner had not affirmatively proved prejudice on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim on the knowingly instruction, and on April 5, 2007, denied his petition as to this claim. [141] The Tenth Circuit would eventually agree that, even though the district court did not need to reach the merits, the district court was correct in concluding that the knowingly claim failed on its merits. [142]