Opinion ID: 788658
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Independence Requirement

Text: 18 A state procedural ground will not bar federal habeas relief if the state law ground is so interwoven with federal law that it can not be said to be independent of the merits of a petitioner's federal claims. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 740, 111 S.Ct. 2546. Relatedly, [i]f the last state court to be presented with a particular federal claim reaches the merits, it removes any bar to federal-court review that might otherwise have been available. Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 801, 111 S.Ct. 2590, 115 L.Ed.2d 706 (1991). The threshold question, therefore, is whether the New Jersey courts, in denying Johnson's death-eligibility claim, relied independently on a violation of state procedure or based their decision on the merits of the claim. 19 In Harris v. Reed, supra, the Supreme Court established a plain statement rule that there would be no procedural default, for purposes of federal habeas review, unless the last state court rendering judgment in the case `clearly and expressly' states that its judgment rests on a state procedural bar. 489 U.S. at 263, 109 S.Ct. 1038. Harris 's plain statement rule was subsequently narrowed by Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991), which established that the first step is to determine whether the decision of the last state court to which the petitioner presented his federal claims fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law. See also Caswell, 953 F.2d at 859-60. Only then, if there is such a reliance on federal law, do we look at whether the state court clearly and expressly based its ruling on a state procedural ground. Id. 20 The last state court to render judgment in this case, the New Jersey Supreme Court, denied certification on Johnson's petition. The U.S. Supreme Court addressed such a situation in Ylst v. Nunnemaker, supra, 501 U.S. 797, 111 S.Ct. 2590, 115 L.Ed.2d 706, holding that when the last state court decision simply affirms summarily the lower court's denial of relief, a federal court should look to the last explained state-court judgment on the ... claim to determine whether it fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law or instead relies upon a state procedural bar to deny relief. Id. at 802, 805, 111 S.Ct. 2590 (emphasis in original). Therefore, [W]here ... the last reasoned opinion on the claim explicitly imposes a procedural default, we will presume that a later decision rejecting the claim did not silently disregard that bar and consider the merits. Id. at 803, 111 S.Ct. 2590. 21 The New Jersey courts, while addressing the merits of the case as alternative holdings, clearly rested on state procedural grounds as a separate and independent basis for their decision to deny Johnson's death-eligibility claim. The Appellate Division, which is the highest state court to write an opinion on the case, itself relied on the trial court's reasoning, affirming essentially for the reasons expressed in the oral opinion of [the trial court judge]. The Appellate Division found that the trial judge barred the review of sentence under N.J.R. 3:22-12 because the petition was filed beyond the rule's five-year time limit, but that the trial judge, in the event that the petition was not time barred, also rejected certain claims on the merits. JA 487. The Appellate Division's only comment on the merits was, However, assuming the petition was not time barred, the [trial] court found no evidence defendant had made a motion to dismiss counsel nor that defendant had suffered from mental disease; the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel was found to be without merit. JA 487. 22 In Johnson's second PCR petition, the trial court expressly cited N.J.R. 3:22-12, which requires a petition to be filed within five years after the sentence unless the delay was due to excusable neglect, and found that there were not any facts alleged that would constitute excusable neglect. JA 654. Similarly, the trial court found that the challenge could have been made on the defendant's many appeals and prior applications for post-conviction relief. JA 654. Although the challenge does not refer to any one specific claim, it appears that the trial court was referring to all the claims in the petition. 2 23 The fact that both the New Jersey trial court and Appellate Division made reference to the merits of the case as an alternative holding does not prevent us from finding procedural default. In Harris v. Reed, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that 24 a state court need not fear reaching the merits of a federal claim in an alternative holding. By its very definition, the adequate and independent state ground doctrine requires the federal court to honor a state holding that is a sufficient basis for the state court's judgment, even when the state court also relies on federal law. Thus, by applying this doctrine to habeas cases, Sykes curtails reconsideration of the federal issue on federal habeas as long as the state court explicitly invokes a state procedural bar rule as a separate basis for decision. In this way, a state court may reach a federal question without sacrificing its interests in finality, federalism, and comity. 25 489 U.S. at 264 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 1038 (citations omitted, emphasis in original); see also Cabrera v. Barbo, 175 F.3d 307, 314 (3d Cir.1999) (holding that the fact that Appellate Division also addressed the lack of merit in the ineffective assistance of counsel claim does not undermine our conclusion that the state courts rejected Cabrera's claim on an independent and adequate state basis, as the comment at most was an alternative holding). 26 In this case, both the Appellate Division and the trial court explicitly invoked the procedural bar under N.J.R. 3:22-12, which was an independent basis for the Appellate Division to deny Johnson relief.