Opinion ID: 3043542
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Martinez Decision

Text: Until 2012, it was generally established that because a prisoner has no constitutional right to counsel in collateral proceedings, ineffective assistance of counsel during those proceedings cannot create cause to overcome procedural default in those proceedings. See Coleman, 501 U.S. at 757, 111 S. Ct. at 2568. However, the Supreme Court issued a limited qualification to this tenet in Martinez v. Ryan, __ U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012). In that case, an Arizona prisoner sought to overcome the procedural default of his ineffective-assistance-of-trialcounsel claim by arguing that his post-conviction attorney was constitutionally ineffective for failing to raise the trial-counsel claim in the post-conviction collateral petition. Id. at 1313-15. The district court held that, under Coleman, post-conviction errors by counsel could not serve as cause to overcome a default and denied relief, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Id. at 1315. However, as the Ninth Circuit noted, Coleman left open the question of whether an ineffectiveassistance-of-collateral-counsel claim could be cause “in those cases ‘where state collateral review is the first place a prisoner can present a challenge to his 22 Case: 13-14376 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 23 of 72 conviction,’” and the Martinez court turned its attention to that question. Id. (quoting Martinez v. Schriro, 623 F.3d 731, 736 (9th Cir. 2010)); see Coleman, 501 U.S. at 755, 111 S. Ct. at 2567-68. In doing so, Martinez expressly avoided deciding whether a prisoner has a constitutional right to counsel in those post-conviction proceedings that represent the first opportunity to raise certain challenges to the prisoner’s conviction (so called “initial-review collateral proceedings”). Martinez, 132 S. Ct. at 1315. Instead, the Court “qualifie[d] Coleman by recognizing a narrow exception: Inadequate assistance of counsel at initial-review collateral proceedings may establish cause for a prisoner’s procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance at trial.” Id. The Court thus established an equitable, rather than constitutional rule, that permits a prisoner to overcome default of a trial-counsel claim when that claim can be raised for the first time only in a collateral proceeding and 1) the state does not appoint counsel in that initial-review collateral proceeding or 2) appointed counsel in the initial-review proceeding was ineffective under the standards of Strickland. Id. at 1318. Additionally, a petitioner must “demonstrate that the underlying ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim is a substantial one,” with “some merit.” Id. The Supreme Court took pains, however, to emphasize the narrow and limited nature of its holding in Martinez: 23 Case: 13-14376 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 24 of 72 The rule of Coleman governs in all but the limited circumstances recognized here. The holding in this case does not concern attorney errors in other kinds of proceedings, including appeals from initial-review collateral proceedings, second or successive collateral proceedings, and petitions for discretionary review in a State’s appellate courts. . . . It does not extend to attorney errors in any proceeding beyond the first occasion the State allows a prisoner to raise a claim of ineffective assistance at trial, even though that initial-review collateral proceeding may be deficient for other reasons. In addition, the limited nature of the qualification to Coleman adopted here reflects the importance of the right to the effective assistance of trial counsel and Arizona’s decision to bar defendants from raising ineffectiveassistance claims on direct appeal. Our holding here addresses only the constitutional claims presented in this case, where the State barred the defendant from raising the claims on direct appeal. Id. at 1320 (citations omitted). And while the dissent in Martinez expressed skepticism that this “newly announced ‘equitable’ rule will remain limited to ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel cases,” id. at 1321 (Scalia, J., dissenting), the Supreme Court has so far only extended the exception to cases where the state’s procedural system, while ostensibly allowing ineffective-assistance-of-trialcounsel claims to be raised on direct review, makes it virtually impossible to do so in reality. See Trevino v. Thaler, __ U.S. __, 133 S. Ct. 1911, 1914-15 (2013). But as this Court has repeatedly emphasized, Martinez does not extend beyond claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. See Chavez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 742 F.3d 940, 945 (11th Cir. 2014); Arthur v. Thomas, 739 F.3d 611, 630 (11th 24 Case: 13-14376 Date Filed: 08/03/2015 Page: 25 of 72 Cir. 2014) (“As our discussion shows, the Martinez rule explicitly relates to excusing a procedural default of ineffective-trial-counsel claims and does not apply to AEDPA's statute of limitations or the tolling of that period.”); Gore v. Crews, 720 F.3d 811, 816 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (“By its own emphatic terms, the Supreme Court's decision in Martinez is limited to claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel that are otherwise procedurally barred due to the ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel.”).