Opinion ID: 1113311
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Federal court limitations.

Text: The Supreme Court considered a similar problem in Kuhlmann v. Wilson (1986) 477 U.S. 436 [91 L.Ed.2d 364, 106 S.Ct. 2616]. There the court applied the statutory restriction imposed by Congress on successive federal habeas corpus petitions by state prisoners: `[A] subsequent application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of such person need not be entertained by a court of the United States or a justice or judge of the United States unless the application alleges and is predicated on a factual or other ground not adjudicated on the hearing of the earlier application for the writ, and unless the court, justice, or judge is satisfied that the applicant has not on the earlier application deliberately withheld the newly asserted ground or otherwise abused the writ.' ( Id., at p. 449, fn. 10 [91 L.Ed.2d at p. 378], quoting 28 U.S.C. ง 2244(b).) In his opinion for a plurality of the court, Justice Powell recognized that the statute had been adopted after Congress had recognized the need to weigh the petitioner's interest against the interest of the state in administering its criminal justice system. The court still had an obligation to consider whether the ends of justice would be served if a successive petition was dismissed, but should entertain a successive petition only in rare instances. It was therefore incumbent on the court to define ends of justice in a manner that would serve the purpose of giving finality to federal habeas corpus judgments while preserving the function of habeas corpus in providing relief from unjust incarceration. The issue facing the Supreme Court was, therefore, not unlike that before this court. The plurality opinion recognized that even where earlier proceedings have determined that the trial was free from constitutional error, a prisoner retains a powerful and legitimate interest in obtaining his release from custody if he is innocent of the charge for which he was incarcerated. That interest does not extend, however, to prisoners whose guilt is conceded or plain. ( Kuhlmann v. Wilson, supra, 477 U.S. 436, 452 [91 L.Ed.2d 364, 379-380] (plur. opn. by Powell, J.).) The plurality then recognized the state's countervailing interest in the finality of its judgments, deterrence of crime, punishment and rehabilitation of the prisoner, and the impact of a delayed reversal of the judgment on the ability of the state to retry a prisoner, and concluded: [T]he `ends of justice' require federal courts to entertain such petitions only where the prisoner supplements his constitutional claim with a colorable showing of factual innocence. This standard was proposed by Judge Friendly more than a decade ago as a prerequisite for federal habeas review generally. [Citation.] As Judge Friendly persuasively argued then, a requirement that the prisoner come forward with a colorable showing of innocence identifies those habeas petitioners who are justified in again seeking relief from their incarceration. ( Kuhlmann v. Wilson, supra, 477 U.S. 436, 454 [91 L.Ed.2d 364, 381-382] (plur. opn. of Powell, J.).) When the Supreme Court revisited the question of abuse of the writ of habeas corpus, [23] and in particular the problem of piecemeal presentation of issues in successive petitions, in McCleskey, supra, 499 U.S. 467, the court concluded that if the petitioner did not establish cause for the failure to present a claim in a prior petition and prejudice from the error, a successive petition presenting a new claim should be entertained only if a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from a failure to do so. ( Id., at pp. 494-495 [113 L.Ed.2d at p. 545].) The court noted the reasoning of the plurality in Kuhlmann v. Wilson, supra, 477 U.S. 436, and concluded that a fundamental miscarriage of justice would satisfy the ends of justice requirement of federal law. In so doing it apparently embraced the view of the Kuhlmann plurality that only imprisonment notwithstanding factual innocence would constitute that fundamental miscarriage of justice, stating: The miscarriage of justice exception to cause serves as `an additional safeguard against compelling an innocent man to suffer an unconstitutional loss of liberty,' Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. at 492-493, n 31 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 1086], guaranteeing that the ends of justice will be served in full. (499 U.S. at p. 495 [113 L.Ed.2d at pp. 545-546].) Then, after holding that the petitioner there had not met the cause and prejudice test for the late presentation of his claim that a confession had been elicited in violation of Massiah v. United States (1964) 377 U.S. 201 [12 L.Ed.2d 246, 84 S.Ct. 1199], the court refused to entertain the claim on the merits to correct a miscarriage of justice because [t]he Massiah violation, if it be one, resulted in the admission at trial of truthful inculpatory evidence which did not affect the reliability of the guilt determination. The very statement McCleskey now seeks to embrace confirms his guilt.... McCleskey cannot demonstrate that the alleged Massiah violation caused the conviction of an innocent person. (499 U.S. at p. 502 [113 L.Ed.2d at p. 550].) [24] More recently, the Supreme Court considered how the factual innocence standard was to be applied in establishing whether a fundamental miscarriage of justice warranted consideration of a state prisoner's successive habeas corpus petition attacking imposition of the death penalty. In Sawyer v. Whitley (1992) 505 U.S. ___ [120 L.Ed.2d 269, 112 S.Ct. 2514], the court held that to establish that the ends of justice warranted consideration of an abusive, successive, or defaulted constitutional claim, a state prisoner's petition for writ of habeas corpus must show by clear and convincing evidence that, absent constitutional error or deprivation, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner eligible for the death penalty. Applying that standard in the case before it, the court noted that in Louisiana, the state in which the petitioner had been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, eligibility for the death penalty was based on conviction of capital murder and a finding that aggravating factors outweighed mitigating factors. Therefore, the sentencer was required to find the existence of at least one aggravating factor or the defendant could not be sentenced to death. Mitigating evidence that trial counsel had not presented was held to be irrelevant to actual innocence of the death penalty (and thus to finding a fundamental miscarriage of justice) since it could not be said that no reasonable jury would have found the petitioner eligible for the death penalty had the evidence been before it. However, other evidence not available to the petitioner because of an alleged violation of Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83 [10 L.Ed.2d 215, 83 S.Ct. 1194] was relevant both to the finding that the petitioner had committed first degree murder, and the finding that the murder was committed in the course of aggravated arson, the requisite aggravating circumstance. Relief was nonetheless denied because the petitioner had not shown by clear and convincing evidence that, in light of all of the evidence in the record, the new evidence was such that no rational juror would have found the petitioner guilty of the aggravated arson, or of the other aggravating circumstance, had the evidence been before the jury. (505 U.S. at p. ___ [120 L.Ed.2d at p. 286].) [25] The federal test, based on a statute limiting federal habeas corpus review of a state prisoner's claims to those based on alleged deprivation of constitutional rights, and limiting review on successive petitions to circumstances in which consideration of the successive petition was justified in the ends of justice because a fundamental miscarriage of justice had occurred, is not controlling here. As noted above, the scope of review on habeas corpus in this state is not limited to error of constitutional dimension. Newly discovered evidence may also be the basis for relief. Therefore, it is appropriate to also consider the exceptions to procedural bars which are recognized by the courts of our sister states.