Opinion ID: 807391
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Deference in Shelton’s Case

Text: When reviewing the district court’s grant or denial of habeas relief, we review its conclusions on legal questions and mixed questions of law and fact de novo.28 In this case, that review begins with the district court’s determination of its standard of review. Drawing on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in 24 Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000). 25 Id. at 410. 26 Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007). 27 Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786-87 (2011). 28 Roberts v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corrections, 677 F.3d 1086, 1089 (11th Cir. 2012). 8 Case: 11-13515 Date Filed: 08/24/2012 Page: 9 of 15 Harrington v. Richter,29 the district court concluded that the Florida appellate court rulings in Shelton’s case were not “adjudications on the merits” entitled to deference because they were one-word summary affirmances. In Harrington, the Supreme Court held that “[w]hen a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.”30 Under Harrington’s general rule, then, a state court’s simple one-word affirmance is presumed to be an adjudication on the merits of the petitioner’s claim.31 But the district court located what it considered to be a “state-law procedural principle to the contrary” in a 1983 Florida Supreme Court case.32 In that case, according to the district court, the Florida Supreme Court supplied a state-law procedural principle “that a per curiam affirmance has no precedential value and is not an adjudication on the merits.”33 29 131 S. Ct. 770. 30 Id. at 784-85. 31 “The presumption may be overcome when there is reason to think some other explanation for the state court’s decision is more likely,” id. at 785, a showing that Shelton has not attempted to make here. 32 Dep’t of Legal Affairs v. Dist. Court of Appeal, 5th Dist., 434 So. 2d 310 (Fla. 1983). 33 Shelton, 802 F. Supp. 2d at 1297 (citing Dep’t of Legal Affairs, 434 So. 2d at 311). 9 Case: 11-13515 Date Filed: 08/24/2012 Page: 10 of 15 The district court is only half-right, and not on the half that counts for federal habeas purposes. The Florida Supreme Court never held that a “per curiam appellate court decision with no written opinion” is not an adjudication on the merits; all it did was hold that the decision holds no precedential value for future cases.34 Indeed, a Florida district court of appeal recently “reiterate[d] that a per curiam affirmance without opinion is not an indication that the case was not considered on the merits.”35 That position is consonant with this Circuit’s recent en banc decision in another Florida habeas case, which held that “an ‘adjudication on the merits’ is best defined as any state court decision that does not rest solely on a state procedural bar” and that deference is presumed “unless the state court clearly states that its decision was based solely on a state procedural rule.”36 Here, the state court on direct appeal did not apply a procedural bar, and we are therefore compelled to presume that the court rendered an “adjudication on the merits” entitled to AEDPA deference.37 34 Dep’t of Legal Affairs, 434 So. 2d at 311. 35 Crittenden v. State, 67 So. 3d 1184, 1185 n.1 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2011). 36 Childers v. Floyd, 642 F.3d 953, 968, 969 (11th Cir. 2011) (en banc); see also Wright v. Sec’y for the Dep’t of Corrections, 278 F.3d 1245, 1254 (11th Cir. 2002) (agreeing with six circuits, in another Florida habeas case, that “the summary nature of a state court’s decision does not lessen the deference that is due”). 37 See supra note 31 (explaining that Shelton has not attempted to rebut this presumption). 10 Case: 11-13515 Date Filed: 08/24/2012 Page: 11 of 15 That conclusion significantly circumscribes the scope of our review. Unless we find that the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court,”38 we must deny relief.