Opinion ID: 774531
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether claim is procedurally barred.

Text: 66 It is undisputed that Lott failed to raise the jury-waiver claim in his direct appeal. It appears that it was raised for the first time in his Murnahan motion, and there, only as the basis for his ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim. Thus, the claim is procedurally barred, and absent a showing of cause and prejudice to excuse the default, we may not review the merits of this claim. Lott argues that, even if, on direct appeal, the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals raised a procedural bar to this claim, the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals's subsequent discussion of the merits of the issue, as it related to Lott's Murnahan motion, served to resurrect the otherwise defaulted claim. Respondent contends that the court's discussion in the Murnahan opinion addressed the merits of Lott's ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim, and not those of his waiver claim, and thus, there remains a procedural bar. Lott responds that it was precisely because his appellate counsel failed to raise the waiver issue in Lott's direct appeal that Lott was forced to argue it in the context of a Murnahan motion. 67 Although Lott's argument is not without force, it ultimately must fail. First, that a court, in reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, looks to the merits of the alleged error for purposes of determining the existence ofStrickland prejudice is not dispositive of the question whether a procedurally defaulted claim has been resurrected. As the district court correctly observed: 68 [T]he fact that the state courts engaged in that analysis, as they must under Strickland, does not, however, serve as evidence that those courts excused the procedural default. To hold otherwise would eviscerate the continued vitality of the procedural default rule; every procedural default could be avoided, and federal court merits review guaranteed, by claims that every act giving rise to every procedural default was the result of constitutionally ineffective counsel. 69 Second, and of equal importance, even if we were to accept Lott's argument that the panel that reviewed his Murnahanmotion evaluated the merits of his waiver claim -- a proposition that is flatly inconsistent with the record -- we would nevertheless be bound to accept as authoritative the last reasoned opinion concerning Lott's waiver claim, which was the 1994 Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals's decision of Lott's post-conviction petition that found Lott's waiver claim to be procedurally barred. See State v. Lott, Nos. 66388, 66389, 66390, 1994 WL 615012 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 3, 1994) ([A]ppellant's claims alleging pre-trial error [including his waiver claim] are barred by application of the doctrine of res judicata.). In this regard, we are guided by the United States Supreme Court's decision in Ylst v. Nunnemaker, which established the following presumption: 70 Where there has been one reasoned state judgment rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that judgment or rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground. If an earlier opinion fairly appear[s] to rest primarily upon federal law, we will presume that no procedural default has been invoked by a subsequent unexplained order that leaves the judgment or its consequences in place. Similarly where, as 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. 71 501 U.S. 797, 803 (1991) (emphasis added) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). The April 15, 1994, Court of Appeals's decision of Lott's Murnahan motion, in which the court concluded that [c]learly, the appellant waived his right to a jury trial in a voluntary, knowing and intelligent fashion and the record further indicates that the appellant was fully aware of the circumstances and consequences of the waiver, predated the November 3, 1994, decision (and thus could not have been the last reasoned decision), 9 and, in any event, addressed only the merits of the ineffectiveness claim (and not the waiver claim). Absent a showing of cause and prejudice to excuse this procedural default, therefore, Lott may not now challenge the validity of his waiver. 72