Opinion ID: 2717427
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rhines Analysis

Text: Even if Rhines applied to unmixed petitions, I would decline to issue a stay here, but I would do so for different reasons than the majority. I read the first factor of the Rhines test to require a different inquiry than the majority conducts here. The majority has determined that Doe cannot show good cause for a stay because a stay is not necessary to preserve Doe’s opportunity to be heard in federal court. But I read Rhines to inquire whether Doe has shown good cause for failure to exhaust his state court remedies, not good cause for a stay. In Rhines, the Supreme Court expressly defined the first factor of its test as “good cause for his failure to exhaust.” 544 U.S. at 277 (emphasis added); see also id. (“Because granting a stay effectively excuses a petitioner’s failure to present his claims first to the state courts, stay and abeyance is only appropriate when the district court determines there was good cause for the petitioner’s failure to exhaust his claims first in state court.”). The Court indicated that it so limited the circumstances in which we should grant a stay to avoid frustrating AEDPA’s purposes of promoting finality and encouraging petitioners to seek relief from state courts. Id. at 276–77. -7- In Pace, the Court used slightly different language, writing, “[a] petitioner’s reasonable confusion about whether a state filing would be timely will ordinarily constitute ‘good cause’ for him to file in federal court. Rhines, 544 U.S. at 278 (‘[I]f the petitioner had good cause for his failure to exhaust . . .’).” Pace, 544 U.S. at 416. But I do not read Pace to abrogate the Rhines test. Although Pace discussed good cause for filing in federal court, the Pace Court’s inclusion of the relevant quotation from Rhines clarifies any ambiguity. Further, because Pace was published less than a month after Rhines, I see no reason to believe that, in that short time, the Court changed its mind about the nature of this test. Determining whether the petitioner has shown good cause for failing to exhaust state court remedies before filing a habeas petition in federal court is still the first step of a Rhines analysis. See Fairchild v. Workman, 579 F.3d 1134, 1153 (10th Cir. 2009) (citing Rhines and Pace for the proposition that a petitioner “should be permitted to demonstrate that he had good cause for failing to exhaust the claim.”). 3 3 Although the majority is not alone in having interpreted the first factor of the Rhines test to require good cause for a stay, the majority of circuits that have taken up this issue, even post-Pace, have limited their inquiry to whether there was good cause for failure to exhaust. Compare Heleva, 581 F.3d at 192 (reading Pace to consider “‘good cause’ for a stay”) with Blake v. Baker, 745 F.3d 977, 981 (9th Cir. 2014) (interpreting both Rhines and Pace to require showings of good cause for failure to exhaust); Elmore v. Ozmint, 661 F.3d 783, 847 (4th Cir. 2011) (applying “Rhines’s requirement of good cause for the failure to exhaust”); (continued...) -8- I therefore disagree with the majority’s assertion that, because Doe may use McQuiggin’s actual innocence exception to return to federal court, he cannot show good cause; the necessity of a stay has no bearing on whether Doe had good cause for his failure to exhaust. Instead, I conclude that we cannot assess whether Doe can satisfy Rhines’s good cause requirement without a remand. Such a remand is unnecessary here, however. Even if Rhines applies, I find determinative the question that the majority has reserved: whether an actual innocence claim is a freestanding basis for habeas relief. Doe has brought before us a total of five habeas claims. He all but concedes that four of his five claims should have been filed within one year of the discovery of their factual predicates in 2008—considerably more than a year before he filed this action. See 28 § U.S.C. 2254(e)(2). Thus, he has requested a stay to stop the clock on his one arguably timely claim: his actual innocence claim, which was ostensibly filed within one year of the discovery of new evidence in 2011. An actual innocence claim, however, is not a freestanding basis for habeas relief. 3 (...continued) Jalowiec v. Bradshaw, 657 F.3d 293, 305 (6th Cir. 2011) (holding that belatedly disclosed Brady materials may constitute good cause for failure to exhaust); Josselyn v. Dennehy, 475 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2007) (holding that petitioner failed to show good cause for failure to exhaust); Neville v. Dretke, 423 F.3d 474, 480 (5th Cir. 2005) (holding that the petitioner points to no good cause for failure to exhaust); Rhines v. Weber, 409 F.3d 982, 983 (8th Cir. 2005) (remanding for findings as to whether the petitioner “had good cause for failing to exhaust the claim”). -9- Although the Supreme Court has “not resolved whether a prisoner may be entitled to habeas relief based on a freestanding claim of actual innocence,” McQuiggin, 133 S. Ct. at 1931, we have. Our cases definitively foreclose independent actual innocence claims in this circuit. For example, in Stafford v. Saffle, we identified that the Supreme Court has “strongly suggest[ed]” that an actual innocence claim is not “by itself, an adequate basis for habeas relief.” 34 F.3d 1557, 1561 (10th Cir. 1994) (citing Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 400 (1993)). Then, to remove any doubt, we held in LaFevers v. Gibson that “an assertion of actual innocence, although operating as a potential pathway for reaching otherwise defaulted constitutional claims, does not, standing alone, support the granting of the writ of habeas corpus.” 238 F.3d 1263, 1265 n.4 (10th Cir. 2001); see also Sellers v. Ward, 135 F.3d 1333, 1339 (10th Cir. 1998) (“[T]he claim of innocence is merely the means by which an otherwise barred constitutional error affecting the fairness of the petitioner’s trial can be heard.”); Clayton v. Gibson, 199 F.3d 1162, 1180 (10th Cir. 1999); Castro v. Oklahoma, 71 F.3d 1502, 1511 (10th Cir. 1995); Brecheen v. Reynolds, 41 F.3d 1343, 1357 (10th Cir. 1994). In addition to fidelity to our precedent, I would reaffirm the rule set forth in LaFevers because, as the Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly articulated, acknowledging a freestanding actual innocence claim clashes with the purpose of the habeas doctrine. See Herrera, 506 U.S. at 400 (“[F]ederal habeas -10- courts sit to ensure that individuals are not imprisoned in violation of the Constitution―not to correct errors of fact.”). For these reasons, rather than the reasons the majority has articulated, I would affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss Doe’s petition without prejudice. -11-