Opinion ID: 3012034
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory claims under AEDPA

Text: In his brief on direct appeal to the New Jersey Supreme Court, Marshall cited to the United States Postal Service’s Domestic Mail Manual in support of his argument that there was a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in his letters and that the search warrant must have been executed by a federal (not a state) officer. The New Jersey _________________________________________________________________ Jersey courts found that the container was an open tray. Later evidence calls that conclusion into question, but for our purposes what depository was used is immaterial. 64 Supreme Court rejected those contentions because the envelope was not within the custody of the postal authorities at the time of the seizure and [t]he statute does not limit search warrants to those issued by federal judges or magistrates. Marshall I, 586 A.2d 118. The District Court appeared to extend this reasoning to the additional statutes cited by Marshall before it: 5 U.S.C. S 301, 39 U.S.C. SS 201, 404(a)(1) and 3623(d). See Marshall III, 103 F. Supp. 2d at 783-84. We conclude that we do not have jurisdiction to entertain Marshall’s complaint as to the District Court’s determination of his statutory claims. In Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (2000), the Supreme Court noted that 28 U.S.C. S 2253(c)), that section of AEDPA that governs our ability to issue a COA to review a District Court’s adjudication of the claims of a habeas petition, states explicitly that a COA may not issue unless ‘the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.’  529 U.S. at 483. In that section, as Slack explains, Congress codified the standard of Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 894 (1983), except that Barefoot only required the denial of a federal right, while AEDPA requires the denial of a constitutional right. Slack, 529 U.S. at 483. While the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has extended Slack -- and in our view, the explicit language of the statute as well -- to allow independently substantial statutory issue[s] to come along for the ride if there is a substantial constitutional question within the case, Ramunno v. United States, 264 F.3d 723, 725 (7th Cir. 2001), we refuse to deviate from Congress’s express terms. In United States v. Cepero, 224 F.3d 256, 262-63, 267 (3d Cir. 2000), we construed Slack and the plain language of 28 U.S.C. S 2253(c)) to deprive us of jurisdiction to hear statutory questions pursuant to habeas appeals. In response to the ad terrorem argument that the defendant is thereby totally denied the opportunity to appeal nonconstitutional issues, the short answer is that Congress has indicated that these issues must be presented in the direct appeal from the conviction. Id. at 265.33 Marshall did not, and he cannot now raise them here. _________________________________________________________________ 33. The premise that nonconstitutional claims are waived if not raised on direct appeal is, of course, unremarkable and well settled law. See, e.g., 65