Opinion ID: 755608
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Weatherford v. State

Text: 21 The procedural requirement at issue is the rule announced in Weatherford v. State, 619 N.E.2d 915 (Ind.1993). In Weatherford, the Indiana Supreme Court held that a petitioner who raises a sufficiency of the evidence claim on an habitual offender determination for the first time in a petition for post-conviction relief has the burden of demonstrating that he was in fact not an habitual offender under the laws of Indiana. See id. at 917-18. In other words, when a petitioner makes this claim for the first time in post-conviction proceedings, he is not permitted to require the state to establish his habitual offender status as he could on direct appeal. See id. Instead, the petitioner must demonstrate that his various convictions did not in fact occur in the required order. Id. at 918. 22 Prior to Weatherford, Indiana courts allowed challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting an habitual offender determination at the post-conviction stage regardless of whether it had been raised on direct review. See, e.g., Lee v. State, 550 N.E.2d 304, 305 (Ind.1990) (holding that post-conviction petition alleging sufficiency of evidence claim on habitual offender count should be addressed on the merits despite petitioner's failure to raise issue on direct appeal because such  'blatant violations of basic and elementary principles'  qualifies for exception to general waiver rule) (quoting Williams v. State, 464 N.E.2d 893, 894 (Ind.1984)); Williams v. State, 525 N.E.2d 1238, 1241 n. 1 (Ind.1988) (excusing petitioner's failure to raise sufficiency claim on direct review because [w]here the record of the habitual offender proceeding clearly shows inadequate proof with regard to the chronological sequence of the underlying felonies [Indiana courts] consider such error to be fundamental). 2 23 Because Moore did not allege insufficiency of the evidence on direct appeal, the Indiana courts denied Moore's petition on post-conviction review because he did not allege that he was not, in fact, an habitual offender. This reason is an adequate state ground barring federal review only if Moore could have known about the requirement that he prove his innocence at the time he committed the procedural default. Thus, the pivotal question is when Moore omitted the necessary procedural step. If it occurred before the Weatherford decision in August 1993, then Moore could not have been apprised of the rule's existence and Weatherford does not stand as an adequate state ground to bar our review. If, on the other hand, the default occurred after August 1993, then Moore was on notice of the rule and should have conformed to it, and Weatherford stands as an adequate state ground barring federal review.