Opinion ID: 183634
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel at the Conviction Phase

Text: Because Cantu did not raise this ineffective assistance of counsel claim in his state petition for post-conviction relief, the district court had to determine whether the state court would consider the merits of the claim if Cantu now raised it in a successive state petition. [23] The district court concluded that the state court would refuse to consider the merits of this claim and dismissed it as procedurally defaulted. [24] We conduct a de novo review of the district court's decision to treat a claim as procedurally defaulted. [25] Cantu asserts that he may still file a successive state petition. He points to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure art. 11.071, § 5(a)(2), which provides an exception to the Texas bar on successive petitions if a petitioner can establish that by a preponderance of the evidence, but for a violation of the United States Constitution no rational juror could have found the applicant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has explained that Article 11.071, Section 5(a)(2) was enacted in response to the Supreme Court's decision in [ Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995) ], so that standards set forth for evaluating a gateway-actual-innocence claim announced by the Supreme Court should guide our consideration of such claims under Section 5(a)(2). [26] The court summarized: [T]o mount a credible claim of innocence, an applicant must support his allegations of constitutional error with reliable evidencewhether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidencethat was not presented at trial. . . . To determine whether an applicant has satisfied the burden, we must make a holistic evaluation of all the evidence, old and new, incriminating and exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be admitted under rules of admissibility that would govern at trial. We must then decide how reasonable jurors, who were properly instructed, would react to the overall, newly supplemented record. [27] Cantu claims that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate evidence of his factual innocence and present it at trial. In particular, he points to three factual inconsistencies that were admitted into evidence at trial: (1) telephone records indicated that someone made a phone call from Cantu's apartment on the night after the murder when he and Boettcher were in Arkansas; (2) toll tag records indicated that someone drove Mosqueda's Corvette at 11:15 a.m. on November 4, even though Boettcher claimed the last time they drove the car was at 6:30 a.m.; and (3) the State's blood-spatter expert testified, based on photos of the crime scene, that Kitchen had been kicked or punched in the face, while the doctor who performed the autopsies found no evidence of injuries to the victims apart from the gunshot wounds. [28] Cantu does not specifically explain, however, how this evidence proves his innocence by a preponderance of evidence, [29] and the district court pointed out that there are rational explanations of these inconsistencies that reasonable jurors could accept: The fact that another person had access to Cantu's house would not lead a rational person to disbelieve the evidence that he committed the murders. Similarly, a rational juror would likely conclude that it was Cantu himself who drove Mosqueda's car at 11:15 am on November 4, 2000, and that he left for Arkansas shortly thereafter. Finally, although Cantu is correct that Rohr's autopsy report does not mention that Kitchen suffered any facial trauma other than the gunshot wound, the trauma is clearly evident in the autopsy photos themselves. A rational juror would likely conclude that Dr. Rohr's autopsy report on Kitchen was less detailed than it could have been, not that Cantu did not kill her. [30] Most importantly, the inconsistencies derive from old evidence that was presented at trial and do not introduce any new information, which is a requirement under Schlup and thus under article 11.071, § 5(a)(2). [31] Cantu further contends that his counsel rendered deficient performance (1) by failing to interview Cantu's ex-girlfriend, at whose apartment police found the murder weapon; (2) by failing to question State witnesses as to whether Cantu's face was indeed swollen and Boettcher's hand was indeed injured, as she testified; and (3) by conceding Cantu's culpability for the murders during closing argument. These claims, however, do not constitute reliable evidence, let alone new evidence, and therefore also cannot support a Schlup claim of actual innocence as required to file a successive petition under § 5(a)(2). In sum, the district court was correct in its conclusion that the state court would clearly refuse to consider the merits of this claim if it were now presented in a successive state petition for post-conviction relief under § 5(a)(2). In the alternative, Cantu argues that his procedurally defaulted claim may nevertheless be reviewed in federal court pursuant to the Coleman v. Thompson [32] exceptions. These exceptions allow for federal habeas review if a petitioner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. [33] The only cause that Cantu alleges, however, is that his state habeas counsel's ineffectiveness constitutes cause sufficient to excuse that default. [34] We have repeatedly rejected this argument and held, to the contrary, that ineffective assistance of habeas counsel cannot provide cause for a procedural default under these circumstances, [35] which Cantu conceded. [36] Cantu therefore does not satisfy the Coleman cause and prejudice exception. As for the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception, we have held that the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception is confined to cases of actual innocence, where the petitioner shows, as a factual matter, that he did not commit the crime of conviction. [37] We apply the Schlup standard to establish the requisite probability that the petitioner is factually innocent [38] which Cantu does not meet, as discussed above. Because Cantu does not qualify for either of the two Coleman exceptions, his claim cannot be reviewed in federal court. The district court was correct to dismiss this claim as procedurally defaulted.