Opinion ID: 2998308
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Baldwin v. Reese

Text: The State does not address directly any infirmities in the district court’s analysis; instead, it maintains that the intervening decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S. 28 (2004), establishes that “more” is required to preserve a claim for habeas review than we had articulated in Ellsworth. The State also argues that Mr. Harrison’s brief to the Supreme Court of Indiana does not satisfy Reese’s heightened “fair presentment” requirement. Neither of these arguments are persuasive. In Ellsworth, we considered whether the plaintiff properly had presented his Sixth Amendment claim to the state courts prior to seeking habeas relief. We began our analysis by explaining, in general terms, the “fair presentment” requirement: “Initially, the state courts must have had a ‘fair opportunity’ to consider a question of constitutional import before federal collateral review on that question is appropriate.” Kurzawa [v. Jordan, 146 F.3d 435, 441 (7th Cir. 1998)] (citing Burgin v. Broglin, 900 F.2d 990, 996 14 No. 04-1398 (7th Cir. 1990)). “A ‘fair presentment’ of a petitioner’s claims requires that a petitioner give state courts ‘a meaningful opportunity to pass upon the substance of the claims [petitioner] later presses in federal court.’ ” Spreitzer v. Schomig, 219 F.3d 639, 645 (7th Cir. 2000) (quoting Howard v. O’Sullivan, 185 F.3d 721, 725 (7th Cir. 1999)). To satisfy that requirement, an inmate must present “both the operative facts and the legal principles that control each claim to the state judiciary.” Wilson v. Briley, 243 F.3d 325, 327 (7th Cir. 2001). Ellsworth, 248 F.3d at 639. We then set forth the four-part test used to determine “whether a petitioner has fairly presented a claim to the state judiciary”: 1) whether the petitioner relied on federal cases that engage in a constitutional analysis; 2) whether the petitioner relied on state cases which apply a constitutional analysis to similar facts; 3) whether the petitioner framed the claim in terms so particular as to call to mind a specific constitutional right; and 4) whether the petitioner alleged a pattern of facts that is well within the mainstream of constitutional litigation. Id. We further explained that, at its core, the task of the habeas court was to “assess[], in concrete, practical terms, whether the state court was sufficiently alerted to the federal constitutional nature of the issue to permit it to resolve that issue on a federal basis.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). This language closely resembles the introductory language employed by the Supreme Court in Reese: Before seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus, a state prisoner must exhaust available state remedies, thereby giving the State the opportunity to pass upon and No. 04-1398 15 correct alleged violations of its prisoners’ federal rights. To provide the State with the necessary “opportunity,” the prisoner must “fairly present” his claim in each appropriate state court (including a state supreme court with powers of discretionary review), thereby alerting that court to the federal nature of the claim. 541 U.S. at 29 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). After articulating the general parameters of the “fair presentment” requirement, the Court reviewed the nature of petitioner Reese’s claims in state court: In relevant part, the petition [to the state supreme court] asserted that Reese had received ineffective assistance of both trial court and appellate court counsel. The petitioner added that his imprisonment is in violation of [Oregon state law]. It said that his trial counsel’s conduct violated several provisions of the Federal Constitution. But it did not say that his separate appellate ineffective assistance claim violated federal law. Id. at 29-30 (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks and citations omitted). A federal district court had determined that Reese’s failure to fairly present his claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel to the state supreme court barred habeas relief. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed: Although the majority [of the Ninth Circuit panel] apparently believed that Reese’s petition itself did not alert the Oregon Supreme Court to the federal nature of the appellate “ineffective assistance” claim, it did not find that fact determinative. Rather, it found that Reese had satisfied the “fair presentation” requirement because the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court had had “the opportunity to read . . . the lower [Oregon] 16 No. 04-1398 court decision claimed to be in error before deciding whether to grant discretionary review.” Had they read the opinion of the lower state trial court, the majority added, the justices would have, or should have, realized that Reese’s claim rested upon federal law. Id. at 30 (quoting Baldwin v. Reese, 282 F.3d 1184, 1193-94 (9th Cir. 2002) (emphasis in original)). The Supreme Court then addressed whether the Ninth Circuit “correctly interpreted the ‘fair presentation’ requirement.” Id. The Court began “by assuming that Reese’s petition by itself did not properly alert the Oregon Supreme Court to the federal nature of Reese’s claim.” Id. at 30. In other words, the Supreme Court assumed that Reese’s petition to the state supreme court did not meet existing standards for “fair presentment”—such as those articulated by this court in Ellsworth. The Court then concluded that, based on this assumption, “Reese failed to meet the ‘fair presentation’ standard, and the Ninth Circuit was wrong to hold the contrary.” Id. at 30-31. The Court, therefore, did nothing to disturb our understanding of what is necessary to “fairly present” a claim to the state supreme court in a petition for habeas relief. The Court in Reese then went on to explain why the “opportunity” to read the lower state court opinions, which fully laid out Reese’s federal constitutional claims, was not a substitute for fairly presenting the federal claim within the petition itself. The Court stated that an opportunity means that the judges could have read them. But to say that a petitioner “fairly presents” a federal claim when an appellate judge can discover that claim only by reading lower court opinions in the case is to say that those judges must read the lower court opin- ions—for otherwise they would forfeit the State’s No. 04-1398 17 opportunity to decide that federal claim in the first instance. In our view, federal habeas corpus law does not impose such a requirement. Id. at 31 (emphasis in original). We see little similarity between the procedural situation before the Supreme Court in Reese and the one presented here. In Reese, the petitioner never articulated the federal basis of his claim before the state supreme court. The Supreme Court of Oregon could have discovered that Reese was claiming a federal constitutional violation only by reading the lower state court opinions. Here, by contrast, Mr. Harrison clearly identified the federal basis of his judge- bias claim in his brief on direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Indiana. See Dye v. Hofbauer, No. 04-8384, 2005 WL 2494290 (U.S. Oct. 11, 2005) (holding that brief to state supreme court, which identifies the federal basis of a claim, preserves that claim for habeas review). Specifically, among the issues that he identified for the state supreme court, Mr. Harrison stated: Issue II - The trial court denied the defense motions for . . . change of judge . . . . The denial of these motions constitute erred [sic] under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Sections 12, 13, 16, 18 and 23 of the Indiana Constitution. R.34, Ex.B at 12. The federal nature of these claims was reiterated in the argument section of his brief. See id. at 16. With respect to the change-of-judge motion itself, Mr. Harrison stated the following in his brief: B. MOTION FOR CHANGE OF JUDGE. Defendant filed a motion for change of judge and a hearing was held September 24th, 1991 at which time the trial court 18 No. 04-1398 denied the motion. (R. 494 through 915). The Indiana Supreme Court has already heard this issue and denied the motion prior to trial after a hearing in the Supreme Court on October 31st 1991. The issue is now raised for purposes of preserving the same for further appeal. Harrison would contend he was denied a fair and impartial trial by jury by not having a change of venue