Opinion ID: 3037594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Little’s Equal Protection Claim Also Fails.

Text: Little claims the Nevada Supreme Court denied him equal protection by failing to apply its existing case law to him. Little claims in its 1992 ruling the Nevada Supreme Court should have set aside his plea because he was not told, on the record, that he was ineligible for probation. Thus, Little’s argument rests on the proposition that, on or before 1992, the Nevada Supreme Court always found that a plea was per se invalid where the defendant, who was ineligible for probation, was not so advised on the record and the trial court was required to use talismanic phrases to ensure a defendant is so aware. Even if true, Little is not entitled to habeas relief on this basis. [8] Little’s claim, at most, amounts to an allegation that in his case Nevada law was misapplied or that the Nevada Supreme Court departed from its earlier decisions. Under clearly established Supreme Court law, such contention neither gives rise to an equal protection claim, nor provides a basis for habeas relief.5 See Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 554-55 (1962); see also Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 5 Outside the habeas context, the Supreme Court has recognized that inconsistent application of state law can give rise to an equal protection claim. See Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 103 (2000) (per curiam). LITTLE v. CRAWFORD 6277 67-68 (1991) (“We have stated many times that federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law. Today, we reemphasize that it is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on statelaw questions.”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Stated differently, the Supreme Court has long settled that the Fourteenth Amendment does not assure immunity from judicial error or uniformity of judicial decisions. See Milwaukee Elec. Ry. & Light Co. v. State of Wisconsin ex rel. City of Milwaukee, 252 U.S. 100, 106 (1920) (“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment does not, in guaranteeing equal protection of the laws, assure uniformity of judicial decisions.”); see also Central Land Co. of West Virginia v. Laidley, 159 U.S. 103 (1895). In Beck v. Washington, the Supreme Court refused to find constitutional error in the alleged misapplication of Washington law by Washington courts. The petitioner’s “argument under the Equal Protection Clause [was] that Washington has singled out petitioner for special treatment by denying him the procedural safeguards the law affords others to insure an unbiased grand jury.” 369 U.S. at 554. In rejecting petitioner’s claim, the Supreme Court held: [E]ven if we were to assume that Washington law requires such procedural safeguards, the petitioner’s argument here comes down to a contention that Washington law was misapplied . . . . We have said time and again that the Fourteenth Amendment does not assure uniformity of judicial decisions . . . [or] immunity from judicial error . . . . Were it otherwise, every alleged misapplication of state law would constitute a federal constitutional question. Id. at 554-55 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (alterations, except the first, in original). This Circuit followed Beck in Alford v. Rolfs, 867 F.2d 1216 (9th Cir. 1989). In Alford, the petitioner “argue[d] that 6278 LITTLE v. CRAWFORD the Washington Court of Appeals denied him equal protection of the laws by treating him differently from other Washington defendants who appeal habitual criminal findings.” Id. at 1218-19. Petitioner also “refer[red] [the panel] to Washington case law, where defendants appealing habitual criminal findings ha[d] succeeded in obtaining reversal of the findings” under similar circumstances. Id. Relying on Beck v. Washington, the court found that petitioner’s “equal protection claim [was] without merit” Id. [9] Against this backdrop, Little cannot establish an equal protection claim warranting habeas relief, simply because, or if, the Nevada Supreme Court misapplied Nevada law or departed from its past precedents. “[A] violation of state law standing alone is not cognizable in federal court on habeas.” Park v. California, 202 F.3d 1146, 1149 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Estelle, 502 U.S. at 67).6 [10] Rather, Little must show that the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision somehow “violated the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” See Estelle, 502 U.S. at 68. This he might have been able to do if the Nevada Supreme Court’s alleged error constituted “a fundamental defect which inherently result[ed] in a complete miscarriage of justice,” or “exceptional circumstances where the need for the remedy afforded by the writ of habeas corpus is apparent.” Short v. 6 To be sure, Little’s claim may also implicate his due process rights. However, even under that analysis, that he “may have shown a variance with the state law . . . is not a federal question. We cannot treat a mere error of state law, if one occurred, as a denial of due process; otherwise, every erroneous decision by a state court on state law would come here as a federal constitutional question.” Hughes v. Heinze, 268 F.2d 864, 869870 (9th Cir. 1959) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Langford v. Day, 110 F.3d 1380, 1389 (9th Cir. 1997) (holding that a petitioner may not “transform a state-law issue into a federal one merely by asserting a violation of due process,” and that “alleged errors in the application of state law are not cognizable in federal habeas corpus” proceedings). LITTLE v. CRAWFORD 6279 Garrison, 678 F.2d 364, 369 (4th Cir. 1982) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Estelle, 502 U.S. at 75. But such circumstances are not present here. As explained above, under clearly established federal due process standards, Little’s plea was knowing and voluntary. Were we to find otherwise simply because he was not told that he was ineligible for probation, we would “be exalting form over substance[.]” Beck, 369 U.S. at 555. And such a finding would be “contrary to [the Supreme Court’s] previous application of the Equal Protection Clause.” Id. (citation omitted). Little’s reliance on Myers v. Ylst, 897 F.2d 417 (9th Cir. 1990), is inapposite. Myers held that “once [a state court] has established a rule it must apply it with an even hand.” Id. at 421 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “The equal protection clause prohibits a state from affording one person . . . the . . . benefit of a ruling . . . while denying it to another.” Id.; see also Powell v. Ducharme, 998 F.2d 710, 716 (9th Cir. 1993) (“The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a state from applying a rule of law retroactively in some cases but not others, absent a rational basis for doing so.”). The circumstances in Myers are nothing like Little’s. In Myers, the state court established a rule and applied it retroactively to a case, while refusing to apply the same rule in another identical case. Here, the Nevada Supreme Court had never established that a plea was per se invalid where the defendant was not advised on the record that he was ineligible for probation; nor did it require a trial court to use talismanic phrases to ensure a defendant was so aware. Indeed, the opposite is true. As noted, Little claims the Nevada Supreme Court denied him equal protection because its ruling was inconsistent with its decisions in Meyer v. State, 603 P.2d 1066 (Nev. 1979), Aswegan v. State, 710 P.2d 83 (Nev. 1985) (per curiam), and Skinner v. State, 930 P.2d 748 (Nev. 1997) (per curiam). The Nevada Supreme Court acknowledged that there was some 6280 LITTLE v. CRAWFORD confusion in its caselaw, and acted to clear it away: “To the extent that Meyer, Heimrich, and Aswegan support a contrary proposition . . . they are hereby overruled. We modify Meyer and its progeny . . . .” Little, 34 P.3d at 544. We read this statement as an exercise of the Nevada Supreme Court’s power to clean up loose language in its prior opinions, not as an admission that Nevada’s caselaw was in conflict. [11] In any event, whether a conflict in state caselaw is substantial enough to constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause is a federal question, we are not bound by the state’s view on the issue. State courts may well choose to cure tensions in their caselaw, and unless those tensions are sufficiently grave, we are not to correct errors of state law on federal habeas review. See Estelle, 502 U.S. at 67-68. A close examination of the Nevada caselaw reveals that Nevada’s cases were not in sufficiently grave conflict to deny Little equal protection under the federal Constitution. In Meyer, the defendant argued that “his guilty plea was not entered voluntarily and intelligently because he was not informed, on the record, that probation is not available to one convicted of sexual assault.” 603 P.2d at 1066. The court agreed, holding that the “acceptance of [defendant’s] guilty plea was fatally defective because the record [was] devoid of any indication that [he] was informed that sexual assault is not a probational offense.” Id. at 1067. Meyer then concluded that “when an offense is not probational, the district judge has a duty to insure that the record discloses that the defendant is aware of that fact.” Id. But the Meyer court did not specifically set forth what, if anything, the defendant was told about the minimum or maximum sentence he would have to serve as a result of pleading guilty. In Aswegan, “[p]ursuant to a plea bargain, [defendant] pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual assault.” 710 P.2d at 83. On appeal, the defendant “argue[d] that his guilty plea was not entered voluntarily and intelligently because he was LITTLE v. CRAWFORD 6281 not informed, on the record, that probation is not available to one convicted of sexual assault.” Id. Relying on Meyer, the court held that the “manifest injustice created by the district court’s failure to inform appellant that probation was not a possibility in his case may be corrected by setting aside the conviction and allowing appellant to withdraw his guilty plea.” Id. Like Meyer, Aswegan did not specifically set forth what, if anything, the defendant was told about the minimum or maximum sentence he would have to serve as a result of pleading guilty. In Skinner, the defendant was charged with sexual assault. 930 P.2d at 749. “During the [plea] canvass, the district court failed to inform [the defendant] that sexual assault was not a probationable offense.” Id. Thus, defendant argued “that his guilty plea was defective because he was not informed that probation was not available for the crime of sexual assault.” Id. Relying on Meyer and Aswegan, the court agreed and remanded the case back to the trial court so that the defendant could withdraw his guilty plea. Id. at 750 (“We conclude that pursuant to Meyer and Aswegan, the district court should have granted Skinner’s petition and allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea.”). “The state argue[d] that [defendant] knew that probation was not available because the plea agreement said that he understood that he could be imprisoned for a period of not less than five years.” Id. at 749. The court disagreed: This language in the plea agreement is insufficient because it does not affirmatively show that Skinner was informed that probation was not available. Further, an understanding that the minimum sentence for a crime is five years is very different from understanding that probation is not available. Id. at 749. However, the Nevada Supreme Court did not always find that a plea was per se invalid where the defendant was not 6282 LITTLE v. CRAWFORD advised on the record that he was ineligible for probation or require a trial court to use talismanic phrases to ensure a defendant was so aware. Even before its 1992 decision in Little’s case, the Nevada Supreme Court had applied another less stringent test than the apparent per se rule in Meyer, Aswegan, and Skinner. Specifically, as early as 1986, the court had held that “[i]t shall . . . be the duty of the trial court to review the entire record to determine whether the plea was valid, either by reason of the plea canvass itself or under a totality of the circumstances.” Bryant, 721 P.2d at 368. Bryant explained: [W]hile we believe trial courts should in all circumstances conduct sufficient and thorough plea canvasses, as an appellate court reviewing the validity of a plea, we cannot be constrained to look only to the technical sufficiency of a plea canvas [sic] to determine whether a plea has been entered with a true understanding of the nature of the offense charged. As the United States Supreme Court has recognized, an appellate court should review the entire record, and look to the totality of the facts and circumstances of a defendant’s case, to determine whether a defendant entered his plea with an actual understanding of the nature of the charges against him. Id. at 367. Bryant further held that the Nevada Supreme Court “has never required the ‘articulation of talismanic phrases’ at plea hearings . . . [but has] instead been flexible in terms of permitting a district judge wide latitude in fulfilling the above requirements.” Id.; see also Iverson v. State, 807 P.2d 1372, 1375 (Nev. 1991) (“A determination of whether the defendant understood the nature of the charge will be made by using the totality of the circumstances approach, whether the facts are contained in the plea canvas [sic] or at other stages of the proceedings.”). It appears that the Nevada Supreme Court in Little’s case based its decision not on Meyer and Aswegan, but on the “totality of the circumstances” test it espoused in BryLITTLE v. CRAWFORD 6283 ant. The lower state court’s application of Bryant’s “totality of the circumstances” test in denying Little’s claim supports our conclusion. See Williams v. Rhoades, 354 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir. 2004) (“We review the last reasoned decision of the state court, which in this case was made by the state court of appeal. But because that court examined and adopted some of the trial court’s reasoning, the trial court ruling is also relevant.” (citation omitted)). Indeed, before the Nevada Supreme Court’s 1997 Skinner decision, discussed above, in 1995 the Nevada Supreme Court held that “the fact that the [state] district court did not affirmatively state that probation was not a sentencing option . . . was not prejudicial error because the district court took other steps to ensure that [defendant] was aware, even if by implication, that probation was not a sentencing option.” Riker v. State, 905 P.2d 706, 710 (Nev. 1995). As does Little, the defendant in Riker also relied on Aswegan and Meyer. Id. at 710 (defendant “cites Aswegan v. State, 101 Nev. 760, 710 P.2d 83 (1985), and Meyer v. State, 95 Nev. 885, 603 P.2d 1066 (1979), in support of his argument that a failure to advise a defendant that probation is not a sentencing option renders a subsequent guilty plea ineffective.”). The Riker court then stated that under these cases “[t]he issue . . . is whether the [state] district court adequately ensured that [defendant] was aware that probation was not a sentencing option . . . .” Id. (emphasis in original). The facts were: The State made the following declaration with [defendant] present: If the Court please, I wanted to make sure that Mr. Riker also understands that the maximum punish- ment is of course capital punishment, the death sentence, but he may also receive either life without the possibility of parole, which of course would be enhanced—that is doubled by the deadly weapon allegation—or a punishment of life with the possibility of parole, which also would be doubled as a 6284 LITTLE v. CRAWFORD result of the deadly weapon enhancement, wherein the minimum parole would be after twenty calendar years. I want the Court to make sure that he fully understands those consequences. The district court then asked Riker if he understood the State’s remarks, to which he replied, “Yes, I do.” In addition, the district court told Riker that the penalty for first degree murder can be “death, life with or without the possibility.” Riker again stated that he understood these penalty options. Id. (footnote omitted). On these facts, the Riker court held that “[b]ecause [defendant] understood the three options available for sentencing, he implicitly understood that other options were not available.” Id. The court then concluded that “[c]onsidering the implication that probation was not included among the sentencing options and the fact that [defendant] was informed that the death sentence was likely, it was harmless error that he was not affirmatively informed that probation was not an option.” Id. at 711. Little’s reliance on Myers is also inapposite since under the reasoning of that case the equal protection clause protects against arbitrary treatment. In that regard, the question is whether the state court arbitrarily withheld enforcement of the state-created right. As Myers explained: “A state should not be permitted to treat defendants differently . . . unless it has ‘some rational basis, announced with reasonable precision’ for doing so.” Id. at 421 (citation omitted). Here, the state court denied Little relief after finding that Little had been “warned that he would have to spend ten years in prison at a bare minimum.” This finding was anything but arbitrary. It was based on the record and the trial court’s repeated assurances that Little in fact knew he was going to serve prison time. [12] In sum, Little proceeds on the unfounded assumption that, under Nevada law, a defendant is granted relief whenLITTLE v. CRAWFORD 6285 ever that defendant is not advised on the record that he or she is ineligible for probation; or that a trial court must use talismanic phrases to ensure a defendant is so aware. Little is not entitled to federal habeas relief on that basis. Rather, Little was required, but has failed, to show that the Nevada Supreme Court’s misapplication somehow violated his federal constitutional rights. Little’s plea comported with due process standards. He was properly advised of his rights and the relevant consequences of his plea, and there is nothing in the record to overcome the presumption that he pleaded voluntarily and intelligently. IV.