Opinion ID: 73625
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: claims actually raised in state court

Text: The first category includes Bailey's claims regarding (1) the argument that the prosecution failed to prove an unbroken chain-of-custody of the cocaine evidence; (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to investigate the chain-of-custody issue;6 (3) alleged police alteration of evidence; and (4) the fact that his failure to appeal the denial of the 1992 Rule 32 Petition was not his fault, because all of these claims were raised in the 1993 Rule 32 Petitions. The first category can ignore Bailey's direct appeal because no overlap exists at all between the claims made in this case and the claims made in those proceedings. Also, the first category can ignore the 1992 Rule 32 Petition because Bailey's failure to appeal the denial of that petition meant that the claims were never exhausted. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(c) (An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State ... if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.); Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 740, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991) (failure to take timely appeal of state postconviction court's denial 6 The first category does not include Bailey's two other ineffective-assistance-of counsel claims, regarding the failure to raise the chain-of-custody issue on appeal and not allowing Bailey to testify regarding the chain-of-custody. Those particular issues were never presented to the state courts. While they are related to ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to investigate the chain-of-custody of the cocaine evidence, which was raised in state court, a habeas petitioner may not present instances of ineffective assistance of counsel in his federal petition that the state court has not evaluated previously. Footman v. Singletary, 978 F.2d 1207, 1211 (11th Cir.1992). We will consider the other two ineffective-assistance claims using the analysis for claims that were never raised in state courts. 5 of petition constituted procedural default); Bufalino v. Reno, 613 F.2d 568, 570 (5th Cir.1980)7 ([T]he exhaustion doctrine requires that the federal claim must have been presented to the highest court of the State, either on direct review or in a post-conviction attack.). Even if we treat the claims in the 1992 Rule 32 Petition as exhausted due to the lack of fault on Bailey's part for not timely appealing, no overlap exists between those claims and the claims made in this petition.8 We are satisfied that the Alabama courts denied the 1993 Rule 32 Petition on the adequate and independent state procedural ground of successiveness. See generally Ala. R.Crim. P. 32.2(b) (A second or successive [Rule 32] petition on different grounds shall be denied unless the petitioner shows both that good cause exists why the new ground or grounds were not known or could not have been ascertained through reasonable diligence when the first petition was heard, and that failure to entertain the petition will result in a miscarriage of justice.). In its February 11, 1994 order, the Rule 32 court found that [t]he Petitioner has failed to show good cause why the grounds raised in the instant petitioner were not known or could not have been ascertained through reasonable diligence at the time his first and second petitions were heard. Further, the Petitioner has failed to show that failure to entertain this petition will result in the miscarriage of justice. However, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals complicated matters slightly, by stating in its November 10, 1994 memorandum affirmance of the Rule 32 trial court's order, 7 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), this Court adopted as binding precedent all of the decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981. Id. at 1209. 8 Bailey did argue in the 1992 Rule 32 Petition that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to the sufficiency of the State's proof that his guilty pleas in the 1982 convictions used as predicates under the AHFOA were voluntary. In this petition, he makes a similar claim (amendment dated November 25, 1991), stripped of the ineffective-assistance cloak, raising the issue whether the priors used [to] bring the accused under the provision of the habitual offender statute must have consisted of Ireland forms, and implying that the failure to use such forms rendered the predicate convictions involuntary. An ineffective-assistance claim is analytically distinct from the substantive claim underlying it. Therefore, whether or not Bailey exhausted his ineffective-assistance claim regarding the voluntariness of his predicate convictions, his current substantive claim was not presented to the Alabama courts. Cf. Levasseur v. Pepe, 70 F.3d 187, 192 (1st Cir.1995) (finding that prior court's treatment of petitioner's underlying substantive claims in the context of ruling on his ineffective assistance claim did not preserve substantive claims themselves for review on collateral attack). 6 The appellant's argument, that the trial court erred in denying his Rule 32, A.R.Cr.P. petition as successive because it was a vehicle for an out-of-time appeal of his original petition, is without merit. Summary disposition of the petition was proper on another procedural ground, as the appellant failed to state a claim. Rule 32.7(d), A.R.Cr.P. The appellant did not show that his attorney was ineffective according to the standards of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Whether Bailey's claims that were raised in the 1993 Rule 32 Petitions are now procedurally barred turns on interpretation of the above language. In Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. at 260, 109 S.Ct. 1038 (1989), the United States Supreme Court was confronted with the situation of a section 2254 habeas corpus petitioner whose ineffective-assistance claims in a state post-conviction relief proceeding had been rejected by the state appellate court in an unpublished opinion. That opinion stated that the petitioner had waived those claims through not presenting them on direct appeal (i.e., a state-law procedural default), but proceeded to analyze the claims on the merits and reject them. The question was whether the federal court in the section 2254 proceeding should refuse to review the claims because state procedural default rules barred them due to the ambiguity in the state appellate court's decision about the ground it was relying upon. The Court held that [a] procedural default does not bar consideration of a federal claim on ... habeas review unless the last state court rendering a judgment in the case clearly and expressly states that its judgment rests on a procedural bar. Id. at 263, 109 S.Ct. 1038 (internal quotations omitted). In Harris, the state appellate court had laid the foundation for a holding based on waiver noting the petitioner's failure to raise his claims on direct appeal, but never stating clearly and expressly its reliance on that ground. Id. at 266, 109 S.Ct. 1038. Consequently, federal habeas review was not precluded. Under Harris v. Reed, we must determine whether the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion rested on independent and adequate state procedural grounds. We believe that although the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals could have been more explicit, its opinion rested on procedural default and failure to state a claim as alternative grounds and therefore fits within the exception reserved in footnote 10 of the Supreme Court's opinion in Harris: [A] state court need not fear reaching the merits of a federal claim in 7 an alternative holding. Through its very definition, the adequate and independent state ground doctrine requires the federal court to honor a state holding that is a sufficient basis for the state court's judgment, even when the state court also relies on federal law. Harris, 489 U.S. at 264 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 1038 (emphasis in original). See also Alderman v. Zant, 22 F.3d 1541, 1549-51 (11th Cir.) (where a Georgia habeas corpus court found that the petitioner's claims were procedurally barred as successive, but also noted that the claims lacked merit based on the evidence, [t]his ruling in the alternative did not have the effect ... of blurring the clear determination by the [Georgia habeas corpus] court that the allegation was procedurally barred), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1061, 115 S.Ct. 673, 130 L.Ed.2d 606 (1994). The presence of alternative holdings in the state appellate court's opinion distinguishes this case from Thomas v. Harrelson, 942 F.2d 1530, 1531-32 (11th Cir.1991), where we held that [t]here is no procedural bar where the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, the last state court to consider this case, addressed on the merits the issue [raised in the § 2254 petition]. Thus, the district court was correct that it was precluded from hearing those of Bailey's claims that had been declared procedurally defaulted during the state-court litigation of the 1993 Rule 32 Petitions. Again, these claims are (1) the argument that the prosecution failed to prove an unbroken chain-of-custody of incriminating evidence; (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to investigate the chain-of-custody issue; (3) police alteration of evidence; and (4) the argument that Bailey's failure to appeal the denial of the 1992 Rule 32 Petition was not his fault.