Opinion ID: 77713
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Seventh Issue of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Is Procedurally Defaulted.

Text: 21 When a federal habeas petition raises a claim that has not been exhausted in state proceedings, the district court ordinarily must either dismiss the petition, leaving the prisoner with the choice of returning to state court to exhaust his claims or of amending or resubmitting the habeas petition to present only exhausted claims to the district court, Kelley v. Sec'y for Dep't of Corr., 377 F.3d 1317, 1351 (11th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), or grant a stay and abeyance to allow the petitioner to exhaust the unexhausted claim, see Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 277-79, 125 S.Ct. 1528, 1535-36, 161 L.Ed.2d 440 (2005). [W]hen it is obvious that the unexhausted claims would be procedurally barred in state court due to a state-law procedural default, [the district court] can forego the needless `judicial ping-pong' and just treat those claims now barred by state law as no basis for federal habeas relief. Kelley, 377 F.3d at 1351 (internal quotation marks omitted). The unexhausted claims should be treated as if procedurally defaulted. See Bailey, 172 F.3d at 1302. A petition is due to be denied with prejudice [if] there are no state remedies left to exhaust and all of the claims are either meritless or procedurally defaulted. Chambers v. Thompson, 150 F.3d 1324, 1326 (11th Cir.1998). 22 Section 9-14-51 of the Georgia Code forbids successive state habeas petitions except to raise issues that could not have been raised in the first habeas petition. This rule bars the defendant from raising in a second, or successive, collateral attack proceeding an error that he should have presented in his first, or earlier, collateral attack proceeding. Presnell v. Kemp, 835 F.2d 1567, 1573 (11th Cir. 1988). The Georgia statute ... can and should be enforced in federal habeas proceedings against claims never presented in state court, unless there is some indication that a state court judge would find the claims in question `could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended [state] petition.' Chambers, 150 F.3d at 1327 (quoting Ga.Code Ann. § 9-14-51). 23 Ogle's unexhausted claim for ineffective assistance (Issue 7) clearly could not be raised in a successive state habeas petition and is procedurally defaulted under Georgia law. If the district court on remand again concludes that Ogle's petition does not raise any meritorious claims, the district court should not, as it did before, dismiss the petition. The district court should deny the petition with prejudice. See id. at 1326.