Opinion ID: 2975201
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Merits of Claim One

Text: A federal court is authorized to issue a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a state prisoner “only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the Nos. 05-5705/5823 -10- United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). The district court relied on Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. 736 (1948), and United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443 (1972), for the proposition that a sentence based on invalid prior convictions is unconstitutional. Respondent asserts that the district court’s holding that Bryan’s sentence is inconsistent with Tennessee law is in error, and even if inconsistent with Tennessee law, the sentence did not violate the federal constitution. Federal habeas relief is available only if a defendant is in custody in violation of federal law; error in the application of state law is not cognizable in a federal habeas proceeding. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991) (emphasizing that “it is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions”). Accordingly, this court must evaluate whether Bryan’s sentence as a persistent offender is constitutionally invalid. Both Tucker and Townsend support the district court’s conclusion that a sentence imposed on the basis of prior felony convictions that have since been found invalid is unconstitutional. As noted by the district court, the Townsend Court emphasized that “it is the careless or designed pronouncement of sentence on a foundation so extensively and materially false, which the prisoner had no opportunity to correct by the services which counsel would provide, that renders the proceedings lacking in due process.” Townsend, 334 U.S. at 741 (finding that “this prisoner was sentenced on the basis of assumptions concerning his criminal record which were materially untrue”). Relying on Townsend, the Tucker Court granted the petitioner’s writ of habeas corpus on finding that the sentencing court erroneously relied upon defendant’s three prior felony convictions, two of which were constitutionally invalid. Tucker, 404 U.S. at 446-49 (noting that “we deal here, Nos. 05-5705/5823 -11- not with a sentence imposed in the informed discretion of a trial judge, but with a sentence founded at least in part upon misinformation of constitutional magnitude”). The Tucker Court emphasized that “the real question here is . . . whether the sentence . . . might have been different if the sentencing court [had not relied on erroneous information].” Id. at 448. Respondent seeks to distinguish Bryan’s situation from those found constitutionally invalid in Townsend and Tucker. Respondent contends that this court’s decision in Arnett v. Jackson, 393 F.3d 681 (6th Cir. 2005), characterized the Townsend and Tucker decisions as “cases which provide the general rule that a violation of due process exists when a sentencing judge relies upon ‘erroneous information.’” Respondent asserts that the circumstances found to be constitutionally repugnant in Townsend and Tucker simply do not exist in this case, because the sentence is actually “based” on the guilty plea rather than any previous information. Respondent’s reading of Townsend and Tucker, however, is flawed. Although the facts of both cases differ somewhat from those at issue here, both cases stand for the proposition that a sentence imposed on the basis of an erroneous prior conviction is constitutionally invalid. It is apparent from the record that Bryan’s sentence as a persistent offender was predicated on his invalid 1983 guilty pleas. As a consequence, his sentence is unconstitutional under Townsend and Tucker.5