Opinion ID: 222859
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to disclose details of the spillage of Woods's first blood sample

Text: Woods alleges that the State failed to disclose the full details of the spillage of his first blood sample at WSPCL's laboratory in Spokane. Woods claims that this evidence would have shown that there was a significant risk that the rape kit swab taken from Jade Moore was contaminated when Woods's blood sample leaked, thus leading to a false positive DNA match. The district court found that Woods did not fairly present this sub-claim to the Washington Supreme Court and ruled that the sub-claim was procedurally barred. We agree. [11] State prisoners seeking a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court must first exhaust their remedies in state court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). A petitioner has exhausted his federal claims when he has fully and fairly presented them to the state courts. O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 844-45, 119 S.Ct. 1728, 144 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999) (Section 2254(c) requires only that state prisoners give state courts a fair opportunity to act on their claims.). [F]or purposes of exhausting state remedies, a claim for relief in habeas corpus must include reference to a specific federal constitutional guarantee, as well as a statement of the facts that entitle the petitioner to relief. Gray v. Netherland, 518 U.S. 152, 162-63, 116 S.Ct. 2074, 135 L.Ed.2d 457 (1996); see also Davis v. Silva, 511 F.3d 1005, 1009 (9th Cir.2008). Here, Woods presented the state supreme court with both the operative facts and legal theory of his sub-claim that the State withheld evidence of WSPCL's general testing and review protocols, but he did not present facts relating to the breakage of the vial containing his first blood sample at the Spokane lab. Woods argues that, although his PRP never expressly raised a claim about the spillage of his blood sample and the potential for contamination of other evidence, his state court Brady claim alleging the non-disclosure of WSPCL's practice of discarding erroneous draft reports was sufficient to raise the issue of the prosecution's failure to disclose the mishandling of all the evidence related to DNA testing. In his amended PRP, Woods unequivocally stated that his Brady claim related to how WSPCL's general practices related to his case. Woods noted in his PRP that counsel moved to take depositions of Dr. Brown, William Morig, and Donald MacLaren, all of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, to determine the specific practices in this case.  (emphasis added). Woods suggests this language was sufficient to put the state supreme court on notice of the second Brady sub-claim he raised in his federal habeas petition. Nowhere in the PRP's Brady section, however, does Woods mention the spillage of the first blood sample. Aside from his request to depose Morig, Woods's only reference in the PRP to the forensic work at WSPCL's Spokane facility stated that Morig received the rape kit swabs, prepared samples from the swabs, and sent the samples to other laboratories to be tested. The Brady claim presented in the PRP focuses entirely on the actions of Dr. Brown, both in the Barfield case and in Woods's case. Yet Dr. Brown had nothing to do with the storage, spillage, and breakage of the vial containing Woods's first blood sample. In fact, Woods does not allege that Dr. Brown even knew that a spillage occurred. As discussed above, Dr. Brown's conduct in the Barfield case does not create a presumption that WSPCL, as an organization, systematically suppressed exculpatory material. We thus fail to see how the Brady claim in Woods's PRP, which spoke only to Dr. Brown's procedures for testing and analysis in the Seattle lab, gave the state supreme court a full and fair opportunity to act on an allegation that the prosecution withheld evidence related to the spillage of a blood sample at WSPCL's Spokane laboratory. Accordingly, we conclude that Woods failed to present the facts underlying his second Brady sub-claim to the Washington Supreme Court, and we affirm the district court's ruling that the sub-claim regarding the spillage of Woods's blood sample is technically exhausted but procedurally barred. Woods contends that the district court nonetheless should have entertained his sub-claim because he established cause for the procedural default and prejudice resulting from his failure to exhaust state remedies. See Banks v. Dretke, 540 U.S. 668, 690-91, 124 S.Ct. 1256, 157 L.Ed.2d 1166 (2004) (holding that petitioner would be entitled to an evidentiary hearing in federal court if he could show cause for his failure to develop the facts in state-court proceedings and actual prejudice resulting from that failure). For a Brady claim, cause and prejudice `parallel two of the three components of the alleged Brady violation itself.' Id. at 691, 124 S.Ct. 1256 (quoting Strickler, 527 U.S. at 282, 119 S.Ct. 1936). A petitioner may establish cause by showing that the prosecution's suppression of evidence was the reason for the petitioner's failure to develop the factual basis of the claim in state court. Id. Prejudice is established by showing that the suppressed evidence is material for Brady purposes. Id. Here, Woods argues that he failed to develop the facts of this sub-claim because the State never disclosed the full details of the spillage of his first blood sample. We agree with the district court that this is insufficient to show that the prosecution's alleged suppression of evidence caused Woods's failure to develop his sub-claim in state court. Notably, the prosecution disclosed before trial that the vial containing Woods's first blood sample had cracked and leaked at the Spokane lab. That disclosure put Woods on notice that other evidence may have been contaminated. Woods does not allege what further exculpatory facts the prosecution possessed but failed to disclose. Moreover, although Woods sought authorization from the Washington Supreme Court to conduct certain discovery, neither his discovery requests nor his request for an evidentiary hearing specifically related to the spillage of the blood sample or the possible contamination of other evidence. His failure to develop the factual basis of his claim, therefore, cannot properly be attributable to the prosecution's failure to disclose relevant evidence. We thus affirm the district court's dismissal of this sub-claim as procedurally defaulted. [12]