Opinion ID: 343307
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: surrogate appeal

Text: 4 Although section 2255 proclaims that a motion for such relief may be made at any time, it is a judicial commonplace that the writ of habeas corpus will not be allowed to do service for an appeal, Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 178, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 1590, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947); accord, e. g., Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269, 274, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268 (1942). If the rule against employing habeas as a surrogate for appeal meant only that a petition should not normally be entertained while direct review is still available, application of the rule would occasion little difficulty. The rule, however, expresses substantive as well as procedural policies: in certain circumstances failure to pursue a direct appeal will be held to tilt the equities against a habeas petitioner and prevent him from obtaining collateral relief, e. g., Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428-29, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962) (petitioner had not appealed trial court's failure to afford him opportunity to make statement in his own behalf at sentencing); Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 177-181, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947) (petitioners were part of concerted test case effort in which some judgments were appealed while others were not). 5 In the instant case, the Sosa brothers dismissed their direct appeal and sought section 2255 relief. The Government insists that this action constituted a deliberate bypass of direct review which forecloses collateral attack. But the Government's use of the rule that habeas will not be allowed to do service for an appeal is too pat. The Government fails to show how and why the Sosas have so abused the privilege of the Great Writ as to preclude them from obtaining relief to which they are obviously otherwise entitled. 6 The term deliberate bypass is not self-executing; it depends upon legal conclusion. It encapsulates an equitable doctrine that took form as early as Ex Parte Kearney, 20 U.S. (7 Wheat.) 37, 42-43, 5 L.Ed. 391 (1822); Matter of Gregory, 219 U.S. 210, 213, 31 S.Ct. 143, 55 L.Ed. 184 (1911). The term itself entered the habeas corpus lexicon after Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963): 7 Although we hold that the jurisdiction of the federal courts on habeas corpus is not affected by procedural defaults incurred by the applicant during the state court proceedings, we recognize a limited discretion in the federal judge to deny relief to an applicant under certain circumstances. . . . (H) abeas corpus has traditionally been regarded as governed by equitable principles. Among them is the principle that a suitor's conduct in relation to the matter at hand may disentitle him to the relief he seeks. . . . We therefore hold that the federal habeas judge may in his discretion deny relief to an applicant who has deliberately by-passed the orderly procedure of the state courts and in so doing has forfeited his state court remedies. 8 372 U.S. at 438, 83 S.Ct. at 848 (citation omitted). 9 Although the Supreme Court enforced the general rule against surrogate appeals in Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947), the Court was careful to preserve the not inconsiderable number of exceptions to the rule, see 332 U.S. at 178-181 & nn. 6-13, 67 S.Ct. 1588, when the writ has . . . been entertained either without consideration of the adequacy of relief by the appellate route or where an appeal would have afforded an adequate remedy, 332 U.S. at 178, 67 S.Ct. at 1591. The Court's catalogue of exceptions shows that the archetypal case for the application of the rule precluding collateral attack is when direct appeal has been foregone as a tactical maneuver. See 332 U.S. at 180-182, 67 S.Ct. 1588. 10 We thus begin with the proposition recognized in Sunal and respected in subsequent decisions, that failure to appeal does not, by itself, require a habeas court to deny the petition. (T)he question rather is whether the case is one in which refusal to exercise that power (to adjudicate the merits of constitutional claims on habeas is) appropriate, Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 220 n. 3, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 1071 n. 3, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969), for the rule against surrogate appeals is not one defining power but one which relates to the appropriate exercise of power, Bowen v. Johnston,306 U.S. 19, 27, 59 S.Ct. 442, 446, 83 L.Ed. 455 (1939). Our own jurisprudence traces a similar course, and consistently returns to the holding that the motivation or reason for the failure to appeal, and not the mere datum that an appeal was not taken or completed, determines whether a section 2255 motion ought to be entertained. 2 The rule against surrogate appeals is not, therefore, a strict jurisdictional requirement. Rather, it is a formulation of jurisprudential considerations that may vary as the equities of a case vary. We believe the equities weigh heavily in the Sosas' favor. 11 Our consideration of the Sosas' claim is not uninfluenced by the fact that our own procedures may have contributed to the problem. The motion for dismissal clearly states the Sosas' intention to dismiss the direct appeal in order to seek section 2255 relief. If we had specifically authorized the dismissal as a prelude to section 2255 proceedings, Rule 42(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, which provides that an appeal may be dismissed on motion of the appellant upon such terms as may be agreed upon by the parties or fixed by the court, would conclude the matter. However, our own Local Rule 9(a) makes perfunctory our approval of motions for voluntary dismissal. 3 Thus, although we cannot be said to have countenanced the Sosas' action, we are reluctant to limit the exercise of an essentially equitable authority where the circumstances so visibly show the Sosas' good faith and our own indirect responsibility for their present predicament. 12 The Government reads several of our prior decisions as supporting its characterization of the Sosas' actions as a deliberate bypass. A careful analysis of those cases, however, leads to the opposite conclusion. In Larson v. United States, 275 F.2d 673 (5th Cir. 1960), the petitioner had not appealed from a conviction and life sentence in a murder trial. His codefendant, who had been sentenced to die, appealed and eventually won retrial in circumstances that reduced almost to zero the risk of a death sentence for Larson, 275 F.2d at 675. We affirmed the district court's denial of Larson's subsequent section 2255 motion on the ground that his failure to appeal was part of a considered strategy not to jeopardize his life by running the risk of a new trial, 275 F.2d at 674; see 275 F.2d at 679-80. 13 Equally wayward is the Government's citation of Montgomery v. Hopper, 488 F.2d 877 (5th Cir. 1973), for in that case we pointed out that not all intentional failures to appeal can be labeled as the deliberate bypass which also carries the prisoner past collateral attack. The Court explained: 14 The term 'deliberate bypass' is one of art. . . . The circumstances revealed by this record fall short of authorizing the conclusion that (the petitioner) deliberately bypassed his right of appeal . . . to gain any tactical or strategic advantage in the pursuit of his claims. 15 488 F.2d at 879-80. 16 The Sosas, appellees here, contend that they only tried to expedite the instant case at the least expense and with the least inconvenience to this Court. We agree. They were free on bond pending appeal, so the section 2255 motion could secure them no particular tactical advantage over direct appeal as a means of avoiding imprisonment. No legal machinations appear to have influenced their decision. True, the Peralez case might have been reversed en banc, but the section 2255 proceedings would have been reviewable in this Court had Peralez gone the other way en banc. And since the only issue was the legality of the stop, the section 2255 motion offered no prospect that a nonappealable judgment of acquittal would be entered by the district court. 17 While we strongly discourage the withdrawal of a direct appeal in favor of a section 2255 motion, we see no reason to administer the rather harsh punishment demanded by the Government for conduct which, at worst, amounts to an excess of zeal. Our cases firmly reject any rigid application of the rule against surrogate appeals. Instead, they establish the principle that habeas will not be permitted to substitute for an appeal when the choice to seek habeas relief is made in order to seize some legal or tactical advantage for the defendant. No such ulterior purpose has been shown to have directed the Sosas' actions. We therefore hold that the district court properly entertained the section 2255 motion despite the fact that the direct appeal had been voluntarily dismissed. 18