Opinion ID: 172275
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mr. McGee's Challenges to the Withdrawal of Plea Hearing.

Text: As noted above, Mr. McGee did not raise his challenges to the withdrawal of plea hearing that was held in the trial court on August 27, 2003, in any of the state court proceedings. As a result, no record was developed on the questions of whether Mr. McGee's not guilty plea was voluntary and whether he was represented by counsel at the hearing. We therefore cannot decide these issues based on the existing state court record. Indeed, Mr. McGee's current counsel conceded this point during the supplemental briefing in this appeal, as counsel candidly acknowledged that a remand for further development of the state court record is required to resolve these issues. [6] See Aplt. First Supp. Br. at 5-6 (The record does not adequately reflect that Mr. McGee was represented by counsel at the hearing in question. At the very least, resolution of this issue requires consideration of material not available in the record, which suggests the necessity of reversal and remand.); id. at 24 (The record is insufficient to demonstrate that the `withdrawals' attributed to Mr. McGee of his guilty pleas [were] counseled, and thus `voluntary.' Definitive resolution of that issue would require reversal and remand as it would require additional record material....). As we understand defense counsel's statements, counsel is in effect asking this court to remand this matter to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness and presence of counsel issues, so that a sufficient record can be developed on those issues and the merits of the issues can be decided. This we cannot do, however, because 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) bars such a course of action at this stage of these proceedings. Section 2254(e)(2) provides that if a habeas petitioner has failed to develop the factual basis of a claim in the State court proceedings, then a federal district court shall not hold an evidentiary hearing on the claim unless the claim is based on: (i) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable; or (ii) a factual predicate that could not have been previously discovered through the exercise of due diligence. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2)(A)(i) and (ii). A prisoner has failed to develop a claim in state court proceedings if there is lack of diligence, or some greater fault, attributable to the prisoner or the prisoner's counsel. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 432, 120 S.Ct. 1479, 146 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Diligence ... depends upon whether the prisoner made a reasonable attempt, in light of the information available at the time, to investigate and pursue claims in state court. Id. at 435, 120 S.Ct. 1479. Consistent with these principles, we easily conclude that Mr. McGee failed to exercise the required diligence to develop a record in the state court proceedings on the voluntariness and presence of counsel issues. To begin with, neither Mr. McGee's appellate counsel in his certiorari and direct appeals to the OCCA nor Mr. McGee himself in his pro se post-conviction proceeding ever raised any sort of challenge to the withdrawal of plea hearing that was held in the trial court on August 27, 2003. Further, there is no indication in the record that the trial court or the OCCA did anything to prevent Mr. McGee from developing a record on the voluntariness and presence of counsel claims. It is also clear that Mr. McGee cannot satisfy either of the stringent exceptions in § 2254(e)(2) to excuse his lack of diligence, as he is not relying on any new rule of constitutional law, and he has no basis for asserting that he was unable to discover the factual predicates for the voluntariness and presence of counsel claims. [7] To the contrary, since he himself attended the withdrawal of plea hearing, Mr. McGee knew precisely what transpired at the hearing and was thus immediately aware of the factual predicates for his claims, and there is simply no excuse for his failure to assert the voluntariness and presence of counsel claims in the state court proceedings. Consequently, § 2254(e)(2) prohibits us from remanding the claims to the district court for an evidentiary hearing, and, given the deficient record before us, we must deny relief on the claims. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.