Opinion ID: 1390193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cause under the Abuse-of-the-Writ Doctrine

Text: Goldblum argues as well that the court did not properly apply the pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ standard. Id. at 21. The magistrate judge found that Goldblum did not establish cause for omission of the blood spatter claim from the first petition because failure to exhaust remedies is not a sufficient excuse. Likewise, she found that the failure to present the claims with respect to the improper instruction on accomplice liability was not excusable as the law governing the instruction was known at the time of the first petition. Goldblum, however, believes that there is cause for failing to present his claims in his first petition so long as the claim was not withheld for manipulative purposes or was not deliberately withheld . . . in order to secure an opportunity to pursue unnecessary, and thus vexatious, successive litigation. Id. He argues that in his case there was no such `manipulative purpose' or attempt at vexatious litigation as [t]here is no evidence that [he] had actual knowledge of his claim (as neither he nor anyone on his behalf had considered or investigated the claim) or that he deliberately withheld the claim to seek some unfair advantage in a second habeas proceeding. Id. at 21-22. Moreover, he argues that since his blood spatter claim would have resulted in a `mixed petition' and thereby would have been subject to dismissal pursuant to Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982), there was no abuse of the process, and surely no deliberate attempt to gain any litigation advantage. Appellant's br. at 22. We conclude that Goldblum misstates the law. Specifically, the Supreme Court has rejected the good faith `deliberate abandonment' standard preferred by the dissent in McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 506, 111 S.Ct. at 1477 (Marshall, J., dissenting), and instead has made clear that [a]buse of the writ is not confined to instances of deliberate abandonment. Id. at 489, 111 S.Ct. at 1467. The Court concluded that deliberate action is but one example of conduct that would disentitle a petitioner from relief under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine, stating: [A] petitioner may abuse the writ by failing to raise a claim through inexcusable neglect. Our recent decisions confirm that a petitioner can abuse the writ by raising a claim in a subsequent petition that he could have raised in his first, regardless of whether the failure to raise it earlier stemmed from a deliberate choice. Id. at 489, 111 S.Ct. at 1468. Thus, it is clear that the Supreme Court in McCleskey held that a court does not have to find that a petitioner had a manipulative purpose or acted with deliberateness in withholding a claim from a prior petition in order for the court to reject the petitioner's contention that he had cause under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine for failing to present the claim in his first petition when he files a subsequent petition. See United States v. Barrett, 178 F.3d 34, 49 (1st Cir.1999) (holding that [w]hether or not [petitioner's] failure to [include the claims in the first petition] was intentional is of no moment under McCleskey ); Saahir v. Collins, 956 F.2d 115, 119 (5th Cir.1992) (finding petitioner abused the writ because he should have known about the legal theories he failed to advance in his first habeas petition); Campbell v. Blodgett, 997 F.2d 512, 520 (9th Cir.1992) (To justify this costly litigation strategy [of permitting second habeas petitions], be it deliberate choice, procedurally-constrained decision, or neglect, a petitioner must show cause for the omission and prejudice therefrom.). Goldblum's reliance on the term manipulative purpose[ ], in McCleskey is not meritorious as the term is in no way inconsistent with the Court's clear holding that deliberateness is not required to establish cause. Put in its proper context, the Court, in discussing the costs of federal collateral litigation, stated, habeas corpus review may give litigants incentives to withhold claims for manipulative purposes and may establish disincentives to present claims when evidence is fresh. McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 491-92, 111 S.Ct. at 1469. This statement does not inject a deliberateness requirement into the abuse-of-the-writ jurisprudence, but instead offers one of many examples of conduct that would bar relief. We similarly reject Goldblum's argument that we should excuse his failure to include the blood spatter claim in his first habeas corpus petition because the validity of the claim had not been litigated in the state courts and would have resulted in a mixed petition under Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379. We encountered this precise issue in Benchoff. There, we determined that  Rose v. Lundy requires a petitioner to either fully exhaust all claims prior to filing a petition or to raise both exhausted and unexhausted claims in the first habeas petition. Benchoff, 404 F.3d at 820. In a case in which an applicant chose the latter course, the petition would be dismissed without prejudice and the applicant then properly could refile the petition once all of the claims are exhausted and the refiled petition would not constitute a second or successive petition. Id. Thus, we concluded that failure to exhaust a claim is not an excuse for [the petitioner's] failure to raise the claim in his first petition. Id. at 819; see also Slack, 529 U.S. at 487, 120 S.Ct. at 1605 (A petition filed after a mixed petition has been dismissed under Rose v. Lundy before the district court adjudicated any claims is to be treated as `any other first petition' and is not a second or successive petition.). As in Benchoff, Goldblum's choice to withhold his blood spatter claim from his first habeas corpus petition while he exhausted it in state court rather than following the procedure prescribed by Rose and its progeny bars this claim under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine.