Opinion ID: 71523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Request for a Stay and Abeyance to Pursue an IAC Claim in Texas State Court

Text: Alternatively, Williams also asserts that the district court should have granted a stay and abeyance so that he could exhaust his available remedies in Texas state court. We review the district court's denial of a stay and abeyance for abuse of discretion. See Evans v. Cain, 577 F.3d 620, 623 (5th Cir.2009). When a petitioner brings an unexhausted claim in federal court, stay and abeyance is appropriate when the district court finds that there was good cause for the failure to exhaust the claim; the claim is not plainly meritless; and there is no indication that the failure was for purposes of delay. Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 277-78, 125 S.Ct. 1528, 161 L.Ed.2d 440 (2005). Because a stay and abeyance has the potential to frustrate[] AEDPA's objective of encouraging finality and AEDPA's goal of streamlining federal habeas proceedings, the Supreme Court has stated that stay and abeyance should be available only in limited circumstances. Id. at 277, 125 S.Ct. 1528. Williams has not demonstrated that the district court abused its discretion. Williams offers his alleged actual innocence and the conflict under which his state habeas counsel labored as the good cause for his failure to exhaust his IAC claim in state court, but as discussed above, neither suffices. Additionally, we have held that when a petitioner is procedurally barred from raising [his] claims in state court, his unexhausted claims are `plainly meritless.' Neville v. Dretke, 423 F.3d 474, 480 (5th Cir.2005). Because the district court appropriately characterized Williams's IAC claim as procedurally defaulted, reasonable jurists would not debate that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Williams's request for a stay and abeyance, and we therefore decline to issue a COA on this issue.