Opinion ID: 2650680
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Martinez Issue

Text: Petitioner argues that post-conviction counsel was ineffective for failing to argue the ineffectiveness of his sentencing counsel. Before Martinez v. Ryan, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012), that claim was barred. After conducting a lengthy, pre-Martinez evidentiary hearing, the district court found that the additional factual allegations contained in the four volumes of exhibits filed with Dickens’s federal habeas petition: “materially strengthen the claim presented to the state courts” and “present[] this claim in a significantly different and stronger posture than it had in state court and fundamentally 90 DICKENS V. RYAN alters the claim considered by the state courts.” The district court used unequivocal language: footnote 9 of its December 2004 ruling states that the court “summarily rejects Petitioner’s argument that the additional factual allegations in support of habeas Claim 19 were fairly presented and exhausted in the state court and rejects that the Arizona Supreme Court’s independent review exhausted these allegations.” Because Martinez permits petitioners to argue the ineffectiveness of post-conviction counsel, and because the district court found that the previously unconsidered evidence fundamentally alters the ineffective assistance of counsel claim in this case, I agree with the majority that this case must be remanded to the district court for initial consideration of the claim that counsel provided ineffective assistance.