Opinion ID: 2821959
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: state procedural bars

Text: Oregon’s post-conviction act has prohibited successive petitions since it was first enacted in 1959. Or Laws 1959, ch 636, § 15(3). Section 15(3) of the 1959 act required that “all grounds [for relief] must be asserted in [the] original or amended petition, and any grounds not so asserted are deemed waived unless the court on hearing a subsequent petition finds grounds for relief asserted therein which could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended petition.” See ORS 138.550(3) (codifying section 15(3)). Section 15(2) of the 1959 act contained a similar procedural bar. It provided that, when a petitioner had “sought and obtained direct appellate review of [a] conviction and sentence,” no ground for relief could be asserted in a post-conviction petition “unless such ground was not asserted and could not reasonably have been asserted in the direct appellate review proceeding.” See ORS 138.550(2) (codifying section 15(2)).8 Thirty years later, the legislature added another procedural bar. In 1989, the legislature provided that a petition for post-conviction relief “must be filed within 120 days” of the date that the challenged conviction became final “unless the court on hearing a subsequent petition finds grounds for relief asserted which could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended petition.” 8 That limitation contains a qualification. If the petitioner was not represented by counsel on direct appeal due to lack of funds, then only those grounds for relief that had been specifically decided on appeal are barred from being asserted on post-conviction. See ORS 138.550(2). 564 Verduzco v. State of Oregon Or Laws 1989, ch 1053, § 18.9 Four years after that, the court expanded the time for filing a petition from 120 days to two years. Or Laws 1993, ch 517, § 1; see ORS 138.510(3) (now codifying the two-year statute of limitations).10 Both ORS 138.550(3) and ORS 138.510(3) contain identically worded “escape clauses.” A petition will not be untimely or successive if the grounds alleged in the petition “could not reasonably have been raised” earlier. In this case, there is no dispute that petitioner filed his second post-conviction more than two years after his 2004 conviction became final, nor is there any dispute that his second petition is successive. Rather, the dispute is whether the grounds for relief asserted in petitioner’s second postconviction petition “could not reasonably have been raised” earlier. More specifically, the question is whether petitioner could not reasonably have asserted the grounds for relief in his second post-conviction petition until after the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Padilla in 2010. In analyzing the two escape clauses, we start with the prohibition against successive petitions and consider it separately from the prohibition against untimely petitions. Although both clauses are worded identically, one was enacted in 1959 while the other was enacted in 1989 and modified in 1993. The contexts that preceded the two clauses differ, as do their legislative histories. We cannot assume, as the parties do, that the decision in Bartz v. State of Oregon, 314 Or 353, 839 P2d 217 (1992), which relied on the 1989 legislative history of ORS 138.510(3) to interpret the escape clause in that statute, necessarily governs 90 The 1989 legislature borrowed the escape clause from the bar against successive petitions and inserted it, without modification, in the bar against untimely petitions. Read literally, the escape clause that the 1989 legislature borrowed does not fit easily with the prohibition against untimely petitions. However, this court resolved any tension in the limitations statute when it explained in Bartz v. State of Oregon, 314 Or 353, 358, 839 P2d 217 (1992), that “the exception in ORS 138.510[(3)] does not require the filing of a timely ‘original or amended’ petition as a prerequisite to the filing of an untimely petition.” 10 Although the 1993 legislature left the wording of the escape clause unchanged, the legislature discussed the relationship between the escape clause and the expanded limitations period at some length in the course of enacting the 1993 amendments to the statute of limitations. See, e.g., Tape Recording, House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crimes and Corrections, Apr 7, 1993, Tape 70, Side A. Cite as 357 Or 553 (2015) 565 the interpretation of the escape clause in ORS 138.550(3), which was enacted 30 years earlier. Moreover, because the 1993 legislature discussed the escape clause at some length in deciding whether to extend the period of limitation, we also cannot assume that Bartz provides the final answer on the meaning of ORS 138.510(3), as amended in 1993. See State v. Ofodrinwa, 353 Or 507, 530, 300 P3d 154 (2013) (recognizing that the same phrase can have different meanings depending on differences in context and legislative history). We accordingly turn to the text of ORS 138.550. The texts of ORS 138.550(2) and (3) express a complete thought. If a petitioner has appealed from a judgment of conviction and if the petitioner could have raised a ground for relief on direct appeal, then the petitioner cannot raise that ground for relief in a post-conviction petition “unless such ground was not asserted and could not reasonably have been asserted in the direct appellate review proceeding.” ORS 138.550(2). Additionally, all grounds for relief must be raised in the original or amended petition for post-conviction relief unless the post-conviction court “on hearing a subsequent petition finds grounds for relief asserted therein which could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended petition.” ORS 138.550(3). Read together, those two statutory provisions express the legislature’s determination that, when a petitioner has appealed and also has filed a post-conviction petition, the petitioner must raise all grounds for relief that reasonably could be asserted. See Johnson v. Premo, 355 Or 866, 874-75, 333 P3d 288 (2014) (explaining that ORS 138.550(3) codifies claim preclusion principles). The failure to do so will bar a petitioner from later raising an omitted ground for relief. Id. We also note, as an initial matter, that ORS 138.550(3) provides that all grounds for relief be must asserted in the original or amended petition “unless” the post-conviction court finds that they could not have been raised earlier. That phrasing places the burden on the petitioner to show that an omitted ground for relief comes within the escape clause. See Cain v. Gladden, 247 Or 462, 464, 430 P2d 1015 (1967) (sustaining a demurrer to a post-conviction petition because the petitioner had neither alleged nor 566 Verduzco v. State of Oregon shown that a new ground for relief asserted in a subsequent petition could not reasonably have been raised in the original or amended petition). Turning to the specific wording of the escape clause, we note that the legislature’s use of the word “could” in ORS 138.550(3) “connotes capability, as opposed to obligation.” See OR-OSHA v. CBI Services, Inc., 356 Or 577, 589, 341 P3d 701 (2014) (considering a similar verb phrase). That is, the word “could” asks whether a petitioner was “capable of” raising the ground for relief in the first petition that later was raised in a second petition. See id. To be sure, the adverb “reasonably” modifies the phrase, “could    have raised.” As a result of that adverb, the question under ORS 138.550(3) is not whether a petitioner conceivably could have raised the grounds for relief in an earlier petition. Rather, the question is whether the petitioner reasonably could have raised those grounds for relief earlier, a question that calls for a judgment about what was “reasonable” under the circumstances. See id. at 591 (phrase “reasonable diligence” requires a “value judgment about what is ‘reasonable’ and what is ‘diligence’ under the circumstances of each case”). The context provides some insight into what the use of the word “reasonably” means, most notably this court’s cases interpreting ORS 138.550(2) and (3). In many of those cases, the petitioners alleged that they could not reasonably have raised a ground for relief earlier because those grounds depended on newly discovered facts. See, e.g., Cain, 247 Or at 464; Freeman v. Gladden, 236 Or 137, 139, 387 P2d 360 (1963). And the question whether those new grounds for relief came within the escape clause in ORS 138.550(2) or (3) turned on whether the petitioners persuaded the postconviction court that the facts on which their new grounds for relief depended could not reasonably have been discovered sooner. In two cases, this court considered a claim that the petitioner could not reasonably have raised a ground for relief earlier because of changes in the law. See North v. Cupp, 254 Or 451, 461 P2d 271 (1969); Haynes v. Cupp, 253 Or 566, 456 P2d 490 (1969), overruled on other grounds, Cite as 357 Or 553 (2015) 567 State v. Evans, 258 Or 437, 442, 483 P2d 1300 (1971).11 This court held in North that the petitioner reasonably could have raised his Fourth Amendment claim earlier but reached a different conclusion in Haynes regarding the petitioner’s Sixth Amendment claim. We begin with North, which presented a relatively straightforward issue. We then turn to Haynes, which involved a more complex determination. In North, the petitioner alleged that officers had searched his car in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but he had not raised that issue on direct appeal. This court held that ORS 138.550(2) barred his claim because he reasonably could have raised the issue earlier. The Fourth Amendment claim was fairly obvious. Officers had searched the petitioner’s car without a warrant six days after they arrested him, and they found evidence in his car that later was admitted against him in his criminal trial. 254 Or at 453-54. As the court observed, there “was nothing obscure about the law” that would have prevented the petitioner from raising the Fourth Amendment issue on direct appeal. Id. at 458. The United States Supreme Court had held a year and a half earlier in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 US 643, 81 S Ct 1684, 6 L Ed 2d 1081 (1961), that the Fourth Amendment applied to the states, and the challenged search was a garden variety Fourth Amendment violation. Id.12 Haynes involved a more complex issue. The peti- tioner in Haynes alleged that police officers had interrogated him without informing him of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel in violation of Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 US 478, 84 S Ct 1758, 12 L Ed 2d 977 (1964). Haynes, 253 Or at 568. The state responded, among other things, that ORS 138.550(2) barred the petitioner from raising that ground for relief in post-conviction because he reasonably could 11 In Evans, this court followed the retroactivity rule that the federal courts recently had applied to Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 US 478, 84 S Ct 1758, 12 L Ed 2d 977 (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436, 86 S Ct 1602, 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966). See Evans, 258 Or at 442. In doing so, it overruled Haynes to the extent that this court had applied a different retroactivity rule to the petitioner’s Escobedo claim in that case. Id. 12 North is notable, not for the holding discussed above, but for its conclusion that Oregon’s post-conviction statutes do not permit a petitioner to raise an issue on post-conviction that the petitioner reasonably could have raised on direct appeal if he or she had made a contemporaneous objection below. 568 Verduzco v. State of Oregon have raised it on direct appeal. Id. at 570. As this court explained in Haynes, the petitioner’s trial and direct appeal had occurred during a period when the substantive and procedural rules governing confessions were undergoing a seismic shift. Regarding substantive rules, the United States Supreme Court decided Escobedo as the petitioner was briefing his direct appeal and held that, when several conditions combined, the Sixth Amendment required officers to advise custodial suspects of the right to remain silent before questioning them.13 See Haynes, 253 Or at 570. Several months after the petitioner’s direct appeal ended, this court issued an opinion in which it extended Escobedo by converting what had been a condition in Escobedo for the Sixth Amendment to attach into additional information that officers must tell custodial suspects. See id. (discussing State v. Neely, 239 Or 487, 398 P2d 482 (1965) (on reconsideration)).14 Regarding procedural rules, this court issued procedural rulings in three other cases after it decided Haynes’ appeal that, if they had been available, would have permitted Haynes to challenge his confession under Escobedo and Neely.15 First, this court held that Escobedo applied to all cases that were “being tried or upon direct appeal” when Escobedo was decided. State v. Clifton, 240 Or 378, 380, 401 P2d 697 (1965). Second, the court held that Neely’s later extension of Escobedo “related back” to Escobedo and applied to cases pending on direct appeal when Escobedo 13 Escobedo held that, when a person has become the focal suspect, been taken into police custody, and been questioned by the police and when the person has asked for and been denied counsel, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches and requires that the person be told of the “absolute constitutional right to remain silent.” 378 US at 490-91. The failure to do so meant that the person’s statements could not be used against him or her. Id. 14 In Neely, this court held on reconsideration that a suspect need not ask for and be denied counsel to be entitled to the Sixth Amendment right recognized in Escobedo. 239 Or at 503-04. Rather, the Sixth Amendment requires officers to advise persons who are focal suspects that they have a right to counsel before questioning them. Id. Neely thus converted what had been in Escobedo a condition for a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to attach before trial into a requirement that a defendant be advised of the right to counsel. 15 This court heard oral argument on petitioner’s direct appeal on November 5, 1964, and issued its opinion 13 days later on November 18, 1964. State v. Haynes, 239 Or 132, 396 P2d 694 (1964). Cite as 357 Or 553 (2015) 569 was decided. Elliott v. Gladden, 244 Or 134, 411 P2d 287 (1966). Third, the court held that, if the defendant’s criminal trial had ended before the Court decided Escobedo, the defendant could argue on direct appeal that his or her confession had been admitted in violation of Escobedo without having raised that objection at trial. Clifton, 240 Or at 379. Having chronicled those substantive and procedural shifts, this court rejected in one sentence the argument that the petitioner reasonably could have raised his claim under Escobedo and Neely on direct appeal. It stated: “Under these circumstances we hold that the petitioner could not have reasonably asserted this ground [that the police obtained his confession without advising him of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel in violation of Escobedo and Neely] upon direct appeal.” Haynes, 253 Or at 571. As the court’s use of the phrase “these circumstances” suggests, its holding turns on the combination of procedural and substantive changes that the court had identified in Haynes and that we have discussed above. North and Haynes are relevant because they mark two points on the spectrum where this court held that a ground for relief reasonably could and could not have been raised. North involved the application of settled principles to a new set of facts and tells us little about when counsel reasonably should have anticipated a ground for relief that had not yet been definitively resolved. Haynes is closer to the mark in that the petitioner’s counsel in that case perhaps reasonably could have raised some of the federal substantive and state procedural issues that were being decided either during the direct appeal in that case or after it ended. However, as we read the court’s holding, it was the combination of those procedural and substantive changes that persuaded the court that the petitioner in Haynes reasonably could not have raised his claim under Escobedo and Neely on direct appeal. Because of the combination and complexity of those changes, the value that Haynes provides in deciding other cases is limited. In addition to a statute’s context, we also consider its legislative history. The legislative hearings that led to the enactment of the 1959 post-conviction act do not address 570 Verduzco v. State of Oregon this issue, nor does the commentary to the uniform act on which Oregon’s post-conviction act was modeled. See Uniform Post-Conviction Procedure Act (Uniform Act), § 8 comment (1955).16 Contemporaneous scholarly commentary, however, sheds more light on the meaning of ORS 138.550(3). Two lawyers who participated in drafting the bill that became Oregon’s post-conviction act wrote a law review article shortly after the act was adopted. See Jack G. Collins and Carl R. Neil, The Oregon Postconviction-Hearing Act, 39 Or L Rev 337 (1960). The court repeatedly has looked to their article in seeking to understand the 1959 post-conviction act. See Johnson, 355 Or at 874-75 (looking to Collins and Neil’s article to determine the context for the post-conviction act); Benson v. Gladden, 242 Or 132, 135, 407 P2d 634 (1965) (relying on their article to interpret the post-conviction act). Collins and Neil recognize, as this court’s cases have, that a change in the law can be sufficiently novel or unexpected that a claim based on that change can come within the escape clauses in ORS 138.550(2) and (3). They also recognize, however, that whether an issue reasonably could have been raised does not necessarily depend on whether the issue had been definitively resolved by the courts. In explaining how the escape clause in ORS 138.550(3) would work, Collins and Neil set out the following hypothetical: A petitioner was convicted in state court of a crime based on evidence obtained in violation of the federal constitution. Id. at 358. At the time of the criminal trial, the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit the use of that evidence in a state prosecution. Id. Two years later, the Supreme Court reversed its position and held that using that evidence in a state criminal trial violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 358-59. Collins and Neil explain that, if a petitioner filed a post-conviction petition before the United States Supreme 16 Section 15(3) of the Oregon post-conviction act is taken essentially verbatim from section 8 of the Uniform Act. Compare Or Laws 1959, ch 636, § 15(3), with Uniform Act § 8 (1955); see Datt v. Hill, 347 Or 672, 682-83, 227 P3d 714 (2010) (looking to the Uniform Act as legislative history). The comment to section 8 of the Uniform Act merely restates the act’s text and thus sheds little light on its meaning. See Uniform Act, § 8 comment. Cite as 357 Or 553 (2015) 571 Court changed its position, litigated the federal issue in post-conviction, and lost, ORS 138.550(3) would bar him from relitigating that ground for relief in a second postconviction petition. Id. at 359. However, if the petitioner had filed a post-conviction petition before the Court changed its position and litigated other issues, the petitioner would be barred from filing a second post-conviction petition based on the Court’s change of position “only if the unconstitutionality of the conviction is deemed a ground for relief which [the petitioner] could not ‘reasonably’ have raised in his first conviction petition.” Id. Under their explanation, the Court’s 2010 decision in Padilla would not permit petitioner to take advantage of the escape clause in ORS 138.550(3) because petitioner alleged that ground for relief in his first postconviction petition, litigated it, and lost. Considering the text, context, and history of ORS 138.550, we conclude, as the Court of Appeals did in Long v. Armenakis, 166 Or App 94, 97, 999 P2d 461 (2000), that “whether an issue reasonably could be anticipated and raised does not depend—at least not in a per se way—on whether the issue has been definitively resolved by the courts.” Rather, the question whether a claim reasonably could have been raised earlier will vary with the facts and circumstances of each claim. As the Court of Appeals explained in Long: “The touchstone is not whether a particular question is settled, but whether it reasonably is to be anticipated so that it can be raised and settled accordingly. The more settled and familiar a constitutional or other principle on which a claim is based, the more likely the claim reasonably should have been anticipated and raised. Conversely, if the constitutional principle is a new one, or if its extension to a particular statute, circumstance, or setting is novel, unprecedented, or surprising, then the more likely the conclusion that the claim reasonably could not have been raised.” Id. at 101 (emphasis in original; citations omitted). We cannot improve on the Court of Appeals’ summary of those general principles and adopt its summary as our own.17 17 In Long, the Court of Appeals was construing ORS 138.510(3). However, we conclude that its summary of when a claim reasonably can be raised captures the meaning drawn from the text, context, and history of ORS 138.550(3). 572 Verduzco v. State of Oregon With those principles in mind, we turn to the grounds for relief that petitioner has alleged in his second petition for post-conviction relief. As noted, petitioner alleges that his trial counsel’s advice violated the Sixth Amendment because she failed to advise him that, if he pleaded guilty to distribution of a controlled substance, it was virtually inevitable that he would be removed. He also alleges that his plea was not knowing, and therefore violated the Due Process Clause, because the trial court did not give him the same advice before accepting his guilty plea.18 Were it not for one fact, it might be a close call whether petitioner reasonably could have raised those two grounds for relief in his first post-conviction petition. As the United States Supreme Court recognized in Padilla, Kentucky was “far from alone” in holding in 2008 that the effect of a state conviction on a defendant’s immigration status was a collateral consequence of a guilty plea that did not implicate the Sixth Amendment. Padilla, 559 US at 365. That is, it is fair to describe the distinction that Kentucky drew between collateral and direct consequences of a conviction as the majority view among the lower courts. See Chaidez, 133 S Ct at 1109 (discussing cases). There was, of course, countervailing authority. As the Court explained in Padilla, it had “never applied a distinction between direct and collateral consequences to define the scope of constitutionally ‘reasonable professional assistance’ required under Strickland[.]” 559 US at 365. Not only was the Sixth Amendment issue thus an open one, but federal courts of appeals had recognized for 20 years before petitioner filed his first post-conviction petition that failing to ask for a binding recommendation from a sentencing court that the defendant not be removed violated the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 362-63; see United States v. Castro, 26 F3d 557 (5th Cir 1994); Janvier v. United States, 793 F2d 18 Petitioner’s argument assumes that his second ground for relief follows from Padilla. We note, however, that a trial court’s Fourteenth Amendment obligation to ensure that a defendant’s guilty plea is knowing is not necessarily coextensive with his counsel’s Sixth Amendment obligation to provide constitutionally adequate assistance. Given our holding that ORS 138.550(3) bars the grounds for relief alleged in petitioner’s second post-conviction petition, we need not decide the extent to which those two claims differ. Cite as 357 Or 553 (2015) 573 449 (2d Cir 1986).19 Similarly, as the Court observed, “the weight of prevailing professional norms supports the view that counsel must advise her client regarding the risk of deportation.” Id. at 367 (citing law review articles, treatises, and professional guidelines that predated 2006). We need not decide whether, given that conflicting authority, petitioner reasonably could have raised the constitutional claims in his first post-conviction petition that he now raises in his second post-conviction petition. The fact is that, in this case, he did. Having raised those grounds for relief in his first post-conviction petition, he cannot claim that he could not reasonably have raised them. ORS 138.550(3); see Collins and Neil, The Oregon PostconvictionHearing Act, 39 Or L Rev at 359. As we understand petitioner’s contrary argument, it reduces to the proposition that he could not reasonably have raised those grounds for relief until after the United States Supreme Court decided Padilla. For the reasons explained above, we do not construe the escape clause in ORS 138.550(3) that broadly. The escape clause does not preclude petitioner from relitigating only those grounds for relief that he was certain he could win when he filed his first post-conviction petition. Rather, it precludes him raising those grounds of relief that he could not reasonably have raised in his first petition.20 Because we hold that ORS 138.550(3) bars the claims that petitioner alleges in his second post-conviction petition, we need not decide whether ORS 138.510(3) 19 To be sure, the holdings in those intermediate appellate court decisions differ in degree from the holding that the Court announced in Padilla. However, those lower court decisions recognized that a lawyer’s failure to take steps in negotiating a guilty plea to protect his or her client from adverse immigration consequences could constitute inadequate assistance in violation of the Sixth Amendment. Put differently, those courts did not apply the distinction between direct and collateral consequences in that context. 20 In applying claim preclusion principles to post-conviction proceedings, the 1959 legislature made a policy choice that persons who file for post-conviction petition relief must litigate completely all grounds for relief that they reasonably could assert or risk the possibility that their claims will be foreclosed in future state collateral challenges. In this case, the timing was such that, if petitioner had sought certiorari in his first post-conviction proceeding, the Court likely would have held his petition pending its resolution of Padilla and then granted the petition, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Oregon Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of Padilla. 574 Verduzco v. State of Oregon imposes the same or a different standard; that is, we need not decide whether the differing context and legislative history of ORS 138.510(3), which was enacted in 1989 and amended in 1993, lead to a more stringent or a more forgiving standard of reasonableness. Similarly, we do not need to decide whether we would choose to adhere to the federal standard of retroactivity or, if we were to adopt a different standard, what principles would inform it. It is sufficient in this case to hold that ORS 138.550(3) bars the grounds for relief alleged in petitioner’s second post-conviction petition. The Court of Appeals decision and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.