Opinion ID: 4564881
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Under AEDPA, We Must Defer to the Nevada

Text: Supreme Court’s Interpretation of Federal Law Unless Inconsistent with Clearly Established Supreme Court Precedent. In order to grant habeas relief to Anderson, the panel had to conclude the Nevada Supreme Court decision was “an unreasonable application of[] clearly established Federal law.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). It is worth pausing for a moment to reemphasize that this next point only matters if (a) you indulge the fiction that the correctness of the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy ruling was properly before the panel, and (b) you believe the Nevada Supreme Court’s explication of the elements of the two crimes at issue in Anderson was unrelated to the actual case before it. Only adventurers who theoretically overcame those predicate obstacles need grapple with this additional flaw in the panel’s decision. Under AEDPA review, “clearly established Federal law” is supplied by Supreme Court precedent—not circuit court precedent—that has “squarely addresse[d]” the specific issue and provided a “clear answer to the question ANDERSON V. NEVEN 33 presented,” Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 125–26 (2008) (per curiam), based on “materially indistinguishable facts.” Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 73 (2003). Here, the panel block-quoted a Seventh Circuit case that “relied on a trio of Supreme Court cases.” Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 295, 295 n.1 (quoting United States v. Hatchett, 245 F.3d 625, 637 (7th Cir. 2001)). The panel presumably did not apply a “clearly established” rationale if it needed to rely upon an out-of-circuit case that cobbled together multiple Supreme Court cases (and separate opinions) to devise a rule. See Woodall, 572 U.S. at 426. “Circuit precedent cannot ‘refine or sharpen a general principle of Supreme Court jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that [the Supreme] Court has not announced.’” Lopez v. Smith, 574 U.S. 1, 7 (2014) (citation omitted) (reversing because the Ninth Circuit applied its own precedent in affirming the grant of a federal habeas petition). The reason the panel was required to quote an out-ofcircuit decision to support its ruling, and not the “trio of Supreme Court cases” directly, is because the Supreme Court’s fractured double jeopardy jurisprudence in this area cannot be fairly described as “clearly established.” 9 The most recent Supreme Court case addressing double jeopardy in the context of separate prosecutions is United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688 (1993). In it, Justice Scalia wrote a four-vote plurality arguing that courts should apply the Blockburger test to the crimes as charged (finding a double jeopardy violation), id. at 700, while Chief Justice 9 “The Supreme Court has repeatedly warned against applying its precedents at too high a level of generality in determining whether a state court’s decision unreasonably applied clearly established federal law.” Turner v. McEwen, 819 F.3d 1171, 1178 (9th Cir. 2016); see also Jackson, 569 U.S. at 512. 34 ANDERSON V. NEVEN Rehnquist’s three-vote concurrence reasoned the Court should only compare the elements of the crimes (finding no double jeopardy violation). Id. at 714 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). 10 This, of course, only underscores why the panel’s decision in this case is particularly concerning—if the Supreme Court itself has been unable to provide a majority opinion that “squarely addresses” how double jeopardy should be applied to claimed “lesser-included” crimes in this context, then it is not appropriate for the Ninth Circuit to tell a state supreme court it has violated “clearly established” Supreme Court precedent. The panel was wrong to reach an issue never raised by Anderson’s federal habeas petition, and it decided wrongly what it wrongly reached. I hope it is not lost that all this wrongness happened in the context of AEDPA—where we are not supposed to overturn a state criminal conviction unless the state court was “clearly” wrong. 2. The Panel Erred in Finding Ineffective Assistance of Counsel. Recognizing that the Nevada Supreme Court’s interpretation of Nevada criminal law is binding on this court, and that Anderson’s double jeopardy claim was ultimately destined to fail regardless, Anderson’s only habeas claim properly before this court—his ineffective assistance of counsel claim—evaporates. Because he never 10 Worse, since Hatchett the Seventh Circuit has itself acknowledged that “[t]he ‘lesser-included-offense’ analysis in Dixon included five separate opinions, all reaching different conclusions as to how Blockburger should apply . . . . we don’t see any federal law as being clearly established from that five-way divide.” Boyd v. Boughton, 798 F.3d 490, 500 (7th Cir. 2015) (emphasis added). ANDERSON V. NEVEN 35 challenged the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy ruling, Anderson created for himself a classic catch-22: if the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy ruling was wrong, his trial counsel’s decision to plead guilty and immediately appeal the double jeopardy issue was hardly ineffective. On the other hand, if the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy ruling was correct and Anderson was ultimately bound to lose his double jeopardy argument on appeal whether he went to trial or not, then by pleading guilty he at least bought dismissal of two of the State’s claims. Anderson’s catch-22 lurks beneath the surface of every available path in the panel’s chose-your-own-adventure saga, and is the reason why all paths end badly. It is the reason why the panel felt compelled, in its short memorandum disposition, to try to escape this dilemma by concluding the Nevada Supreme Court was wrong. 11 A. Analyzing Trial Counsel’s Actions Anderson claims, and the federal district court and panel agreed, that the state district court’s denial of his pre-plea motion to dismiss his felony DUI charge foreshadowed a successful double jeopardy claim. See Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 294–95. But Anderson’s trial counsel also recognized that the State was on notice, via all-caps lettering in the Nevada district court’s opinion, that “IF THE STATE IS UNABLE TO PROVE ANY VIOLATION OF LEGAL 11 The panel seems to have recognized this problem at oral argument when it asked: “Why didn’t you file, in your habeas petition, another claim challenging the Nevada Supreme Court’s assertion that double jeopardy didn’t apply?” See Anderson v. Neven, No. 18-16502, UNITED STATES COURTS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT (Nov. 13, 2019), https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/view_video.php?pk_vid=0000016 553 (17:33–17:46). 36 ANDERSON V. NEVEN DUTY AT TRIAL OTHER THAN THE FAILURE TO STOP, THEN THIS CASE WILL BE DISMISSED.” (emphasis added). Counsel likewise knew, as the State alleged in multiple filings, that the State could change (and, per the Nevada district court, should change, the specific neglect-of-duty element charged before or during trial. See Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 484C.430(1) (requiring “any act” or any other neglected duty). If this had happened, Anderson risked a jury conviction for all charged offenses and losing the ability to appeal any plausible double jeopardy claim. Counsel wisely urged Anderson to plead no-contest to the failure-to-yield charge and subsequently plead guilty to the DUI felony charge, “locking in” the predicate offense such that the State could not change the underlying type of violation of legal duty. This gave Anderson his best chance at getting his felony DUI charge dismissed on double jeopardy grounds. It was a good strategy—probably the best available under the circumstances. Justifiably hoping to benefit from the Nevada district court’s explicit warning to the State, Anderson’s trial counsel “locked in” the basis for his double jeopardy claim and appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. That court directly considered and rejected his double jeopardy argument based on its interpretation of the elements of the two state criminal offenses charged. Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095. Given the Nevada Supreme Court’s binding interpretation of the elements of failure-to-yield and DUI causing death, there is no way Anderson could have prevailed on his double jeopardy claim. He either would have pled, appealed, and lost, or he would have gone to trial, perhaps won a dismissal (if the State didn’t change its complaint), but lost on appeal anyway. Either way, his double jeopardy claim was destined to fail under Nevada law. ANDERSON V. NEVEN 37 Anderson’s trial counsel was only even potentially ineffective if the Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy decision is wrong and reviewable. Of course, when the Nevada Supreme Court addressed the merits of Anderson’s double jeopardy claim, it found, as a matter of state law, that “[f]ailure to yield [was] not a lesser included offense of DUI causing death . . . .” Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095. But that doesn’t mean Anderson’s counsel was ineffective—it just means he rolled the dice on Nevada law and didn’t get the interpretation of state law he was hoping for. Even if the Nevada Supreme Court erred (as a matter of state or federal law), he wasn’t ineffective. The Nevada Supreme Court’s double jeopardy decision (which Anderson doesn’t challenge), not his trial counsel’s strategy, is what deprived Anderson of victory. Whether the Nevada Supreme Court was right or wrong, the central claim of Anderson’s petition fails: his trial counsel made a legitimate and understandable litigation decision and there was no prejudice from counsel’s actions under either outcome. Richter, 562 U.S. at 104. B. Applying Strickland The panel ignored the “strong presumption” that trial counsel’s actions reflect “tactics rather than ‘sheer neglect.’” Richter, 562 U.S. at 109 (citation omitted). Counsel’s actions here, calibrated by both the Nevada district court’s ruling and his understanding of the law, were not neglectful. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. The only way Anderson could have been prejudiced by trial counsel’s plead-then-appeal strategy would be if counsel had waived the right to appeal on double jeopardy grounds or the Nevada Supreme Court had denied the double jeopardy claim because jeopardy had not yet attached. But the record is clear: trial counsel preserved the right to appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court believed jeopardy had attached, and addressed his claim on 38 ANDERSON V. NEVEN the merits (just not the way Anderson would have liked). Anderson, 129 Nev. at 1095. To hold that “no reasonable attorney would have advised Anderson in this manner,” Anderson, 797 F. App’x at 294, is based on at least two false assumptions. The first is that the ultimate result would have been different if Anderson had gone to trial, notwithstanding the Nevada Supreme Court’s categorical denial of Anderson’s double jeopardy claim. The panel’s and federal district court’s fixation on how the state trial court would have handled the double jeopardy claim absent the plea is inexplicably myopic. Anderson’s double jeopardy claim ultimately rose or fell based on how the Nevada Supreme Court interpreted the elements of Nevada law, not the state trial court. The panel decision’s second false assumption is that the prosecution would have ignored the pointed, emphatic rhetoric from the Nevada district court and blithely pursued a course destined to fail in the lower court (but, as we all now know, destined to prevail on appeal). Again, the only bases for that assumption are a lack of imagination and a misreading of the DUI causing death statute. To his credit, Anderson’s trial counsel did not lack imagination, and took swift action to “lock in” failure-to-yield as the element, thus ensuring the best double jeopardy case possible for Anderson on appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. As the Supreme Court has repeated, our “adversary system requires deference to counsel’s informed decisions [and] strategic choices must be respected.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 681; see also Richter, 562 U.S. at 109 (“The Court of Appeals erred in dismissing strategic considerations like these as an inaccurate account of counsel’s actual thinking.”). ANDERSON V. NEVEN 39