Opinion ID: 4536242
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury-Pool Ineffective Assistance

Text: We next consider Thomas’s argument that Trial Counsel was ineffective by failing to promptly and adequately move for an expanded jury pool. This claim parallels one raised by Thomas in the Rule 37 proceeding: that the trial court violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments by failing to draw the jury from an expanded jury pool, as Arkansas law permits. See Ark. Code Ann. § 16-32-301(a). But insofar as Thomas failed to raise “both the factual and legal premises” of his jury-pool ineffective-assistance claim to the Rule 37 court, the claim is procedurally defaulted. Flieger, 16 F.3d at 884 (emphasis omitted); Frazier v. State, 482 S.W.3d 305, 309 (Ark. 2016) (“This court will not consider new matters not raised in the Rule 37 petition for the first time on appeal, unless they are so fundamental as to void the conviction.”). As discussed above, Thomas’s procedural default can be excused if he “can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. Under Trevino and Sasser, ineffective assistance of Arkansas postconviction relief counsel, if circumstances when an applicant fails to develop a claim in state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). We simply note the tension in the case law revealed by the district court’s decision to hold a Trevino hearing. Compare Holland v. Jackson, 542 U.S. 649, 653 (2004) (“Attorney negligence . . . is chargeable to the client and precludes relief unless the conditions of § 2254(e)(2) are satisfied.”), and Williams v. Norris, 576 F.3d 850, 860–63 (8th Cir. 2009) (explaining that it is “reversible error” to hold a hearing for a § 2254 applicant’s claims that he failed to raise in state court), with Sasser, 735 F.3d at 854–55 (indicating that, under Trevino, counsel’s ineffectiveness permits an applicant to avoid the requirements of § 2254(e)(2)). -12- proven, can constitute cause for failing to raise an ineffective-assistance-at-trial claim in an initial Rule 37 proceeding. Sasser, 735 F.3d at 853. According to Thomas, Trevino entitles him to a federal hearing on his procedurally defaulted (but potentially excused) jury-pool ineffective-assistance claim. He is mistaken. A procedurally defaulted claim must be “substantial” for the default to be excused — that is, the claim must have “some merit.” Martinez, 566 U.S. at 14. A federal court may “evaluate whether claims of ineffective-assistance are ‘substantial’ or ‘potentially meritorious’” when determining whether a hearing is warranted. Dansby v. Hobbs, 766 F.3d 809, 834 (8th Cir. 2014); see also Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007) (explaining that “the decision to grant an evidentiary hearing” remains within the “sound discretion of district courts”). Thus, even if an applicant alleges that his counsel’s ineffectiveness caused him to omit an ineffective-assistance-at-trial claim in his initial-review postconviction proceeding, a district court may still deny a hearing if it finds the claim not “substantial” or “potentially meritorious.” Dansby, 766 F.3d at 834. And that’s what the district court did in Thomas’s case. To see why Thomas’s claim was not potentially meritorious, consider what Thomas must prove for his claim to succeed. To show cause for procedural default, he must show that Rule 37 Counsel provided ineffective assistance under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Doing so would require showing that, by failing to raise a jury-pool ineffective-assistance claim, Rule 37 Counsel fell below the constitutional standard of competence and prejudice resulted. Id. at 688, 694. To show prejudice, Thomas would have to establish “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the [Rule 37] proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694. Showing prejudice would thus require establishing the merits of the underlying jury-pool ineffective-assistance claim. That is, Thomas -13- would have to establish that Trial Counsel fell below the constitutional standard of competence and — again — prejudice resulted. Id. So, at bottom, Thomas must establish a reasonable probability that, but for Trial Counsel’s failure to properly move for an expanded jury pool, the jury would not have sentenced him to death. See id. He assumes the increased availability of black jurors would have resulted in a jury less inclined to impose the death sentence. But such assumptions have no place in a Strickland prejudice inquiry. Rather, when reviewing prejudice, we must consider “the totality of the evidence before the judge or jury.” Id. at 695. In this case, the evidence presented before either jury — Thomas’s actual jury or his desired, hypothetical one — is the same. See id. at 695–96 (“Some of the factual findings will have been unaffected by the errors . . . . Taking the unaffected findings as a given . . . a court making the prejudice inquiry must ask if the defendant has met the burden of showing that the decision reached would reasonably likely have been different absent the errors.”). And as the district court rightly reported, there was “overwhelming evidence against Thomas on the elements of capital murder and the aggravating factors supporting the death sentence.” At the same time, our prejudice inquiry “should proceed on the assumption that the decisionmaker is reasonably, conscientiously, and impartially applying the standards that govern the decision.” Id. at 695. The inquiry “should not depend on the idiosyncracies of the particular decisionmaker, such as unusual propensities toward harshness or leniency.” Id. And even if these factors “may actually have entered into counsel’s selection of strategies and, to that limited extent, may thus affect the performance inquiry, they are irrelevant to the prejudice inquiry.” Id. Thomas is therefore asking us to make the assumption forbidden by Strickland: that he was prejudiced by a jury who, by virtue of the pool they were drawn from, had a propensity toward harshness. -14- Thomas, like all criminal defendants, was entitled to a jury “selected from a fair cross section of the community.” Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 359 (1979). But as the Arkansas Supreme Court pointed out, Thomas “failed to prove any systematic exclusion of black people from the jury-selection process.” Thomas, 257 S.W.3d at 99. We have previously held that a petitioner’s failure to show an unconstitutional jury selection process “precludes a finding of prejudice springing from ineffective assistance.” Wharton-El v. Nix, 38 F.3d 372, 377 (8th Cir. 1994); see also Phea v. Benson, 95 F.3d 660, 662 (8th Cir. 1996) (“[B]ecause [applicant] has not demonstrated that the composition of the jury violated the requirements of the Sixth Amendment, counsel was not ineffective for failing to object.”). The same principle applies here: because Thomas got a constitutionally adequate jury, he was not prejudiced.8 The district court did not err in denying Thomas a hearing for his jurypool ineffective-assistance claim.