Opinion ID: 78421
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether the state trial court violated Carroll's due process rights when it declined to grant him an evidentiary hearing on his claim of mental retardation.

Text: Carroll contends the state trial court violated his due process rights when it summarily denied his Atkins claim of mental retardation without an evidentiary hearing. He maintains Florida law required the state court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on his successive post-conviction motion because the claim was legally sufficient under Atkins and not conclusively refuted by the record. Carroll also insinuates federal law ( i.e., Atkins itself), in addition to Florida law, mandated that the state court conduct an evidentiary hearing in this case. This Court has repeatedly held defects in state collateral proceedings do not provide a basis for habeas relief. See, e.g., Anderson v. Sec'y for Dep't of Corr., 462 F.3d 1319, 1330 (11th Cir.2006) (per curiam); Quince v. Crosby, 360 F.3d 1259, 1262 (11th Cir.2004); Spradley v. Dugger, 825 F.2d 1566, 1568 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam). The reasoning behind this well-established principle is straightforward: a challenge to a state collateral proceeding does not undermine the legality of the detention or imprisonment i.e., the conviction itselfand thus habeas relief is not an appropriate remedy. See Quince, 360 F.3d at 1261-62; Spradley, 825 F.2d at 1568. Moreover, such challenges often involve claims under state lawfor example, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and 3.851, which govern the availability of, and procedures attendant to, post-conviction proceedings in Floridaand [a] state's interpretation of its own laws or rules provides no basis for federal habeas corpus relief, since no question of a constitutional nature is involved. See McCullough v. Singletary, 967 F.2d 530, 535 (11th Cir.1992). Because of this bar to relief, we have stated it is beyond debate that a state court's failure to conduct an evidentiary hearing on a post-conviction motion does not constitute a cognizable claim for habeas relief. See Anderson, 462 F.3d at 1330. In Spradley, we considered a habeas petition in which a Florida inmate claimed the state trial court which heard and denied his 3.850 motion violated his due process rights because it failed to conduct an evidentiary hearing and did not attach to its opinion denying relief those portions of the record on which it relied. 825 F.2d at 1567. We rejected this claim, holding a state court's failure to conduct an evidentiary hearing cannot form the basis for habeas relief because such an error does not undermine[ ] the validity of petitioner's conviction and is unrelated to the cause of petitioner's detention. Id. at 1568. We later reaffirmed this general principle in Quince, noting an alleged defect in a collateral proceeding does not state a basis for habeas relief. 360 F.3d at 1262. Under this Court's precedent, Carroll's claim that the state court violated his due process rights by failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and 3.851 on his post-conviction Atkins claim does not state a claim on which this Court may grant habeas relief. See Spradley, 825 F.2d at 1568. Carroll does not address this bar to relief. Accordingly, we deny Carroll's due process claim for habeas relief to the extent it rests on the state court's failure to grant an evidentiary hearing under Florida law. Carroll has also suggested the Atkins decision itself compels state courts to conduct evidentiary hearings on claims of mental retardation. Atkins, however, simply sets forth the constitutional prohibition on the execution of mentally retarded individuals, and it specifically leave[s] to the States the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction, Atkins, 536 U.S. at 317, 122 S.Ct. at 2250, which presumably includes the availability of, and procedures attendant to, evidentiary hearings before state trial courts, see Fla. R. Crim P. 3.203(e), 3.850(d), 3.851(f)(5)(A)-(B). Carroll points to no language in Atkins, or any other decision of the Supreme Court or this Court, to support his argument that federal law requires state courts to conduct evidentiary hearings on every claim of mental retardationespecially in cases, such as Carroll's, in which a petitioner has presented evidence regarding his mental health in three prior proceedings. Finding no case to support Carroll's argument ourselves, we conclude his due process claim regarding the failure of the state court to conduct an evidentiary hearing does not state a cognizable claim for habeas relief. [7]