Opinion ID: 2341959
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Direct Appeals and Collateral Attacks

Text: Whether certain types of issues can be raised in a collateral attack on a criminal conviction has always been a hard question. The difficulty lies in the need to resolve various competing interests: prevention of duplicative litigation, timely litigation of issues, finality of judgments, the need to bring issues in the proper forum, the right to be heard, and general fairness. In light of these interests, it is clear that some issues must be brought to the attention of the appellate courts in the direct appeal, while others must be presented first to the trial court by way of a collateral attack. There is little if any overlap between the two classes of claims. These competing interests led to the adoption of the following rule, which has long been the law in Kentucky, concerning collateral attacks: It is not the purpose of RCr 11.42 to permit a convicted defendant to retry issues which could and should have been raised in the original proceeding, nor those that were raised in the trial court and upon an appeal considered by this court. Thacker v. Commonwealth, 476 S.W.2d 838, 839 (Ky.1972). This rule has been applied consistently to bar two classes of claims from being brought in collateral attacks: (1) those that could and should have been litigated in the direct appeal; and (2) those that were actually litigated in the direct appeal. See, e.g., Wilson v. Commonwealth, 975 S.W.2d 901 (Ky.1998); Stanford v. Commonwealth, 854 S.W.2d 742, 747 (Ky.1993); Brown v. Commonwealth, 788 S.W.2d 500, 501 (Ky.1990). The first class is a pure procedural bar that aims to have issues raised only in the proper forum. See Slaughter v. Parker, 187 F.Supp.2d 755, 826 (W.D.Ky.2001), overruled in part on other grounds by Slaughter v. Parker, 450 F.3d 224 (6th Cir.2006) (The Supreme Court relied on a well-established state law ground that issues that may be raised on direct appeal may not first be brought in a post-conviction motion to vacate. (citing Thacker v. Commonwealth, 476 S.W.2d 838, 839 (Ky.1972))). Technically speaking, the rationale for barring the second class of claims is more akin to collateral estoppel or issue preclusion than to a pure procedural bar, as it depends on the identical issue having been previously decided. It is also sometimes discussed as part of the law of the case doctrine. E.g., Wilson v. Commonwealth, 975 S.W.2d 901, 903-04 (Ky.1998). In the 1990s, however, this procedural-bar rule was expanded to bar ineffective assistance of counsel claims related to issues that were raised on direct appeal. In Sanborn v. Commonwealth, 975 S.W.2d 905 (Ky.1998), this Court laid out the following rule: We believe it is prudent to set out the standard of review of claims raised in a collateral attack under RCr 11.42. Such a motion is limited to issues that were not and could not be raised on direct appeal. An issue raised and rejected on direct appeal may not be relitigated in these proceedings by claiming that it amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel. Id. at 908-09 (citing Brown v. Commonwealth, 788 S.W.2d 500 (Ky.1990), and Stanford v. Commonwealth, 854 S.W.2d 742 (Ky.1993)) (emphasis added). This broader language was repeated in several opinions in the following years: Baze v. Commonwealth, 23 S.W.3d 619, 624 (Ky. 2000); Haight v. Commonwealth, 41 S.W.3d 436, 441 (Ky.2001); Sanders v. Commonwealth, 89 S.W.3d 380, 385 (Ky. 2002); Hodge v. Commonwealth, 116 S.W.3d 463, 468 (Ky.2003); Mills v. Commonwealth, 170 S.W.3d 310, 326 (Ky.2005); Simmons v. Commonwealth, 191 S.W.3d 557, 561 (Ky.2006). Essentially, this expanded rule would bar the exact type of claim Appellant seeks to bring. The most recent of these cases, Simmons , was rendered in February 2006 and became final in June 2006. Only a few months after Simmons , this Court rendered its decision in Martin v. Commonwealth, 207 S.W.3d 1 (Ky.2006). On direct appeal, Martin claimed that the prosecutor had violated his due process rights by making improper comments during closing argument. This Court criticized the prosecutor's comments and concluded that they were likely improper. Id. at 2. However, no objection had been made at trial, so the claim could only lead to a reversal if it constituted palpable error under RCr 10.26. Ultimately, this Court concluded that the comments had not risen to that level of prejudice, that is, they did not constitute a manifest injustice, and thus affirmed Martin's conviction. In his subsequent RCr 11.42 motion, Martin argued that his attorney had been ineffective at trial by not objecting to the prosecutor's improper comments. Both the trial court and the Court of Appeals held that the issues that Martin raised in his RCr 11.42 motion had already been addressed in his direct appeal under the palpable error standard and were therefore procedurally barred from being presented in a subsequent collateral attack. This Court reversed the Court of Appeals, holding that Martin could present his ineffective assistance of counsel claims in the RCr 11.42 context even though the underlying claim of error had been denied on direct appeal. In so holding, this Court noted that the standards for evaluating potential palpable errors on direct appeal and claims of ineffective assistance of counsel were substantially different, with the palpable error standard being more stringent. From this observation, the Court concluded: This prevents a palpable error analysis from being dispositive of an ineffective assistance claim. When an appellate court engages in a palpable error review, its focus is on what happened and whether the defect is so manifest, fundamental and unambiguous that it threatens the integrity of the judicial process. However, on collateral attack, when claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are before the court, the inquiry is broader. In that circumstance, the inquiry is not only upon what happened, but why it happened, and whether it was a result of trial strategy, the negligence or indifference of counsel, or any other factor that would shed light upon the severity of the defect and why there was no objection at trial. Thus, a palpable error claim imposes a more stringent standard and a narrower focus than does an ineffective assistance claim. Therefore, as a matter of law, a failure to prevail on a palpable error claim does not obviate a proper ineffective assistance claim. Id. at 4-5. Implicit in Martin is the notion that in most instances a direct appeal allegation of palpable error is fundamentally a different claim than a collateral attack allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel based on the alleged palpable error. This makes sense because the issue raised and rejected on direct appeal is almost always not a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Instead, the palpable-error claim is a direct error, usually alleged to have been committed by the trial court (e.g., by admitting improper evidence). The ineffective-assistance claim is collateral to the direct error, as it is alleged against the trial attorney (e.g., for failing to object to the improper evidence). Such a claim is one step removed from those that are properly raised, even as palpable error, on direct appeal. While such an ineffective-assistance claim is certainly related to the direct error, it simply is not the same claim. And because it is not the same claim, the appellate resolution of an alleged direct error cannot serve as a procedural bar to a related claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Unfortunately, Martin did not discuss or even cite the Sanborn -to- Simmons line of cases, though the rule repeated in them was in direct conflict with the new rule. The conflict being clear and having now been presented directly to this Court, and Martin having the superior logic, the Sanborn -to- Simmons line must give way. In Martin , this Court recognized the difference between an alleged error and a separate collateral claim of ineffective assistance of counsel related to the alleged error, and held that a claim of the latter may be maintained even after the former has been addressed on direct appeal, so long as they are actually different issues. [3] That holding is confirmed today. To the extent that Sanborn , Baze , Haight , Sanders , Hodge , Mills , and Simmons hold otherwise, and thus contradict Martin , they are overruled. [4]