Court Opinion

ID: 9393564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-10 17:01:04.82666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:54.009783
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         MAY 10 2023
                                                                       MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                        U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

RICHARD F. WEAVER, Jr.,                          No.    22-35182

                Petitioner-Appellee,             D.C. No. 2:16-cv-02226-MO

 v.
                                                 MEMORANDUM *
BRIGITTE AMSBERRY,

                Respondent-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                            for the District of Oregon
                   Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding

                       Argued and Submitted April 20, 2023
                                Portland, Oregon

Before: RAWLINSON, BEA, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.
Concurrence by Judge RAWLINSON.

      Brigitte Amsberry, the Superintendent of an Oregon prison, appeals the

district court’s judgment granting a writ of habeas corpus to Richard F. Weaver, Jr.,

an inmate in the custody of the State of Oregon. Amsberry argues that the district

court’s decisions which (1) granted equitable tolling of the statute of limitations for

Weaver’s claim, and (2) granted relief on Weaver’s claim of ineffective assistance

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
of counsel, were erroneous. The parties are familiar with the facts and procedural

history, so we do not recite them here. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

      1.     We review the district court’s decision to grant equitable tolling de

novo. Fue v. Biter, 842 F.3d 650, 653 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc). However, any

underlying determinations of fact are reviewed for clear error. Miles v. Prunty, 187

F.3d 1104, 1105 (9th Cir. 1999); see also United States v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247,

1251 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (“[W]e will affirm a district court’s factual finding

unless that finding is illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that may

be drawn from the record.” (footnote omitted)). In the same way, the district court’s

decision to grant a writ of habeas corpus is reviewed de novo and any underlying

factual determinations are reviewed for clear error. Lambert v. Blodgett, 393 F.3d

943, 964 (9th Cir. 2004).

      2.     We affirm the district court’s grant of equitable tolling of the statute of

limitations. The diligence required for equitable tolling is “reasonable diligence, not

maximum feasible diligence.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 653 (2010)

(quotation marks omitted) (citing Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U.S. 314, 326 (1996)).

The court must assess “a petitioner’s diligence before, during, and after the

extraordinary circumstance existed.” Smith v. Davis, 953 F.3d 582, 589 (9th Cir.

2020) (en banc). We have said that “bright-lines” are generally not appropriate in

the equitable tolling inquiry, see Fue, 842 F.3d at 654 (quoting Doe v. Busby, 661

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F.3d 1001, 1015 (9th Cir. 2011)), and that the equitable tolling analysis must be a

“fact-specific inquiry,” Smith v. Davis, 953 F.3d 582, 591 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc).

      Under most factual conditions, “reasonable diligence” will not require a

petitioner to expend significant effort to prepare a federal post-conviction petition

during the pendency of his state post-conviction proceeding.               See Pace v.

DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408, 419 (2005) (analyzing equitable tolling with an

assessment of the petitioner’s diligence before and after the state post-conviction

proceedings, but not during the proceedings); Gibbs v. Legrand, 767 F.3d 879, 890

(9th Cir. 2014) (holding that a petitioner should not be required to “proceed on a

dual track with his own petition” in both state and federal courts (quoting Busby, 661

F.3d at 1014)).

      First, the district court did not clearly err in finding that “reasonable diligence”

does not require an inmate to begin preparation of a federal petition during the

pendency of state post-conviction proceedings because, if the state courts rule in the

inmate’s favor, the preparation of a federal petition would have been a waste of time

and effort. See Munoz v. Rowland, 104 F.3d 1096, 1098 (9th Cir. 1997) (release of

a prisoner moots a habeas corpus case).

      Second, the district court did not clearly err in finding that “reasonable

diligence” does not require an inmate to begin preparation of a federal petition during

the pendency of state post-conviction proceedings because a federal petition must be

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based on what happened in the state post-conviction proceedings.                A federal

petitioner must allege in his petition that the state proceedings either (1) “resulted in

a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly

established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,”

or (2) “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the

facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C.

§ 2254(d); see Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141 (2005). Thus, the basis of a

federal petition does not exist until the state proceedings reach their conclusion. It

would not be reasonable to require an inmate to predict the result of pending state

proceedings to prepare a federal petition.

      We therefore find no clear error in the district court’s factual finding that

Weaver exercised reasonable diligence in the preparation and filing of his federal

petition, even though Weaver did not expend significant efforts to prepare his federal

petition during the pendency of his state post-conviction proceedings. We therefore

affirm the district court’s order granting equitable tolling of the statute of limitations.

      3.     We also affirm the district court on the merits of Weaver’s claim. The

state court found that “Obert did not talk to any of the fact witnesses, did not talk to

the State’s expert witnesses and did not talk directly to Dr. Gordon.” The state court

also found that “Obert did not subpoena nor make any other arrangements for Dr.

Gordon to testify.”     The state court recognized that Obert rendered deficient

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performance “in failing to subpoena or otherwise arrange for the testimony of Dr.

Gordon at trial.”1 However, the state court ruled against Weaver on the prejudice

prong of the ineffective assistance analysis set forth in Strickland v. Washington,

466 U.S. 668 (1984), holding that “there is no evidence that [Weaver] was aware

that Dr. Gordon was not available to testify at trial. Thus there is no evidence that

Dr. Gordon’s absence for trial had any impact on the guilty plea.” 2

      However, the evidence clearly demonstrates that this conclusion is erroneous:

Obert’s lack of preparedness was, in fact, readily apparent to Weaver.

1
  Weaver also alleges a second theory of deficient performance. According to
Weaver, Obert told Weaver that “the Judge and the DA weren’t going to allow
[Weaver’s diminished capacity defense] and didn’t want to hear it.” Because the
state courts refused to address this portion of Weaver’s claim, it was within the
district court’s province to conduct a de novo review. Porter, 558 U.S. at 39;
Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 390. The question would then turn to whether Weaver’s
allegations are credible. That credibility determination should generally be made in
the context of an evidentiary hearing in the district court. See Earp v. Ornoski, 431
F.3d 1158, 1170 (9th Cir. 2005). But we need not decide whether the district court
should have held an evidentiary hearing on this issue because habeas relief is merited
on other grounds, as explained above the line.
2
  In assessing the prejudice to the defendant, the court asks whether the outcome of
the proceeding would have been different. “[W]here [the habeas petitioner] pleaded
guilty and no trial occurred, [the petitioner] is not required to show that he would
have fared better at trial to prove prejudice. Rather, [the petitioner] must
demonstrate that absent his attorney’s incompetence, [the petitioner] would
‘rationally’ have ‘rejected the plea bargain’ and would ‘either have gone to trial or
received a better plea bargain’ instead.” United States v. Rodriguez, 49 F.4th 1205,
1213 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez-Vega, 797 F.3d 781, 788
(9th Cir. 2015)) (alterations adopted).

                                          5
       The record evidence shows that Weaver understood Obert’s lack of

preparedness through Weaver’s numerous unreturned phone calls to Obert’s office

and complaints to the trial judge regarding Obert’s lack of preparatory

communication; through Weaver’s repeated suggestions that Obert should be fired

for his lack of preparation; through his statements to his mother prior to trial, which

indicated that Weaver was “very worried because Mr. Obert never talked to him

about Dr. Gordon or anything Mr. Howell had prepared”; and through Weaver’s

testimony that Obert’s lack of preparedness had caused Weaver to feel “super-

stressed out and crazy” on the day of trial. Further, Howell had told Weaver that Dr.

Gordon would need to see Weaver again before trial, and even Obert had suggested

in his first meeting with Weaver that another meeting between Dr. Gordon and

Weaver would be necessary, but Weaver never saw Dr. Gordon again prior to trial

and never received any follow-up from Obert regarding the possibility of Dr. Gordon

testifying at trial.

       The state court’s hyper-technical assessment of prejudice was an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court

proceeding. Brown, 544 U.S. at 141. The record mandates a different conclusion:

Obert’s failure to conduct any preparation for trial was readily apparent to Weaver,

including Obert’s failure to prepare Dr. Gordon for trial and to secure Dr. Gordon’s

attendance at trial.

                                          6
         4.    The question then turns to whether Weaver would have gone to trial in

the hypothetical scenario where Obert had properly prepared for trial. When we

conduct this analysis, “we are limited to evidence contemporaneous to the guilty

plea.” See United States v. Rodriguez, 49 F.4th 1205, 1214 (9th Cir. 2022). That is,

we cannot accept Weaver’s testimony in post-conviction proceedings regarding

what he would have done in that hypothetical scenario.

         Nonetheless, Weaver’s intent to go to trial is obvious from the record.

Testimony from Obert, Weaver, Howell, and Weaver’s mother demonstrates that

Weaver was adamant on proceeding to trial. In fact, Weaver’s actions demonstrate

an enthusiasm for his diminished-capacity defense. When Obert presented the

possibility of a plea agreement for 180 months of incarceration, Weaver rejected this

option. Obert’s notes from the morning of trial indicate that Weaver was “prepared

for trial—w[ith]o[ut] ques[tion].” Obert relayed to Weaver a plea offer from the

prosecution which would result in Weaver being sentenced to 300 months of

incarceration, but Weaver rejected this offer and told Obert that he wanted to go to

trial.

         On this record, it is clear that Obert’s performance was the difference between

Weaver pleading guilty and proceeding to trial.             Thus, both the deficient

performance and prejudice prongs of Strickland are met, and Weaver is entitled to

                                            7
relief on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. See Lee v. United States, 137

S. Ct. 1958 (2017).

      AFFIRMED.

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                                                         FILED
Weaver v. Amsberry, Case No. 22-35182
                                                         MAY 10 2023
Rawlinson, Circuit Judge, concurring in the result:
                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
      I concur in the result.

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