Court Opinion

ID: 9468592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:18:36.283985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:56.617825
License: Public Domain

METZNER, District Judge,
concurring:
I would much have preferred to reach the merits on this appeal and affirmed the court below in dismissing the petition on the merits.
The record is complete as to the matters complained of by the petitioner. The parties have fully briefed and argued the merits. No issue or argument was presented to the District Court that was not before the state courts. It is my considered judgment, after reviewing the record, that petitioner was not deprived of a fair trial in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In such circumstances, the basis for the exhaustion rule is nonexistent. The doctrine is bottomed on the exercise of judicial restraint to avoid the friction created when a lower federal court upsets a state court conviction without the state court system first being given an opportunity to correct its own alleged constitutional errors. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 490, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 1836, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973).
However, there is no possibility of offending the state court when federal review leaves the judgment of conviction untouched. Furthermore, the petitioner, represented here by able counsel, obviously assumes that state remedies have been exhausted and that relief can only be obtained in the federal court. The brief on appeal does not take issue with the holding of the court below that exhaustion has been satisfied. It only addresses the merits, and we have reviewed the merits on this appeal.
Consequently, in a case where the federal court cannot find a federal constitutional infirmity in the state court proceedings after full submission of the issue and review of the record, the petition should be dismissed on the merits. Reese v. Bara, 479 F.Supp. 657 (S.D.N.Y.1979). See also Shapiro, Federal Habeas Corpus: A Study in Massachusetts, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 321, 359 (1973).
Applying the exhaustion rule in this case creates at least a two-year delay in the ultimate disposition of the issue occasioned by a new round of collateral proceedings in the state and federal courts. Prompt disposition of criminal matters is in the best interest of the parties, the criminal justice system and society. I find no problem with adopting a rule which achieves this end in a case where the defendant has been properly convicted.
I must, however, concur in the result even though I find, on the facts of this case, that the exhaustion rule in this circuit exalts form over substance. The footnote in Twitty v. Smith, 614 F.2d 325, 332 n. 8 (2d Cir. 1979), distinguishing Johnson v. Metz, 609 F.2d 1052 (2d Cir. 1979), leaves the decision in Johnson the law applicable here. As Judge Newman points out, Johnson v. Metz may only be reexamined upon a rehearing en banc.