Court Opinion

ID: 9493288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:03:38.764078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:45.570079
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ,
Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment because I agree that, for many of the reasons set forth in the majority opinion, the performance of McCarver’s counsel was not prej-udicially ineffective. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
I do not agree, however, that McCar-ver’s ineffective assistance claim should be procedurally barred as a result of his failure to raise it on direct appeal. Only *599when a state procedural rule has been regularly and consistently applied can it constitute a state ground “independent of the federal question and adequate to support” the state court judgment. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); see also Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U.S. 578, 587, 108 S.Ct. 1981, 100 L.Ed.2d 575 (1988). North Carolina cases neither regularly nor consistently apply N.C. Gen.Stat. § 15A-1419(a)(3) to bar ineffective assistance of counsel claims.
Although the North Carolina cases do speak of certain “exceptions” to the general and well-established practice of raising ineffective assistance claims during post-conviction proceedings, they do not define the category of ineffective assistance claims that can appropriately be heard on direct appeal. See, e.g., State v. Dockery, 78 N.C.App. 190, 336 S.E.2d 719, 721 (N.C.Ct.App.1985). For this reason, they provide no guidance that would allow an exception to the general treatment of ineffective assistance claims to be consistently applied as a procedural rule.
The language of § 15A-1419(a)(3), barring post-conviction relief on claims that “the defendant was in a position to adequately raise” on direct appeal, is not sufficient to identify clearly the cases that are excepted from the general practice in North Carolina of hearing ineffective assistance claims at the post-conviction stage. Furthermore, North Carolina courts have not undertaken to construe this statutory language so as to provide the needed clarity. Is a defendant “in a position to adequately raise” a claim whenever there are facts in the record to support it, or only when the facts as to the claim are undisputed? Must the representation that was assertedly ineffective have taken place pri- or to trial or prior to sentencing? Is a defendant “in a position to adequately raise” an ineffective assistance claim on direct appeal when the defendant is being represented on the appeal by his assertedly ineffective trial counsel? We simply do not know, because the scope of the exception, as well as the scope of the procedural rule that purportedly derives from it, have never been addressed by the North Carolina courts.
The state suggests that the default rule applies to all ineffective claims that “could have been resolved on direct appeal based on matters of record.” See Brief of Appel-lee at 39. Even assuming this language provides sufficient clarity to transform the exception into a procedural rule, which I doubt, it is not language that appears in any North Carolina case cited by the state.
Moreover, even if the North Carolina courts had clearly delineated these “exceptions” so as to articulate a procedural rule, they have not regularly applied § 15A-1419(a)(3) as a bar to ineffective assistance claims. Rather, North Carolina courts have repeatedly stated that ineffective assistance claims are “normally,” State v. Milano, 297 N.C. 485, 256 S.E.2d 154, 160 (N.C.1979) overruled, on other grounds, State v. Grier, 307 N.C. 628, 300 S.E.2d 351, 361 (N.C.1983), “more properly,” State v. Jordan, 321 N.C. 714, 365 S.E.2d 617, 620 (N.C.1988), and “more appropriately” raised not on direct appeal but in post-conviction proceedings. State v. Vickers, 306 N.C. 90, 291 S.E.2d 599, 603 (N.C.1982), overruled on other grounds, State v. Barnes, 333 N.C. 666, 430 S.E.2d 223 (1993). See also State v. Harris, 338 N.C. 129, 449 S.E.2d 371, 377 (N.C.1994); State v. Sneed, 284 N.C. 606, 201 S.E.2d 867, 871 (N.C. 1974); Dockery, 336 S.E.2d at 721; State v. Wise, 64 N.C.App. 108, 306 S.E.2d 569, 571 (N.C.Ct.App.1983).
Our court en banc has similarly observed that, in North Carolina, “allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel generally are properly raised on collateral review.” Smith v. Dixon, 14 F.3d 956, 966 (4th Cir.1994) (en banc) (emphasis added). In Williams v. French, 146 F.3d 203, 217-18 (4th Cir.1998), we nonetheless held that a North Carolina court’s reliance on § 15A-1419(a)(3) constituted an adequate and independent procedural bar to an effective assistance claim. Williams, however, may be the only reported case in which *600a North Carolina court has procedurally barred an ineffective assistance claim under § 15A-1419(a)(3), and it is certainly the only such case cited by the state. Moreover, after issuance of Williams, albeit in an unpublished opinion, we held that it is “improper to treat ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims as procedurally defaulted under § 15A-1419(a)(3) because North Carolina does not require ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims to be raised on direct appeal.” See Harris v. French, 182 F.3d 907, 1999 WL 496941, *17 (4th Cir.1999) (unpublished disposition). Notably, the panel that, after full briefing and oral argument, concluded in Harris that § 15A-1419(a)(3) does not constitute an adequate and independent state procedural bar consisted of a former chief judge of this court who was at the time the only active judge on the court from North Carolina, the judge who had authored Williams v. French, and a third judge who is a member of today’s majority. Id. Given these circumstances, the statement of the en banc court in Smith regarding the general practice in North Carolina, and the fact that neither Williams nor Harris contains an extensive analysis of the issue, I think the holding in Williams would be suitable for en banc revisitation.
We are bound to defer to state procedural rules when they are clearly drawn and consistently applied. But the vindication of constitutional rights in federal court should not be foreclosed by a state procedural rule that, as a hypothetical matter, might be further clarified such that, in the future, it might be consistently applied. There is, at present, no discernible regularly and consistently applied North Carolina rule barring MeCarver’s ineffective assistance claim.