Court Opinion

ID: 9488746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:54:52.125968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:05.109897
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part: '
The standard that must be met for issuance of a certificate of probable cause is that the petitioner make a “substantial showing of denial of a federal right.” Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3394, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983). In order to make such a showing it suffices that the issue for decision be “debatable among jurists of reason.” Lozada v. Deeds, 498 U.S. 430, 432, 111 S.Ct. 860, 862, 112 L.Ed.2d 956 (1990) (per curiam). By issuing the certificate (correctly, I believe), we have determined that such a question exists in this ease. That being the situation, we should hear this appeal after affording the parties an opportunity for argument and with normal deliberation — not rush to judgment the day before Thanksgiving. A stay of execution should be granted for that limited purpose. Whatever the merits and just deserts of the defendant, he should receive a proper hearing.1
The question presented — whether the submission of a habeas petition regarding guilt or innocence followed by a second petition directed to a death sentence is necessarily an abuse of the writ — is only one of second impression. The Ninth Circuit in Phillips v. Vasquez, 56 F.3d 1030 (9th Cir.1995), decided that this mode of proceeding was not such an abuse. Whether the facts in that case are sufficiently distinguishable to dictate a different result here is not obvious and, I believe, calls for much more careful consideration. This is, after all, merely the threshold determination; we have not reached the petitioner’s specific constitutional claims.
The considerations which underlie the abuse of the writ doctrine are not even implicated by the procedure followed in this case. As the Supreme Court explained in McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 489-97, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 1467-72, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991), the abuse of the writ doctrine is based on respect for the finality of judgments, the costs of federal habeas corpus review, the burden on scarce federal judicial resources and the potential incentives to withhold claims for manipulative purposes. None of these considerations is implicated by allowing the bringing of separate habeas corpus petitions challenging the guilt and penalty phases of a death penalty case. If anything, this bifurcated procedure has been more expeditious and *50less consumptive of judicial resources than would have been the case if Burris had waited to present his petition challenging his conviction until the State had completed proceedings on his sentence. After all, the State had finally upheld his conviction and vacated his sentence four years before the resentenc-ing was finally upheld.
The Supreme Court has, of course, never considered the abuse of the writ doctrine in this context. Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion in Rose v. Lundy certainly does not address facts remotely comparable to the ones before us. 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982). In Rose, the petitioner presented four claims arising from the single trial where he was convicted. Of these, state remedies were exhausted as to two but not as to the other two. This is a pattern very typical of habeas submissions. And the plurality comment that “a prisoner who decides to proceed only with his exhausted claims ... risks dismissal of subsequent federal petitions” is hardly dispositive of the wholly different facts here. Rose, 455 U.S. at 521, 102 S.Ct. at 1204 (plurality opinion). Thus, in Rose, the “two unexhausted claims for relief were intertwined with the exhausted ones.” Id. at 519, 102 S.Ct. at 1204 (majority opinion). Burris, in his two petitions, raises claims which not only are not intertwined, they arise from two proceedings entirely separate in time and in content. As the Court in Rose noted, “the exhaustion doctrine is principally designed to protect the state courts’ role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings.” Id. at 518, 102 S.Ct. at 1203 (majority opinion). When, as here, two sets of claims arise from the distinct guilt and penalty phases of a capital ease, these comity considerations are totally absent.
With respect to cause and prejudice, the majority incorrectly asserts that Burris has not even tried to demonstrate cause. Burris has in fact argued that the extraordinary gap between his conviction and his resentencing presented a dilemma. He contends that his trial claims grew stale as he awaited final disposition of the resentencing. The cause requirement in the abuse of the writ context was based “on the principle that petitioner must conduct a reasonable and diligent investigation” of his possible claims. McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 498, 111 S.Ct. at 1472. Here Burris argues that a procedural dilemma— not lack of diligence — led him to make a bifurcated filing. How the Supreme Court would view the unprecedented pattern of events in the present case is certainly enough of a question to merit more than summary disposition.
For all these reasons, I am not prepared to dispose of this petition in a summary fashion — based only on a brief submission in support of a request for a certificate of probable cause and for a stay. I would grant the stay and hear the appeal.
I therefore respectfully dissent in the respects indicated.
ORDER
The court has voted to rehear this case en banc. The decision of the panel is vacated, the case is set for oral argument on December 19,1995, at 9:30 a.m., and the sentence of death is stayed until further order of the court.
Appellant’s brief must be received by the close of business on December 7. Appellee’s brief must be received by 2:00 p.m. on De-member 14. A reply brief may be filed by the close of business on December 18.

. While successive habeas corpus petitions can, in some instances, be dealt with summarily, the Supreme Court has instructed us that a stay is appropriate when there are "substantial grounds upon which relief might be granted.” Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 895, 103 S.Ct. at 3395. Netherland v. Tuggle, - U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 4, 132 L.Ed.2d 879 (1995), cited by the majority, does not concern the proper standard for granting a stay of execution when a certificate of probable cause has been issued in a habeas corpus appeal. Netherland deals only with the issuance of a stay of execution pending Supreme Court decision on a petition for certiorari.