Court Opinion

ID: 9915866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-08 21:00:53.079359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:15.547667
License: Public Domain

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                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13616
                           ____________________

        ANTHONY MUNGIN,
                                                     Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
        ATTORNEY GENERAL,

                                                  Respondents-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 3:06-cv-00650-BJD-JBT
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and
        BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
        BRASHER, Circuit Judge:
                In 1993, Anthony Mungin was convicted of murdering Betty
        Jean Woods and sentenced to death. For thirty years, Mungin has
        argued that his lawyer was ineffective in the guilt phase of his trial.
        We must resolve four such ineffective assistance of counsel claims
        in this appeal. Two were timely raised in Mungin’s initial federal
        habeas petition, and two were not. We conclude that the first two
        ineffective assistance of counsel claims fail under Strickland v. Wash-
        ington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and our habeas caselaw. We conclude
        that the last two claims cannot be litigated in federal court because
        they do not relate back to Mungin’s initial habeas petition and are
        therefore barred by the statute of limitations. In doing so, we cor-
        rect our precedent on the standard of review that applies to a dis-
        trict court’s ruling on relation back under Federal Rule of Civil Pro-
        cedure 15(c). Specifically, under Krupski v. Costa Crociere S.p.A, 560
        U.S. 538 (2010), we review those decisions de novo. Because the dis-
        trict court did not err in denying Mungin’s petition for a writ of
        habeas corpus, we affirm.
                                          I.

                                          A.

                We will begin with the facts of the crime and the guilt phase
        of trial. The State of Florida charged Anthony Mungin with first-
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                        3

        degree murder. The State alleged that Mungin had shot and killed
        a store clerk, Betty Jean Woods, in the head while robbing the Jack-
        sonville convenience store where she worked. The State’s theory
        was that Mungin had committed a string of robberies and related
        shootings in the area, which culminated in the murder of Woods.
                Mungin was represented by two experienced attorneys at
        trial. Charles Cofer was Mungin’s lead defense counsel and handled
        the investigation, decision-making, and cross-examination of the
        primary witnesses. Another attorney, Lewis Buzzell, entered the
        case much later as second chair and presented the closing argu-
        ment.
               The State introduced two key pieces of evidence: forensic
        analysis of guns and bullet casings and an eyewitness who saw
        Mungin at the crime scene.
               As for the forensic evidence, law enforcement officers found
        a gun at Mungin’s residence and matched that gun to the bullets
        used to commit the murder and similar robberies. They also found
        a stolen car—a Dodge Monaco—about one hundred yards from
        the house. Officers found two expended shell casings inside that car
        that also matched to the gun that shot Woods. Unbeknownst to
        the jury, however, Deputy Malcolm Gillette, one of the law en-
        forcement officers investigating the murder, stated on an inventory
        and vehicle storage receipt that there was “nothing visible” in the
        car. Mungin v. State (Mungin VI), 320 So. 3d 624, 625 (Fla. 2020).
                As for the eyewitness testimony, Ronald Kirkland testified at
        trial that he arrived at the convenience store shortly after the
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        4                     Opinion of the Court                22-13616

        shooting and physically bumped into a man who was leaving the
        convenience store. Kirkland then found the victim on the floor.
        Kirkland identified the man he bumped into as Mungin in a photo
        lineup and in court at trial. A police officer, Detective Christie
        Conn, conducted the photo lineup. When she showed Kirkland six
        or seven photographs including Mungin’s, Kirkland told Detective
        Conn that, based on the photograph he was shown, he could not
        swear Mungin was the individual leaving the store. But he none-
        theless correctly identified Mungin’s photograph and signed it. De-
        tective Conn later testified about Kirkland’s hesitancy in a deposi-
        tion, but she was not called to impeach his testimony at trial.
               There was another potential eyewitness at the scene—
        George Brown—who did not testify at trial. Detective Conn testi-
        fied during her deposition that Brown told Detective Conn that he
        had arrived on the scene after Kirkland. Cofer, Mungin’s lead attor-
        ney, tried to serve a subpoena on Brown to depose him; but Cofer
        could not find Brown at the address the government had given
        Cofer. Ultimately, Cofer could not find Brown to either confirm or
        rebut Detective Conn’s recollection of his statement.
                Nonetheless, Cofer extensively cross-examined Kirkland at
        trial. On cross-examination, Kirkland conceded that he only caught
        a glimpse of the man who was leaving the store and noticed noth-
        ing about the man’s clothes. Cofer also prompted Kirkland to ad-
        mit to inconsistencies between his previous statements to police
        and his testimony, such as his statements about the height, age, and
        appearance of the man he saw leaving the store. Specifically, Cofer
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                         5

        prompted Kirkland to state that he could not remember saying the
        man was five-foot-five before and that the man was somewhere in
        the area of 20 or 30 even though he had previously stated that the
        man was between 27 and 30. And Kirkland acknowledged that he
        had originally described the man at the scene as having a Jheri curl
        and a slight beard, despite Mungin’s short-haired, clean-shaven ap-
        pearance at the time. Kirkland also conceded that three people in
        the photo array had drawn his attention at first and that he had
        looked at the photos for fifteen or twenty minutes before identify-
        ing Mungin. When examined about his apparent statement to De-
        tective Conn that he could not swear in court that the picture he
        selected was the man who bumped into him, Kirkland said he did
        not recall making such a statement.
                Although Kirkland was on probation for misdemeanor
        charges of issuing worthless checks in the leadup to the trial, no
        one mentioned it during his cross-examination. The probation of-
        fice issued violation-of-probation warrants against Kirkland two
        weeks before Mungin’s trial, but it is not clear that Mungin’s coun-
        sel or the prosecution were made aware of that fact. And, like the
        probation itself, no one mentioned these warrants at trial. These
        warrants were later recalled—that is, withdrawn—nearly three
        weeks after Mungin’s trial.
               Deputy Gillette testified at trial that he saw spent shell cas-
        ings in the stolen Dodge Monaco near Mungin’s house. Mungin’s
        counsel did not know that Deputy Gillette had written that he saw
        nothing visible in the car on the inventory form. Years later,
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        6                        Opinion of the Court                    22-13616

        Deputy Gillette recanted this testimony in an affidavit; he now says
        that he did not see shell casings in the car and that he had not re-
        viewed his paperwork before testifying at trial. See id.
               Florida law at the time of Mungin’s trial allowed defense
        counsel to make a “sandwich” closing argument—addressing the
        jury first and last—in cases in which the defendant presented no
        evidence except his or her own testimony. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.250
        (1993); see also In re Amends. to the Fla. Rules of Crim. Proc., 606 So. 2d
        227, 312 (Fla. 1992) (Appx. 1); Boyd v. State, 200 So. 3d 685, 705 (Fla.
        2015). To benefit from this rule, Mungin’s counsel decided to not
        call defense witnesses, including Detective Conn. Mungin’s coun-
        sel ultimately waived the initial closing argument—forcing the
        prosecution to guess at Mungin’s closing argument rather than di-
        rectly rebut it—and presented unrebutted closing arguments with
        the last word in front of the jury.
               After deliberating, the jury convicted Mungin of first-degree
        murder. On the jury’s recommendation, a judge sentenced Mungin
        to death after finding the aggravating factors (1) that Mungin had
        committed a prior violent felony and (2) that the murder was com-
        mitted during a robbery or attempted robbery and that the murder
        was committed for pecuniary gain. See Mungin v. State (Mungin I),
        689 So. 2d 1026, 1028 & n.3 (Fla. 1995). Mungin’s conviction and
        sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, see id. at 1028, and the U.S.
        Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on direct
        review on October 6, 1997, see Mungin v. Florida, 522 U.S. 833, 833
        (1997).
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                          7

                                          B.

                On September 17, 1998, Mungin filed his first state postcon-
        viction relief motion. On postconviction review, Mungin raised
        several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in state court. The
        state circuit judge held an evidentiary hearing, during which
        Cofer—who had become a Florida circuit court judge by this
        time—testified about his experience and his decisions at Mungin’s
        trial. Cofer had handled many homicide trials as an assistant public
        defender by the time of Mungin’s trial, handling his first one
        around ten years before Mungin’s trial.
               Cofer explained that he knew about Kirkland’s probation on
        misdemeanor charges of issuing worthless checks but that it was
        scheduled to end two weeks before Mungin’s trial and that he knew
        Kirkland had successfully completed probation in the past. And he
        explained that he did not know that that violation-of-probation
        warrants had been issued against Kirkland two weeks before
        Mungin’s trial. Cofer acknowledged that he could have impeached
        Kirkland about the probation if he were on probation at the time
        of trial and stated that he would have looked into that had he
        known about the violation warrants.
              Cofer also explained that he did not call Detective Conn to
        impeach Kirkland about his identification of Mungin because he
        thought this testimony would be largely redundant and would also
        be a worse trial strategy. Cofer thought that most of Detective
        Conn’s testimony would be redundant to what Kirkland would say
        on the stand and that the additional information—that Kirkland
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13616

        said he could not swear in court that Mungin was the individual he
        saw leaving the store after the shooting—was not important
        enough to justify giving up the “sandwich” closing argument.
              Mungin’s counsel also explained why he did not call George
        Brown to testify. Cofer attempted to serve a deposition subpoena
        on Brown and could not find him at the address the government
        provided. Moreover, Cofer testified that he decided not to call
        Brown after he determined that Brown was not a critical witness.
        Cofer said that he made this determination based in part on Detec-
        tive Conn’s deposition testimony; he understood that Brown told
        Detective Conn that he had arrived on the scene after Kirkland and
        did not notice anyone leaving as he entered the store. In short,
        Cofer explained that he could not find Brown and that he thought
        Brown’s testimony would not add any value that could not come
        from Kirkland’s testimony.
               At the end of years of state court litigation, the Florida Su-
        preme Court denied Mungin’s initial state postconviction relief
        motion with its mandate issuing on June 29, 2006. See Mungin v.
        State (Mungin II), 932 So. 2d 986, 1004 (Fla. 2006).
                                         C.

               Mungin filed a federal habeas petition on July 18, 2006.
        Claim I in his original habeas petition was that “Mr. Mungin Re-
        ceived Ineffective Assistance of Counsel at the Guilt Phase of his
        Capital Trial, in Violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United
        States Constitution.” Dist. Ct. Doc. 1-2 at 28. Although styled in the
        original petition as a single claim, Claim I makes several different
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                          9

        Strickland claims about trial errors. Mungin has been litigating back
        and forth between state and federal court since then, culminating
        in us granting a certificate of appealability on four of his Strickland
        claims. We will trace the path of those four claims through
        Mungin’s state and federal postconviction proceedings.
                                          1.

               In his original habeas petition, Mungin claimed that his
        counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately impeach Ronald
        Kirkland at trial with evidence related to his criminal record. Dur-
        ing his state postconviction relief review process, the Florida Su-
        preme Court rejected this claim. See Mungin II, 932 So. 2d at 998–
        99. In doing so, the Florida Supreme Court split this claim into two
        subparts: that Mungin’s counsel should have (1) raised Kirkland’s
        probation status on cross-examination and (2) informed the jury
        about the recalled warrants. The Florida Supreme Court reasoned
        that (1) assuming deficient performance, Mungin was not preju-
        diced by his counsel’s failure to raise Kirkland’s probationary status
        and (2) Mungin’s counsel was not deficient for failing to inform the
        jury about Kirkland’s recalled warrants because the warrants were
        not recalled until after the trial. See id. The federal district court
        denied Mungin relief on this claim on the merits.
                                          2.

                In his original habeas petition, Mungin claimed that his
        counsel was ineffective for failing to elicit favorable testimony at
        trial from Detective Christie Conn. The Florida Supreme Court
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                    22-13616

        rejected this claim on the merits after concluding that Mungin had
        failed to establish a constitutional violation. See id. at 999. The dis-
        trict court denied Mungin relief on the merits.
                                           3.

               Mungin’s original federal habeas petition did not mention
        George Brown. On August 16, 2007, Mungin filed a successive mo-
        tion to vacate his conviction and sentence in state court based on
        recently discovered information in the form of an affidavit exe-
        cuted by George Brown on June 30, 2007. The district court stayed
        Mungin’s federal habeas proceedings for Mungin to exhaust this
        claim, among others, in state court. A state postconviction court
        ruled against Mungin on these claims, concluding that—with re-
        spect to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim—the Brown-re-
        lated affidavit was not sufficiently likely to change the result at trial.
        Although it did not discuss the Strickland claim, the Florida Su-
        preme Court reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on
        whether the government’s failure to disclose information about
        Brown violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), or Giglio v.
        United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972). See generally Mungin v. State
        (Mungin III), 79 So. 3d 726 (Fla. 2011). The state court held the evi-
        dentiary hearing and again denied Mungin’s petition. The Florida
        Supreme Court affirmed the decision and again did not explicitly
        discuss the Brown-related ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
        See generally Mungin v. State (Mungin IV), 141 So. 3d 138 (Fla. 2013).
        The mandate for this ruling issued on August 16, 2013.
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                        11

                On August 18, 2014—over a year later—Mungin asked the
        district court to end the stay, reopen the federal case, and supple-
        ment his habeas petition with the Brown-related ineffective assis-
        tance of counsel claim. The federal district court reopened the case
        on August 28, 2014, and Mungin moved to amend his federal ha-
        beas petition to add the Brown-related ineffective assistance of
        counsel claim. The State objected to the amendment on the
        ground that “any attempt to raise an IAC claim now in federal
        court, almost a decade after the state conviction became final and
        over seven years after Mungin’s [first] amended federal habeas pe-
        tition would egregiously violate the letter and purpose of the
        AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations.” Dist. Ct. Doc. 31 at 81
        (citation omitted). The district court nonetheless allowed the
        amendment but denied the claim on the merits and as procedurally
        defaulted.
                                          4.

                Mungin’s original federal habeas petition did not mention
        Deputy Gillette except in the context of Deputy Gillette’s penalty
        phase testimony. In 2015, ten months after Mungin moved to
        amend his habeas petition with the Brown-related claim, the dis-
        trict court again stayed the case so that Mungin could litigate addi-
        tional claims in state court. Those additional claims are not at issue
        in this appeal. But, while Mungin was litigating those additional
        claims in state court, he filed more postconviction motions in state
        court, including one filed on September 25, 2017, claiming ineffec-
        tive assistance of counsel related to a new affidavit from Deputy
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        12                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

        Gillette. The new Deputy Gillette affidavit was executed on Sep-
        tember 24, 2016—over one year earlier. See Mungin VI, 320 So. 3d
        at 625. Specifically, Mungin argued that his trial counsel provided
        ineffective assistance by failing to cross-examine Deputy Gillette
        about an inconsistency between his trial testimony that he saw
        shell casings in the stolen Dodge Monaco found in a parking lot
        near Mungin’s house and the “inventory and vehicle storage re-
        ceipt” in which he made a notation indicating that he saw “nothing
        visible” in the car. Id. In his 2016 affidavit, Deputy Gillette recanted
        his trial testimony about seeing the shell casings in the car. See id.
        The Florida Supreme Court denied Mungin’s new Deputy Gillette-
        related claims as untimely. See id. at 626.
               In 2022, the district court reopened the case for a final time,
        and Mungin moved to amend his second amended petition to add
        the Deputy Gillette-related claims. The district court denied
        Mungin leave to amend to add his Deputy Gillette-related ineffec-
        tive assistance of counsel claim as futile in light of the statute of
        limitations.
                                       ***

               In August 2022, over sixteen years after Mungin filed his
        original habeas petition, the district court denied Mungin’s petition
        and dismissed the action with prejudice. We granted a certificate
        of appealability on the claims discussed above.
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                        13

                                         II.

                We must address four of Mungin’s claims. He argues (1) that
        his counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately impeach
        Ronald Kirkland with evidence of his probationary status and
        (2) that his counsel should have called Detective Conn to testify
        about Kirkland’s prior equivocating statement about the strength
        of his identification. He also argues (3) that his counsel should have
        presented George Brown’s testimony and (4) that the district court
        should have allowed him to amend his petition to add an ineffec-
        tive assistance of counsel claim about Deputy Gillette’s recanted
        testimony. We will conclude that the first two claims fail on the
        merits and that the last two claims fail under the statute of limita-
        tions.
                                         A.

               We turn first to Mungin’s related claims about his counsel’s
        failure to impeach Kirkland’s testimony with evidence of his pro-
        bationary status and his equivocating statement to Detective Conn.
        “We review de novo the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas cor-
        pus.” Sears v. Warden GDCP, 73 F.4th 1269, 1279 (11th Cir. 2023)
        (emphasis added) (quoting Morrow v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison,
        886 F.3d 1138, 1146 (11th Cir. 2018)). Moreover, “[a]n ineffective
        assistance of counsel claim is a mixed question of law and fact[,]
        which we review de novo.” Williams v. Alabama, 73 F.4th 900, 905
        (11th Cir. 2023) (quoting Sims v. Singletary, 155 F.3d 1297, 1304
        (11th Cir. 1998)).
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

               Because these claims were adjudicated in state court, we
        may not grant a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 un-
        less the state court’s merits-based “adjudication of the claim . . . re-
        sulted in a decision that was” (1) “contrary to, or involved an un-
        reasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as deter-
        mined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) . . . based
        on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evi-
        dence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C.
        § 2254(d). “An unreasonable application occurs when a state court
        identifies the correct governing legal principle from th[e] [Su-
        preme] Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to
        the facts of [the] petitioner’s case.” Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374,
        380 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Wiggins v.
        Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 520 (2003)). “That is, ‘the state court’s decision
        must have been [not only] incorrect or erroneous [but] objectively
        unreasonable.’” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting Wiggins, 539
        U.S. at 520–21). “To meet that standard, a prisoner must show far
        more than that the state court’s decision was ‘merely wrong’ or
        ‘even clear error.’” Shinn v. Kayer, 592 U.S. 111, 118 (2020) (quoting
        Virginia v. LeBlanc, 582 U.S. 91, 94 (2017)). “The prisoner must show
        that the state court’s decision is so obviously wrong that its error
        lies ‘beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.’” Id.
        (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011)).
               “Ineffective assistance under Strickland is deficient perfor-
        mance by counsel resulting in prejudice, with performance being
        measured against an ‘objective standard of reasonableness’ ‘under
        prevailing professional norms.’” Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 380 (citations
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                         15

        omitted) (first quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688; and then quoting
        Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688; Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 521). Notably, the
        Supreme Court has “recognized the special importance of the
        AEDPA framework in cases involving Strickland claims.” Shinn, 592
        U.S. at 118. “[B]ecause the Strickland standard is a general standard,
        a state court has even more latitude to reasonably determine that
        a defendant has not satisfied that standard.” Id. (alteration in origi-
        nal) (quoting Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 123 (2009)). “Ap-
        plying AEDPA to Strickland’s prejudice standard, we must decide
        whether the state court’s conclusion that [counsel’s] performance
        . . . didn’t prejudice [petitioner]—that there was no ‘substantial
        likelihood’ of a different result—was ‘so obviously wrong that its
        error lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.’” Pye
        v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1041–42 (11th Cir.
        2022) (en banc) (quoting Shinn, 592 U.S. at 118–21). Establishing
        deficient performance under Strickland has this same high bar un-
        der AEDPA deference.
               “On each claimed basis for relief, we review ‘the last state-
        court adjudication on the merits.’” Sears, 73 F.4th at 1280 (quoting
        Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 40 (2011)). We apply these standards
        to Mungin’s first two ineffective assistance of counsel claims.
                                          1.

               Mungin argues that his counsel was ineffective for failing to
        impeach Ronald Kirkland with facts surrounding his probation and
        probation violation warrants. Cofer’s files suggest that he knew
        that Kirkland had been arrested on misdemeanor charges involving
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13616

        worthless checks, and a judge had withheld an adjudication of guilt
        pending Kirkland serving 90 days’ probation. The probation office
        issued violation-of-probation warrants against Kirkland two weeks
        before Mungin’s trial. For reasons that are not clear on the record,
        these warrants were recalled shortly after the trial.
                The Florida Supreme Court rejected this claim by splitting
        this claim into two actions by counsel with different holdings. See
        Mungin II, 932 So. 2d at 998–99. Neither holding is unreasonable.
               First, the Florida Supreme Court held that, assuming defi-
        cient performance, Mungin was not prejudiced by his counsel’s fail-
        ure to cross-examine Kirkland on his probationary status or pend-
        ing warrants for violating probation. See id. The Florida Supreme
        Court recognized that Mungin’s counsel already attacked Kirk-
        land’s identification of Mungin on cross-examination and “argued
        extensively that . . . Kirkland’s identification could not be believed
        beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. Therefore, the court reasoned that
        the additional impeachment evidence of Kirkland’s probationary
        status would not have changed the outcome of the trial.
               We cannot say the Florida Supreme Court unreasonably de-
        termined the facts or unreasonably applied U.S. Supreme Court
        caselaw. On this subpart of the claim, Mungin cannot establish that
        “the state court’s conclusion that [counsel’s] performance . . .
        didn’t prejudice him—that there was no ‘substantial likelihood’ of
        a different result—was ‘so obviously wrong that its error lies be-
        yond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.’” Pye, 50 F.4th at
        1041–42 (quoting Shinn, 592 U.S. at 118–21). Nothing about
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        22-13616                  Opinion of the Court                             17

        Kirkland’s probationary status is particularly compelling to under-
        mine his identification of Mungin as the person he saw leaving the
        convenience store where the murder took place. 1 And, as the Flor-
        ida Supreme Court noted, Cofer extensively challenged Kirkland’s
        identification testimony in other ways. Because the Florida Su-
        preme Court needed to hold only that Mungin fails one element of
        Strickland for him to lose on this part of this claim and because we
        agree that the Florida Supreme Court’s determination was not un-
        reasonable, we need not examine the other Strickland element of
        this subpart of this claim.
                Second, the Florida Supreme Court held that Mungin’s
        counsel was not deficient for failing to inform the jury about Kirk-
        land’s recalled warrants because the warrants were not recalled un-
        til after the trial. See Mungin II, 932 So. 2d at 999. That warrants
        were recalled after trial could theoretically suggest Kirkland had a
        deal with the government to recall the warrants in exchange for his
        testimony. But the state court found that Kirkland “did not have
        any deals with the State in exchange for his testimony at Mungin’s
        trial,” and Mungin does not argue otherwise. Id. Given the absence
        of any deal between Kirkland and the government to recall his war-
        rants after his testimony, we cannot say the state court was unrea-
        sonable in concluding that his counsel was not deficient for failing

        1 Because the judge in Kirkland’s case withheld an adjudication of guilt pend-

        ing probation, it appears that Kirkland was never convicted of passing worth-
        less checks. Mungin has not argued, and we do not address, whether Kirkland
        should have been impeached for passing worthless checks apart from his pro-
        bationary status. See Fla. Stat. § 90.610.
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                22-13616

        to raise the recalled warrants at trial. Therefore, the Florida Su-
        preme Court was not unreasonable in denying Mungin’s Kirkland-
        related warrant argument on the ground that he failed to establish
        deficient performance.
                Because the Florida Supreme Court was not unreasonable
        in resolving both the Kirkland probation and warrant issues, the
        district court properly denied Mungin’s Kirkland-related ineffective
        assistance of counsel claim.
                                         2.

               Turning to Mungin’s second, but related, ineffective assis-
        tance claim, Mungin argues that his counsel was ineffective for fail-
        ing to call Detective Conn to the stand to impeach Kirkland’s state-
        ment that he did not remember saying that he could not swear to
        his identification during the photo lineup. The Florida Supreme
        Court rejected this claim on the merits. After identifying the rea-
        sons that Mungin’s counsel had exercised his strategic judgment
        not to call Detective Conn, the Court concluded that, even assum-
        ing deficient performance, Mungin failed to establish Strickland’s
        prejudice element. See id.
               For our part, we will begin and end with the prejudice ele-
        ment of Strickland. Again, we cannot say the Florida Supreme
        Court unreasonably applied the law or unreasonably determined
        the facts in denying Mungin relief for his Detective Conn-related
        claim. This is so for two reasons.
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        22-13616              Opinion of the Court                       19

                First, Kirkland identified Mungin at two points in time. He
        initially identified Mungin’s photograph and signed it during the
        police’s murder investigation. Kirkland then identified Mungin
        again in person during Mungin’s trial. Thus, even if Kirkland told
        Detective Conn that, based on the photograph he was shown, he
        could not swear Mungin was the individual leaving the store, we
        cannot say that impeaching Kirkland on this point would have un-
        dermined his additional in-court identification to the point that it
        would have affected the result of the trial.
               Second, Mungin’s counsel vigorously (and successfully)
        cross-examined Kirkland on the strength of his identification in
        other ways. For example, Cofer got Kirkland to admit that he only
        caught a glimpse of the man who bumped into him and did not
        notice anything about the man’s clothes. Cofer also prompted Kirk-
        land to state that he could not remember saying the man was five-
        foot-five before and that the man was somewhere in the area of 20
        or 30 years old, even though he had previously stated that the man
        was between 27 and 30 years old. And, in response to Cofer’s ques-
        tioning, Kirkland acknowledged that he had originally described
        the man at the scene as having a Jheri curl and a slight beard, de-
        spite Mungin’s short-haired, clean-shaven appearance at the time.
        Additionally, Cofer prompted Kirkland to admit that three people
        in the photo array had drawn his attention at first and that he had
        looked at the photos for fifteen or twenty minutes. Because Cofer
        performed such significant cross-examination of Kirkland’s identi-
        fication of Mungin, the state court was not unreasonable in
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        20                    Opinion of the Court                22-13616

        concluding that additional cross-examination through impeach-
        ment evidence would not have changed the outcome of Mungin’s
        trial.
                The state supreme court was not unreasonable in rejecting
        this claim. Because the state supreme court did not unreasonably
        apply the law or unreasonably determine the facts, the district
        court properly denied Mungin’s Detective Conn-related ineffective
        assistance of counsel claim.
                                        B.

               We turn now to Mungin’s final two claims: (1) that his coun-
        sel should have presented the testimony of George Brown and
        (2) that the district court should have allowed him to amend his
        petition to add a claim about Deputy Gillette’s recanted testimony.
        Unlike the first two claims, which were raised in Mungin’s initial
        habeas petition, he did not raise these two claims until his federal
        habeas litigation had been pending for many years.
               We conclude that these claims fail under the statute of limi-
        tations. Even giving Mungin the benefit of the doubt about when
        the statute began to run, the claims were filed outside the one-year
        statute of limitations. And we cannot say these claims relate back
        to his original petition.
                                         1.

              For starters, Mungin does not dispute that both the Brown
        and Gillette claims are barred by the statute of limitations unless
        they relate back to Mungin’s initial, timely filed habeas petition.
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                         21

        AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations clock starts running at the
        latest of several dates. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). There was no state
        impediment to bringing either of these claims, see id.
        § 2244(d)(1)(B), and there were no new constitutional rights at is-
        sue, see id. § 2244(d)(1)(C). Therefore, the only two dates relevant
        here are the finality of the state court conviction, see id.
        § 2244(d)(1)(A), and “the date on which the factual predicate of the
        claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the
        exercise of due diligence,” id. § 2244(d)(1)(D).
               There’s no question that these claims were first brought in
        federal court long after Mungin’s conviction was final in state
        court. Mungin first brought the Brown claim in federal court in
        2014 and first brought the Deputy Gillette-related claim in federal
        court in 2022, but his conviction was final in state court when the
        U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on
        direct review on October 6, 1997. See Mungin v. Florida, 522 U.S.
        833, 833 (1997) (denying petition for a writ of certiorari); see also
        Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 119 (2009) (quoting Clay v.
        United States, 537 U.S. 522, 527 (2003)). Mungin’s statute of limita-
        tions began running for purposes of Section 2244(d)(1)(A) on this
        date. On September 17, 1998, Mungin filed his first state postcon-
        viction relief motion, which tolled the statute of limitations after it
        had run for 346 days. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). The clock began
        running again on June 29, 2006, when the Florida Supreme Court
        denied Mungin’s initial state postconviction relief motion. See Law-
        rence v. Florida, 549 U.S. 327, 329, 333–34 (2007). No one disputes
        that Mungin’s initial federal habeas petition was filed 19 days later
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

        on the final day possible, July 18, 2006. Given that Mungin filed his
        Brown and Deputy Gillette claims in state court at least one day
        after July 18, 2006—and in fact did so much later—the statute of
        limitations ran on all claims not brought in the initial federal habeas
        petition as far as Section 2244(d)(1)(A) is concerned.
                Mungin also cannot benefit from couching his claims as
        based on newly discovered evidence under Section 2244(d)(1)(D).
        Giving Mungin the benefit of the doubt, we will assume that
        Mungin could not have discovered Brown’s allegations until he ex-
        ecuted his affidavit on June 30, 2007—so his one-year clock started
        to run on that date. Mungin waited over a month to file his succes-
        sive state motion for postconviction relief on August 16, 2007. That
        filing tolled his one-year clock. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2). The Flor-
        ida Supreme Court denied relief on this claim when its mandate
        issued on August 16, 2013—so the clock started running again. See
        Lawrence, 549 U.S. at 329, 333–34. But Mungin waited until August
        18, 2014—over a year later—to ask the district court to end the stay,
        reopen the federal case, and supplement his habeas petition with
        the Brown-related ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The State
        objected to the 2014 Brown amendment on AEDPA statute of lim-
        itations grounds. When we exclude the time this claim was in state
        court, we see that Mungin waited approximately thirteen months
        and one week after his one-year AEDPA statute of limitations clock
        began running on this claim. Therefore, even giving Mungin the
        benefit of the doubt, the Brown claim was untimely.
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                         23

               The Deputy Gillette claim is even more clearly untimely.
        Deputy Gillette signed his affidavit on September 24, 2016, but
        Mungin did not file his third successive postconviction motion in
        state court on this issue until more than a year later on September
        25, 2017. See Mungin VI, 320 So. 3d at 625. And, after the Florida
        Supreme Court ruled on this issue in 2020, he did not try to amend
        his federal habeas petition until 2022. So, even assuming Mungin
        could not have discovered this claim with the exercise of due dili-
        gence until Deputy Gillette signed his affidavit, Mungin still waited
        too long to bring this claim.
                                          2.

               Because both claims were added in federal court after the
        statute of limitations had run, the key question is whether either
        claim relates back to Mungin’s original habeas petition. “Relation
        back is a legal fiction employed to salvage claims that would other-
        wise be unjustly barred by a limitations provision.” Caron v. NCL
        (Bah.), Ltd., 910 F.3d 1359, 1368 (11th Cir. 2018) (citing McCurdy v.
        United States, 264 U.S. 484, 487 (1924); Moore v. Baker, 989 F.2d 1129,
        1131 (11th Cir. 1993)). In the habeas context, relation back is al-
        lowed when “the amendment asserts a claim or defense that arose
        out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out—or at-
        tempted to be set out—in the original pleading.” Fed. R. Civ.
        P. 15(c)(1)(B). A new claim does not relate back simply “because
        both the original petition and the amended pleading arose from the
        same trial and conviction.” Mayle v. Felix, 545 U.S. 644, 650 (2005).
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        24                      Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

              The district court allowed amendment to add the Brown
        claim under relation back principles but disallowed amendment to
        add the Deputy Gillette claim, and the parties disagree about the
        standard of review that we apply to this issue. Mungin argues that
        we review for abuse of discretion. The State argues that we must
        review this issue de novo. We agree with the State.
                We have held that “[a]pplication of Rule 15(c) is reviewed
        for abuse of discretion.” Powers v. Graff, 148 F.3d 1223, 1226 (11th
        Cir. 1998) (citing Andrews v. Lakeshore Rehab. Hosp., 140 F.3d 1405,
        1409 n.6 (11th Cir. 1998)). But we need not “follow a prior panel’s
        decision where an intervening Supreme Court decision establishes
        that the prior panel decision is wrong.” United States v. Hogan, 986
        F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir. 1993) (citing United States v. Giltner, 972
        F.2d 1563, 1566 (11th Cir. 1992); Lufkin v. McCallum, 956 F.2d 1104,
        1107 (11th Cir. 1992)). And, as relevant here, the Supreme Court
        held in Krupski v. Costa Crociere S. p. A., 560 U.S. 538 (2010), that
        Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1) “mandates relation back
        once the Rule’s requirements are satisfied; it does not leave the de-
        cision whether to grant relation back to the district court’s equita-
        ble discretion.” Id. at 553 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)). The Court
        has thus plainly held that relation back under Rule 15(c)(1) turns on
        a legal question that is not left to the district court’s discretion.
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        22-13616                    Opinion of the Court                                 25

                In light of Krupski, we agree with most of our sister circuits
        and conclude that we must decide relation back questions de novo.2
        Whether a claim relates back to a previous pleading is a quintes-
        sentially legal question. And we are in no worse position than dis-
        trict courts to perform this kind of legal analysis because it involves
        assessing whether the facts that could support a new claim were
        present in a timely pleading. Because it is necessary to give effect
        to Krupski, we adopt a de novo standard of review of the
        Rule 15(c)(1) relation back inquiry.
                                                 3.

             Having settled the standard of review, we ask whether
        Mungin’s allegation that his counsel should have investigated more

        2 See ASARCO LLC v. Goodwin, 756 F.3d 191, 202 (2d Cir. 2014) (de novo); United

        States v. Santarelli, 929 F.3d 95, 100 (3d Cir. 2019) (same); Robinson v. Clipse, 602
        F.3d 605, 607 (4th Cir. 2010) (same); Durand v. Hanover Ins. Grp., Inc., 806 F.3d
        367, 374 (6th Cir. 2015) (same); ASARCO, LLC v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 765 F.3d
        999, 1004 (9th Cir. 2014) (same); United States v. Roe, 913 F.3d 1285, 1298 (10th
        Cir. 2019) (same); United States v. Hicks, 283 F.3d 380, 389 (D.C. Cir. 2002)
        (treating relation back under Rule 15(c) as a legal question); Anza Tech., Inc. v.
        Mushkin, Inc., 934 F.3d 1359, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (de novo). But see Turner v.
        United States, 699 F.3d 578, 585 (1st Cir. 2012) (abuse of discretion); United
        States v. Alaniz, 5 F.4th 632, 635 n.2 (5th Cir. 2021) (collecting cases) (declining
        to decide this issue but noting that the Fifth Circuit has tended to use abuse of
        discretion review); Coleman v. United States, 79 F.4th 822, 827–29 (7th Cir. 2023)
        (abuse of discretion); Taylor v. United States, 792 F.3d 865, 869 (8th Cir. 2015)
        (quoting Dodd v. United States, 614 F.3d 512, 515 (8th Cir. 2010)) (abuse of dis-
        cretion).
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        26                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

        thoroughly, and presented the testimony of, George Brown relates
        back to his original timely petition. Mungin did not mention Brown
        in his original habeas petition. In his original habeas petition, there
        are also no other facts that could reasonably serve as the basis for
        an ineffective assistance of counsel claim related to Brown at all, let
        alone related to Brown at the guilt phase of trial. Thus, the original
        habeas petition does not provide a factual basis for relation back.
                Mungin argues that his Brown claim is related to his original
        claim that his counsel committed ineffective assistance at the guilt
        phase of trial. We disagree. Although Claim I in Mungin’s original
        petition is “Mr. Mungin Received Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
        at the Guilt Phase of his Capital Trial, in Violation of the Sixth
        Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Dist. Ct. Doc. 1-2
        at 28, that general claim does not mean that all new ineffective as-
        sistance of counsel claims relate back. The Supreme Court has held
        that “[a]n amended habeas petition . . . does not relate back (and
        thereby escape AEDPA’s one-year time limit) when it asserts a new
        ground for relief supported by facts that differ in both time and type
        from those the original pleading set forth.” Mayle, 545 U.S. at 650.
        Accordingly, in the habeas context, a new ineffective assistance of
        counsel claim must relate to the specific facts underlying an already
        raised claim to “ar[i]se out of the conduct, transaction, or occur-
        rence set out—or attempted to be set out—in the original plead-
        ing.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B). That is, the new claim must arise
        out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence in the original peti-
        tion—which cannot be viewed so broadly as to allow a claim that
        merely involves another issue related to representation at trial. Cf.
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        22-13616               Opinion of the Court                         27

        Dean v. United States, 278 F.3d 1218, 1222 (11th Cir. 2002) (conclud-
        ing that claims related back where the amendment sought “to add
        facts and specificity to the original claim[s]”). Applying these stand-
        ards, the Brown claim is not sufficiently related to the allegations
        in Mungin’s initial habeas petition to relate back under Rule 15(c).
                The district court’s decision to allow Mungin to raise this
        claim through an amendment “does not establish the timeliness of
        the amended claim[].” Watkins v. Stephenson, 57 F.4th 576, 582 (6th
        Cir. 2023) (citing Hill v. Mitchell, 842 F.3d 910, 922–23 (6th Cir.
        2016)). Because the Brown-related ineffective assistance of counsel
        claim was untimely under AEDPA’s statute of limitations, the dis-
        trict court was correct to dismiss this claim with prejudice.
                                          4.

               Finally, we ask whether Mungin’s ineffective assistance
        claim about Deputy Gillette relates back to his original petition.
        This claim is based on Mungin’s argument that there is an incon-
        sistency between Deputy Gillette’s trial testimony that he saw shell
        casings in the Dodge Monaco and the inventory storage receipt
        where he stated that he saw “nothing visible” in the car. Mungin VI,
        320 So. 3d at 625.
               The district court rejected Mungin’s request to amend his
        petition to add this claim because, in part, it concluded that this
        claim was barred by the statute of limitations. Mungin argues that
        the district court should have allowed the amendment and, only
        afterward, addressed the timeliness or merits of the claim. We dis-
        agree. “Both the State and the victims of crime have an important
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        28                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13616

        interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence.” Hill v.
        McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 584 (2006) (citing Calderon v. Thompson,
        523 U.S. 538, 556 (1998)). District courts may decide timeliness is-
        sues without pausing a federal case to allow untimely claims to be
        exhausted in state court. They are also under no obligation to allow
        habeas petitioners to raise new futile claims that are time barred.
        See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962); Andrews, 140 F.3d at
        1409 n.7; In re Engle Cases, 767 F.3d 1082, 1122–23 (11th Cir. 2014);
        Coventry First, LLC v. McCarty, 605 F.3d 865, 870 (11th Cir. 2010)
        (quoting Cockrell v. Sparks, 510 F.3d 1307, 1310 (11th Cir. 2007)).
               The district court correctly held that Mungin’s new claim
        does not relate back to his original petition. Mungin’s original peti-
        tion mentioned Deputy Gillette only in the context of his penalty-
        phase testimony. It did not raise any claims pertaining to his trial
        testimony that he saw shell casings inside the Dodge Monaco.
        Mungin’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim involving Deputy
        Gillette, however, is based on the failure of Mungin’s attorney to
        cross-examine Deputy Gillette about the shell casings in the guilt
        phase of the trial. Thus, the new ineffective assistance of counsel
        claim is based on actions related to testimony of a different type
        and from a different time than the testimony mentioned within
        Mungin’s original petition.
               Because the testimony underlying Mungin’s new ineffective
        assistance of counsel claim is of a different type and from a different
        time than the testimony underlying the timely claims, it does not
        relate back. See Mayle, 545 U.S. at 650. Consequently, the Deputy
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        22-13616              Opinion of the Court                       29

        Gillette-related ineffective assistance of counsel claim is untimely
        and barred by AEDPA’s statute of limitations.
                                        III.

               We AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Mungin’s petition
        for a writ of habeas corpus.