Court Opinion

ID: 9478489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:50:20.905935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:27.565349
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the court’s judgment. I write separately merely to comment on the respondent’s argument that we should treat petitioner’s Lockett claim as procedurally barred.
This is a pre-Lockett case, in that petitioner was tried and sentenced before the Supreme Court decided Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). In pre-Lockett cases, as I noted in Hargrave v. Dugger, 832 F.2d 1528, 1539 (11th Cir.1987) (en banc) (Tjoflat, J., specially concurring), the Florida courts do not *759apply their procedural default rules to bar review of Lockett claims. We are therefore obliged to review petitioner’s Lockett claim without requiring him to demonstrate cause for his state court procedural default. Id.