Court Opinion

ID: 9955440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-28 17:01:15.153742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:42.206676
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       MAR 28 2024
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JOSEPH WILLIAM HART,                            No.    20-99011

                Petitioner-Appellant,           D.C. No. 2:05-cv-03633-DSF

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
RONALD BROOMFIELD, Acting Warden,
California State Prison at San Quentin,

                Respondent-Appellee.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Central District of California
                    Dale S. Fischer, District Judge, Presiding

                      Argued and Submitted January 22, 2024
                               Pasadena, California

Before: FRIEDLAND, KOH, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

      Joseph William Hart appeals the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas

corpus petition challenging his conviction and death sentence for first-degree

murder with rape and sodomy special circumstances. We have jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We affirm.

      Hart raises eight claims on appeal, including two claims for which the

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
district court granted a certificate of appealability (COA), and six claims for which

it did not.1 We grant Hart a COA with respect to his uncertified claim that the State

violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by suppressing evidence that

could have impeached a witness who testified that Hart confessed to killing his

niece (Claim 12(B)). We deny a COA with respect to the remainder of Hart’s

uncertified claims.

         1. During the penalty phase of Hart’s trial, Hart’s former cellmate Randall

Gresham testified in exchange for a plea agreement that Hart had confessed to

murdering his 11-year-old niece, Shelah M. Hart claims that the State violated its

Brady obligations by suppressing evidence that Gresham received a more

favorable plea deal than the State revealed at trial, and, further, that the State did

not disclose that Gresham was planted in Hart’s cell to extract a confession from

him.

         We may not hear an appeal of the denial of a Section 2254 petition unless

the petitioner has received a COA. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). “When the district

court denies a habeas petition on procedural grounds . . . a COA should issue when

the prisoner shows, at least, that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether

the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists

of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its

1
    Hart’s certified claims are addressed in a concurrently filed opinion.

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procedural ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). This “is a

threshold inquiry that ‘is not coextensive with a merits analysis.’” Martinez v.

Shinn, 33 F.4th 1254, 1261 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. 100,

115 (2017)).

      Although the district court did not issue a COA with respect to Claim 12(B),

we construe Hart’s briefing of the claim as a motion to expand the COA. See 9th

Cir. R. 22-1(e). Because reasonable jurists might find both the merits of Claim

12(B) and the district court’s procedural ruling debatable, we grant a COA with

respect to that claim. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the claim,

however, because it is procedurally barred.

      2. In all three of his state court post-conviction proceedings, Hart raised a

claim that the State unconstitutionally suppressed evidence relevant to Gresham’s

testimony. Each time, the Supreme Court of California (CSC) denied the claim as

procedurally barred, citing its decisions in In re Clark, 855 P.2d 729 (Cal. 1993),

and In re Robbins, 959 P.2d 311 (Cal. 1998). These cases, together with In re

Gallego, 959 P.2d 290 (Cal. 1998), “describe California’s timeliness requirement,”

under which “[a] prisoner must seek habeas relief without ‘substantial delay,’ as

‘measured from the time the petitioner or counsel knew, or reasonably should have

known, of the information offered in support of the claim and the legal basis for

the claim.’” Walker v. Martin, 562 U.S. 307, 312 (2011) (citations omitted)

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(quoting Robbins, 959 P.2d at 317, 322).

      “The procedural bar doctrine prohibits a federal court from granting relief on

the merits of a state prisoner’s federal claim when the state court denied the claim

based on an independent and adequate state procedural rule.” Ayala v. Chappell,

829 F.3d 1081, 1095 (9th Cir. 2016). Hart argues that California’s timeliness bar is

neither independent of federal law nor adequate to support the dismissal of his

claim. We disagree.

      Hart’s argument that California’s timeliness bar is not independent is

foreclosed by our decision in Bennett v. Mueller, 322 F.3d 573, 581–83 (9th Cir.

2003). As we explained in Bennett, the CSC’s decision in Robbins establishes that

California courts “no longer consider federal law in denying a petition on

untimeliness grounds.” Id. at 581.2

      Hart has also not met his burden of showing that California’s timeliness rule

was not adequate at the time of his default, in light of his particular circumstances.

In the main, he contends that California’s timeliness rule was not “firmly

2
  The CSC’s decision in In re Sanders, 981 P.2d 1038 (Cal. 1999), does not
undermine this conclusion. There, the CSC held that, as “a matter of state law, not
federal constitutional law,” id. at 1052, a habeas petitioner may be able to establish
good cause for procedural default where “appointed counsel abandons his or her
client during the postconviction period,” id. at 1053. Nothing in Sanders suggests
that California courts consider the merits of a petitioner’s federal claims when
determining whether counsel has abandoned those claims during post-conviction
proceedings.

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established or regularly followed” as of November 6, 1998 (when he filed his first

state habeas petition), given that Robbins and Gallego were both decided only

three months earlier, in August 1998. See Walker, 562 U.S. at 316 (“To qualify as

an ‘adequate’ procedural ground, a state rule must be ‘firmly established and

regularly followed.’”); Bradford v. Davis, 923 F.3d 599, 611 (9th Cir. 2019)

(adequacy of state procedural rule typically determined as of the date “when the

state habeas petition is filed”).

      Hart does not, however, suggest that Robbins and Gallego conflicted with

Clark, which was decided in 1993, more than five years before Hart filed his state

habeas petition. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the CSC typically invokes

the timeliness rule by citing Clark and Robbins together. See, e.g., Walker, 562

U.S. at 318. Hart has not explained why Clark was insufficient to provide him

notice of the timeliness rule or why, in the circumstances of his case, the CSC’s

decision in Clark was inadequate to bar his claim. Although the State bears the

“ultimate burden of proving the adequacy” of its procedural rules, Hart bears the

initial burden to “assert[] specific factual allegations that demonstrate the

inadequacy of the state procedure, including citation to authority demonstrating

inconsistent application of the rule.” Bennett, 322 F.3d at 585–86. Hart has made

no such allegations and provided no such authority here.

                                           5
      Hart nevertheless argues that California’s timeliness rules may not be

applied against him “in a surprising or unfair manner.” Walker, 562 U.S. at 320.

But Hart identifies nothing unusual about the way California’s procedural bar was

applied to his claims.3 Hart also argues that California’s timeliness rule improperly

discriminated against his federal claims, because California declined to fund his

post-conviction investigations, and California courts often resolve capital claims

on the merits even when procedural bars may apply. Hart identifies no distinction,

however, that California makes between state and federal claims. And, in any

event, “a state procedural bar may count as an adequate and independent ground

for denying a federal habeas petition even if the state court had discretion to reach

the merits despite the default.” Id. at 311.

      Finally, Hart argues that his claim falls into one of the “rare circumstances”

in which “unyielding application of [a] general rule would disserve any perceivable

interest.” Lee v. Kemna, 534 U.S. 362, 379–80 (2002). But the Supreme Court has

employed this standard only to overcome meaningless formalisms that might

otherwise have precluded a meritorious claim. See id. at 381–83 (excusing

compliance with a rule requiring motions to be made in writing where the motion

was made orally and the trial court’s resolution of the motion had nothing to do

3
  To the extent Hart argues that the procedural bar was unfair because of delays he
faced in preparing his petitions, as we explain below, these delays do not provide
cause for his procedural default.

                                           6
with this requirement); Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 124 (1990) (excusing a

failure to object to jury instructions after the jury was instructed when the trial

court had just rejected identical motions challenging those instructions). Here, by

contrast, California’s rule serves significant finality and timeliness interests,

because Hart’s claim was filed years after he gathered evidence supporting it. See

Walker, 562 U.S. at 317. Hart accordingly has failed to show that the CSC’s

decisions in Clark and Robbins are inadequate to procedurally bar his claims under

these circumstances.

      3. Hart argues that even if Claim 12(B) was untimely, any procedural default

should be excused. “[A] petitioner can only ‘obtain federal review of a defaulted

claim by showing cause for the default and prejudice from a violation of federal

law.’” Leeds v. Russell, 75 F.4th 1009, 1016 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Martinez v.

Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 10 (2012)). Hart has not met that burden here.

      Hart first argues that he has cause for his procedural default on his second

and third state habeas petitions because his state habeas counsel provided

ineffective assistance in failing to expeditiously investigate and file his claim. But

we have previously held that ineffective assistance of state habeas counsel does not

provide cause for failing to timely raise a Brady claim. Hunton v. Sinclair, 732

F.3d 1124, 1126–27 (9th Cir. 2013) (citing Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. at 16). Hart

also cites the State’s failure to provide funding for his counsel to investigate his

                                           7
claims as cause for his default. But because Hart had no right to post-conviction

representation, see Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 753–54 (1991), much less

the right to funding for that representation, the absence of such funding cannot

provide cause for the default of his claim.

      Hart next argues that his procedural default was caused by the State’s failure

to provide evidence that Gresham was a government agent and may have testified

falsely. This also does not provide cause for Hart’s default. Hart was on notice of

the factual basis for this claim (to the extent there was a factual basis) as early as

his 1995 direct appeal, which asserted that Gresham had acted as a government

agent. See People v. Hart, 976 P.2d 683, 740 (Cal. 1999). In his 2002 declaration,

Gresham also stated that before he testified at Hart’s 1988 trial, he told Hart that

Hart’s counsel should contact him, so that Gresham could communicate “what was

going on with the prosecution” (i.e., that the prosecution had placed Gresham in

Hart’s cell to obtain information).4 Hart has thus not adequately explained why he

was prevented from more timely developing this claim in his state habeas

proceedings, nor how the State’s alleged withholding of evidence prevented him

from doing so. Hart could have contacted Gresham at any time after his 1988 trial

4
  In a 2003 deposition, Gresham expressed uncertainty about whether the 2002
statement was accurate, including whether he had told Federal Public Defender
investigators that he had been placed in Hart’s cell to extract a confession, and
whether that was in fact true.

                                           8
to determine whether Gresham was a government agent. Yet he did not file a claim

on this theory until 1998, did not interview Gresham until 2002, and did not file an

amended petition based on the interview until 2005. The State’s alleged

withholding of evidence does not explain this delay. See Walker, 562 U.S. at 317

(listing California cases finding that multi-year delays barred claims).

      Finally, Hart argues that the State’s suppression of the full details of

Gresham’s plea agreement should excuse his delay in bringing a claim regarding

the agreement. But Hart cannot show that this delay prejudiced him.

      The suppressed evidence regarding Gresham’s plea indicates that, without a

plea agreement, Gresham could have faced many more charges (and therefore a

much more serious penalty) than was revealed at Hart’s trial. Gresham

acknowledged on cross-examination, however, that he had been facing substantial

prison time, and he admitted to proposing to the prosecution that he testify in

exchange for a plea agreement. Hart’s counsel emphasized the plea agreement in

his closing statement, urging the jury not to believe Gresham because he had a

motive to fabricate testimony against Hart. The additional evidence Hart references

is therefore cumulative of evidence and argument that was already before the jury

and lacks materiality. See Hooper v. Shinn, 985 F.3d 594, 618 (9th Cir. 2021);

Barker v. Fleming, 423 F.3d 1085, 1097–98 (9th Cir. 2005); see also Woods v.

Sinclair, 764 F.3d 1109, 1130 (9th Cir. 2014) (holding that the requirement of

                                          9
prejudice to excuse a procedural default is the same as the Brady requirement of

materiality).

      4. Hart has not shown that jurists of reason would debate the merits of his

remaining uncertified claims. Martinez v. Shinn, 33 F.4th at 1261. We therefore

decline to issue a COA regarding those claims.

      AFFIRMED.

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