Court Opinion

ID: 9479542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:21:14.822619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:06.442492
License: Public Domain

HILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with what Chief Judge Roney has written. His approach — to determine under Teague v. Lane, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) whether the petitioner’s asserted constitutional errors would be applicable to the case before undertaking an abuse of the writ analysis — is clearly the better approach in this case, remanded to us by the Supreme Court for our reconsideration in the light of Teag-ue. I come to no firm conclusion as to whether, in all cases, the Teague analysis should be a precedent to deciding whether or not the petition constitutes an abuse of the writ.
The opinion by Judge Cox is the proper opinion for those who think that the abuse of the writ issue is to be reached. It is not improper for each active judge on an en banc court to face and resolve the issues before the court. If a judge now on this court considers and decides an issue to a result different from the result that had theretofore been reached by an earlier member of the court, the judge should vote his conviction. It would be wrong for a judge to refuse to grant habeas corpus relief to a death penalty petitioner merely because the court had on an earlier, now vacated, occasion denied relief and the new judge wished to avoid being tagged as whimsical. It would be just as wrong for the judge to fail to vote his or her conviction should that vote be to deny relief.
As stated, I concur in what Chief Judge Roney has written and thus do not reach the abuse of the writ issue. I see no reason to believe that, were I to reach the issue, the views expressed in my earlier dissent would be changed. Moore v. Kemp, 824 F.2d 847, 877 (11th Cir.1987), Hill, J., dissenting.