Court Opinion

ID: 9478299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:45:27.153144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:21.168999
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting on petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc:
Our panel has noted the error of our ways in departing from this Court’s precedent in Cook v. Lynaugh, 821 F.2d 1072, 1076-77 (5th Cir.1987), which held that if a state court denies a habeas petitioner’s claim on alternate grounds of procedural default and the merits, we are barred by the procedural default doctrine from considering that claim. This is obviously a correct result, although I acknowledge complicity in the earlier opinion.
Having reconsidered the issue of procedural bar, however, and found this first aspect of our previous decision wanting, I also now differ from my colleagues and reject their conclusion that we may proceed to the merits of Bridge’s claim on the basis of cause and prejudice.
Under Wainwright v. Sykes, a habeas corpus petitioner can avoid imposition of procedural bar by showing cause for the noncompliance with state procedures and actual prejudice resulting from the alleged constitutional violation. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 84-87, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 2505-06, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). Both cause and prejudice must be shown by the petitioner. 433 U.S. at 87, 97 S.Ct. at 2506. The majority have here decided that Bridge had “cause” not to raise the necessity for an instruction on mitigating circumstances because in 1980, when he was tried, the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty scheme seemed in this regard to have been settled. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976). The majority then determine that “the issue of the constitutionality of the Texas plan was revived by the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in Franklin v. Lynaugh.” — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 221, 98 L.Ed.2d 180 (1987); subsequent Supreme Court opinion found at — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2320, 101 L.Ed.2d 155 (1988). When certiorari was *165granted in Franklin, and presumably only thereafter, would the majority conclude that capital defendants have had “cause” to raise new challenges to the Texas death penalty scheme. I disagree.
Only about six months ago, our Court held in Selvage v. Lynaugh, 842 F.2d 89 (5th Cir.1988), that a capital defendant’s attempt to raise the Franklin issue of mitigating circumstances was procedurally barred, holding that “the [.Franklin ] issue is not a recently found legal theory not knowable by competent trial counsel.” Id. at 94, citing Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984). Our Circuit precedent thus contradicts the panel majority’s holding today. Moreover, I would observe that the petitioner in Franklin and in the yet-to-be decided Penry v. Lynaugh, 832 F.2d 915 (5th Cir.1987), cert. granted, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2896, 101 L.Ed.2d 930 (1988), were tried in 1982 and 1980, respectively. If the issue was known to their counsel at that time, it should also have been known to Bridge’s counsel.
As for prejudice, the majority seem to imply that because Bridge is a capital defendant, this constitutes “prejudice” under Wainwright that permits us to review his late-found claim. I agree that there is little mercy in declining to review a capital defendant’s habeas claims on the ground of procedural bar. In some instances, our court conducts review on the merits of such claims, pretermitting the issue of procedural bar so that we can demonstrate the claims are not justified on their merits. See, e.g., Williams v. Lynaugh, 837 F.2d 1294 (5th Cir.1988). Both the Supreme Court and our Court have, however, held that the death sentence alone does not constitute prejudice that permits us to overlook a procedural bar. See Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. 527, 538, 106 S.Ct. 2661, 2668, 91 L.Ed.2d 434 (1986); Evans v. McCotter, 790 F.2d 1232, 1239 n. 7 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 922, 107 S.Ct. 327, 93 L.Ed.2d 300 (1986). Prejudice consists, instead, in a demonstration that the claimed constitutional violation substantially “undermined the accuracy of the guilt or sentencing determination.” Smith v. Murray, 477 U.S. at 539, 106 S.Ct. at 2668. See also United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 169, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 1595, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982). For the reasons stated by the majority when addressing the merits of Bridge’s Franklin claim, I would find Bridge was not prejudiced according to the Supreme Court’s standard.
For these reasons, I respectfully, dissent in part from the order on Petition for Rehearing.