Court Opinion

ID: 9498547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:20:11.371557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:53.519261
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Duncan’s opinion for the court. I write separately simply to set forth more fully why I believe the district court correctly granted habeas relief here.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) authorizes a federal court to grant an application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to a claim adjudicated on the merits in state court if that adjudication “resulted in a decision that was [1] contrary to, or [2] involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the *713Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(l)(2000). The Supreme Court has explained that “[a] state-court decision will certainly be contrary to” clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court, “if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth” in Supreme Court precedent. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). “A state-court decision that correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner’s case certainly would qualify as a decision ‘involv[ing] an unreasonable application of ... clearly established Federal law.’ ” Id. at 407-408, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (alterations in original).
The Court has further explained that ‘“clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court’ ... refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta,” in Supreme Court decisions “as of the time of the relevant state-court decision.” Id. at 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Moreover, and of particular significance in this case, the Williams Court has instructed that “whatever would qualify as an old rule under [the Court’s] Teague [v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989)(plurality opinion) ] jurisprudence will constitute ‘clearly established Federal law,’ ” under § 2254(d)(1) of AEDPA as long as a Supreme Court case is the source of the rule. Id.
In the case at hand, the district court properly granted habeas relief because the state court decision denying Frazer’s claim was both “contrary to” and “involved an unreasonable application of’ Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). No one can question that Strickland qualifies as clearly established Supreme Court precedent; indeed, the Williams Court so stated. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 391, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (“It is past question that the rule set forth in Strickland qualifies as ‘clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.’”). Nor can there be any question that Strickland, which the Court issued in 1984 to establish legal principles governing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, was extant at the time of all relevant state court decisions in this case.
To demonstrate a claim of ineffective assistance under Strickland’s familiar two-part test, a petitioner must show that (1) “counsel’s performance was deficient” and (2) that this “deficient performance prejudiced the defense.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. We measure, prejudice under a reasonableness standard. Generally, a defendant must show that there is a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. However, “[a]ctual or constructive denial of the assistance of counsel altogether is legally presumed to result in prejudice.” Id. at 692, 104 S.Ct. 2052. As to counsel’s performance, the Strickland Court eschewed adopting a bright-line standard or “detailed guidelines for representation,” explaining that “[n]o particular set of detailed rules” could “satisfactorily take account of the variety of circumstances faced by defense counsel.” Id. at 688-89, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Once again reasonableness is the touchstone. Strickland directs courts to “judge the reasonableness of counsel’s challenged conduct on the facts of the particular case.” Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
In Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 120 S.Ct. 1029, 145 L.Ed.2d 985 (2000), the Supreme Court did precisely this. The case illustrates how the Strickland test applies to the “facts of [a] particular case” — one involving a claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to consult with *714his client about taking an appeal. For this reason, Flores-Ortega is obviously useful in considering Frazer’s habeas claim. That the case involves a claim of ineffective assistance arising from different facts than were at issue in Strickland does not render the claim a “new” one unresolved by clearly established Supreme Court precedent and, therefore, barred by AED-PA. Although this argument is occasionally offered, it has gained little traction in the Supreme Court. Rather, the Court has directed that “the Strickland test provides sufficient guidance for resolving virtually all ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims.”1 Williams, 529 U.S. at 391, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Thus, as the Court has explained, just because “the Strickland test of necessity requires a case-by-case examination of the evidence,” this “obviates neither the clarity of the rule nor the extent to which the rule must be seen as ‘established’ [for AEDPA purposes] by this Court.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Moreover, the fact that the Supreme Court issued Flores-Ortega after the state court denied Frazer’s ineffective assistance claim does not prevent a federal habeas court from considering Flores-Ortega in resolving Frazer’s claim under AEDPA. In Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), the Supreme Court soundly and explicitly rejected the contention that AEDPA prohibits consideration of cases postdating the state-court decision under review. In Wiggins, the Court concluded that, notwithstanding AEDPA, it could consider a case issued after the relevant state court decision because its recently decided case simply “illustrat[ed] the proper application” of Strickland. Id. at 2535-36.
Wiggins provides important guidance here. The Wiggins Court first looked to Strickland, setting forth the Strickland test and noting that although Strickland had “declined to articulate specific guidelines for appropriate attorney conduct,” it had set forth the proper standards for generally assessing the challenged judgments of counsel “in terms of the adequacy of the investigations supporting those judgments.” Id. at 2535; see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The Wiggins Court next looked to its recent decision in Williams, in which it had found a habeas claim similar to Wiggins’ ineffectiveness claim to be “meritorious.” Wiggins, 123 S.Ct. at 2535. The Wiggins Court expressly found its recent “opinion in Williams v. Taylor [to be] illustrative of the proper application of the[] [relevant Strickland ] standards” and relied on the rationale of Williams in holding that Wiggins involved a violation of clearly established Supreme Court precedent. See id.
Justice Scalia, in dissent, objected to the majority’s reliance on Williams because Williams “postdatefd] the Maryland court’s decision rejecting Wiggins’ Sixth Amendment claim.” See id. at 2546 (Sca-lia, J., dissenting). Although the Supreme *715Court had decided Williams after the state court upheld the denial of Wiggins’ claim for post-conviction relief, the majority rejected Justice Scalia’s complaint, explaining that it could look to Williams as a “proper application” of Strickland because Williams had come before the Court on “habeas review” and the Court had “made no new law in resolving Williams’ effectiveness claim.” Id. at 2535. The Wiggins majority held it could look to Williams as “illustrative of the proper application” of Strickland because Williams did not create new law, but rather was “squarely governed by [the Court’s] holding in Strickland.” Id. at 2536 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 390, 120 S.Ct. 1495). Wiggins teaches that even if a Supreme Court habeas case is issued after the relevant state court decision, it can be considered as illustrative of the proper application of Strickland — and, therefore, as indicative of clearly established Supreme Court precedent as of the time of that state court decision — if in the new decision the Court makes clear that it is simply applying well-established Supreme Court precedent.
Faithful adherence to the reasoning in Wiggins inexorably leads to the conclusion that in the case at hand the district court properly granted habeas relief. Here, as in Wiggins, although Strickland does not articulate specific guidelines for appropriate attorney conduct as to the petitioner’s claim, Strickland does set forth the proper standards for judging that conduct. The Strickland Court carefully explained that among the “basic duties” owed by counsel to his client are the duties “to consult with the defendant on important decisions and to keep the defendant informed of important developments in the course of the prosecution.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Whether to appeal, particularly in a case like this in which even the State concedes that an illegal sentence has been imposed, obviously constitutes a most “important decision” about which an attorney should “consult” with his client. Id. Strickland also establishes the proper prejudice inquiry in a situation like this in which there has been a denial of counsel “altogether” at a critical stage: that is, “prejudice is presumed.” Id. at 692, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Thus, here, as in Wiggins, the “ ‘clearly established’ precedent of Strickland ” governs. See Wiggins, 123 S.Ct. at 2536.
Moreover, again as in Wiggins, a Supreme Court habeas case (here, Flores-Ortega) issued shortly after the relevant state court decision illustrates the proper application of Strickland to the particular facts of the case. Indeed, the Supreme Court made it even clearer in Flores-Ortega than it did in Williams that it was simply applying Strickland to the facts before it. See Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. at 477, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (holding that the Strickland “test applies to claims ... that counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to file a notice of appeal”); 528 U.S. at 478, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (rejecting a per se rule adopted by some circuits “as inconsistent, with Strickland’s holding” and concluding that the court below had “failed to engage in the circumstance-specific reasonableness inquiry required by Strickland ”); 528 U.S. at 479, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (dismissing a suggested holding because it “would be inconsistent with both our decision in Strickland and common sense”); 528 U.S. at 481, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (explaining what “[t]he second part of the Strickland test requires”); 528 U.S. at 485, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (finding that in. the case before it, “[a]s with all applications of the Strickland test,” a defendant’s ability to make the “requisite showing will turn on the facts of a particular case”); 528 U.S. at 487, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (vacating because the “court below undertook neither part of the Strick*716land inquiry”).2 Accordingly, as the Wiggins Court could, consistent with AEDPA, look to Williams as illustrative of the proper application of Strickland to a particular factual scenario, we can look to Flores-Ortega as illustrative of the proper application of Strickland here.
The propriety of looking to Flores-Ortega as illustrative of “clearly established Federal law” under AEDPA should not be surprising. Rather, such use simply accords with the fact that, as Judge Duncan has explained, Supreme Court precedent establishes Flores-Ortega as an old rule under Teague, i.e., a rule dictated by precedent (Strickland) existing at the time Frazer’s conviction became final. When, as here, a Supreme Court case provides the source of an “old” Teague rule, that “old” rule, by definition, “will constitute clearly established Federal law ... under” AEDPA. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In the case at hand, the State does not even contend that Flores-Ortega announced a new rule under Teag-ue. A survey of the legal landscape as it existed when Frazer’s conviction and sentence became final conclusively demonstrates that it did not. For, as explained above, and by the Supreme Court itself in Flores-Ortega, Strickland dictated Flores-Ortega. See also Lewis v. Johnson, 359 F.3d 646, 655 (3d Cir.2004) (holding that “Flores-Ortega’s application of the Strickland standard was dictated by precedent and merely clarified the law as is applied to the particular facts of that case”); Hudson v. Hunt, 235 F.3d 892, 896 (4th Cir.2000)(recognizing that “Roe v. Flores-Ortega clarified the application of the Strickland standard to a claim that an attorney was constitutionally deficient for failing to file a notice of appeal”).
In sum, Wiggins and the case at hand demonstrate that in assessing “clearly established Federal law” under AEDPA, a court may occasionally consider a Supreme Court opinion issued after the state court’s denial of the petitioner’s post-conviction claim. Generally, of course, when a federal habeas court asks whether a state-court decision was “contrary to” or an “unreasonable application of ... clearly established Federal law,” it will consider only those Supreme Court opinions issued prior to the state court’s denial of relief. However, this case — and Wiggins — provide the exceptions that prove this rule. Where, as here and in Wiggins, a Supreme Court decision post-dating state collateral review (e.g., Williams or Flores-Ortega) simply illustrates the appropriate application of a Supreme Court precedent that pre-dates the state-court determination (e.g., Strickland ), a federal court on habeas may consider the postdated opinion.
Turning then to Flores-Ortega, there the Court explained that a counsel’s failure to consult with the defendant about an appeal constitutes deficient performance if the attorney had a duty to consult. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. at 478, 120 S.Ct. 1029. “[C]ounsel has a constitutionally imposed duty to consult with the defendant about an appeal when there is reason to think either (1) that a rational defendant would want to appeal (for example, because there are non-frivolous grounds for appeal), or (2) that this particular defendant reasonably demonstrated to counsel *717that he was interested in appealing.” Id. at 480, 120 S.Ct. 1029. Once the defendant establishes deficient performance, he is entitled to relief if he can show prejudice. Id. at 481, 120 S.Ct. 1029. “[T]o show prejudice in these circumstances, a defendant must demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s deficient failure to consult with him about an appeal, he would have timely appealed.” Id. at 484, 120 S.Ct. 1029.
When these principles are applied to the case at hand it is clear that the state court’s decision rejecting Frazer’s ineffective-assistance claim was both “contrary to” and “involved an unreasonable application of’ this clearly established law.
The state PCR court recounted that Frazer “testified that Counsel never informed him of his right to appeal and never filed an appeal on his behalf.” J.A. 209. The PCR court then expressly found that “Counsel agreed, testifying he never discussed a direct appeal with [Frazer].” Id. Nevertheless, the PCR court rejected Frazer’s ineffective assistance claim. Relying on our pre-Strickland decision, Carey v. Leverette, 605 F.2d 745 (4th Cir. 1979), the PCR court concluded that Frazer’s counsel was not deficient for failing to file an appeal because there was nothing in the record and no testimony at the hearing “to indicate that the Applicant conveyed to his trial attorney a desire to appeal until it was too late.” J.A. 209-10.
This court’s holding in Carey — that absent “extraordinary circumstances” no “constitutional requirement” mandates “that defendants must always be informed of their right to appeal following a guilty plea,” Carey, 605 F.2d at 746 — adopted the type of bright-line rule the Supreme Court expressly rejected in Strickland and its progeny. See, e.g., Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688-90, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (refusing to adopt “detailed rules” or provide “special amplification” of its two-part test); Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. at 478, 120 S.Ct. 1029 (rejecting a per se rule “as inconsistent with Strickland’s holding that ‘the performance inquiry must be whether counsel’s assistance was reasonable considering all the circumstances’ ”). Strickland and Flores-Ortega, unlike Carey, do not require the defendant to demonstrate “extraordinary circumstances” to obtain relief. While Carey holds that in most cases (i.e. “absent extraordinary circumstances”) an attorney need not inform his client about his appellate rights, Flores-Ortega clearly illustrates-that Strickland requires a contrary rule: “in the vast majority of cases, ... counsel [will] ha[ve] a duty to consult with the defendant about an appeal.” Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. at 481, 120 S.Ct. 1029. Accordingly, the PCR court’s reliance on Carey was contrary to clearly established federal law. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (“A state-court decision will certainly be contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases.”)
For similar reasons, to the extent that the PCR court applied Strickland (which it cited once) when it followed Carey, the court engaged in an unreasonable application of Strickland, a clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Id. at 407-08, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (explaining that if “[a] state-court decision ... correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner’s case,” it “certainly would qualify” as “an unreasonable application of ... clearly established Federal law”). Strickland makes clear that to be constitutionally effective, counsel must “consult with the defendant on important decisions” and “keep the defendant informed of important developments in the course of the prosecution.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. *718As explained above, Flores-Ortega illustrates the proper application of Strickland when counsel fails to consult with his client about taking an appeal when nonfrivolous grounds for appeal exist. See Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. at 480, 120 S.Ct. 1029. Frazer’s counsel utterly failed to consult with his client about an extremely important decision — whether to file an appeal in light of the unexpected and illegal sentence imposed by the trial court. Since the PCR court denied relief despite finding that counsel “never discussed a direct appeal with” Frazer, J.A. 209 (emphasis added), even though nonfrivolous grounds for appeal existed, the PCR court’s application of Strickland was unreasonable.
Because the state court’s decision in this case was both contrary to and involved an unreasonable application of clearly established law, the district court properly reviewed Frazer’s claim de novo. See Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 689-90 (4th Cir.2001). Moreover, as Judge Duncan has demonstrated, the district court properly concluded that Frazer established that his trial counsel’s conduct was objectively unreasonable and demonstrated the requisite prejudice resulting from the constitutionally deficient representation. See ante at 14-19; see also Frazer v. State of South Carolina, No. 03-CV-738 (D.S.C. Feb. 12, 2004). Accordingly, we must affirm the order of the district court granting habeas relief.

. The dissent mystifyingly claims that this sentence, which contains only six words in addition to an accurate quotation from Williams, somehow finds "no support” in Williams. Post at 723. The dissent also suggests that I have taken this passage from Williams "out of context.” Id. But, this is not so. The sentence from Williams states in its entirety: "It is true that while the Strickland test provides sufficient guidance for resolving virtually all ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, there are situations in which the overriding focus on fundamental fairness may affect the analysis.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 391, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Thus, the Williams Court specifically "directed,” as I note, that the Strickland analysis guides "virtually all ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims.” When, as here, that analysis dictates the result in a given application of Strickland, it provides "clearly established law” for AEDPA purposes.

. Moreover, Flores-Ortega contains no statement, or even suggestion, that its holding is in any way at odds with other Supreme Court precedents. Rather, at various junctures Flores-Ortega cites and relies on some of Strickland's numerous antecedents and progeny, including Rodriquez v. United States, 395 U.S. 327, 89 S.Ct. 1715, 23 L.Ed.2d 340 (1969), and Peguero v. United States, 526 U.S. 23, 119 S.Ct. 961, 143 L.Ed.2d 18 (1999) (both the majority opinion and Justice O’Con-nor’s concurrence).