Court Opinion

ID: 9479011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:05:58.437375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:46.569730
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the decision of the Court in this case and in all of the opinion of the Court except for Part III.
Harris v. Reed, decided just this year by the United States Supreme Court, establishes clearly that a procedural bar cannot apply unless the last state court to consider the issue (in this case the state habeas court) clearly and expressly states that its decision rests on the procedural bar. We have no such statement here. Thus, I would decide the issue considered in Part III of the opinion on the merits and not alternatively under the procedural bar.
But more important to me, I stress that I do not view with alarm as does the majority opinion that the loss of a procedural bar by the state poses serious consequences. This is a capital case. In such a case the procedural bar rule properly should be applied only with the utmost strictness be*968cause a life otherwise can depend upon a momentary lapse by a defense counsel in failing to say “I object.”
No matter how many claims of constitutional error are made in a habeas capital case, the courts can readily consider the existence of a procedural bar on each one. They have to consider each on the merits anyhow if there is no procedural bar. When a life is at stake, the fact that one or a few claims may “fall through the cracks” and reach the merits is a small price to pay for utter and scrupulous fairness to an accused under sentence of death.
I repeat, I concur fully in the result and in the major aspects of the thorough majority opinion. Petitioner has been found guilty in a fair trial of the horrible heinous murder of a young innocent victim. The law authorizes procedural bars to habeas claims. But we must be sure the bar exists. In my view the issue of the disqualifications of the three jurors is an issue that we reach on the merits in evaluating the adequacy of representation by counsel. On the merits, there is no substantial issue and the disqualifications were in accordance with law. Our decision to deny a certificate of probable cause should rest upon that conclusion.