Court Opinion

ID: 9489554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:18:42.961913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:35.696593
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
with whom
KANNE, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.
An experienced professor of criminal law, appointed by the district court to represent Burris on his habeas corpus petition (we can assume in great part because of his knowledge of habeas law) amended Burris’ first petition to limit it to the issues presented by the guilt phase of the criminal proceeding. He explicitly confirmed this limitation at a hearing on the petition as well. Important to *471this court’s opinion, nobody expressly questioned this approach. The state did not refer to the petition’s prematurity at the hearing, the district court “made no reference to the possible implications of proceeding” (ante at p. 470), and the state agreed that Burris’ first petition could be addressed.
The court uses this silence to shift the burden to the state to raise the affirmative defense of abuse of the writ to claims that may be raised in a subsequent writ petition. A “realistic” view of the hearing’s circumstances leads the court to criticize the failure to warn Burris of the consequences of proceeding on a “split” petition. Ante at p. 469. This silence affirmatively “misled” Burris: “silence = speech.” Burris and his learned counsel were “lulled” into believing the state would not charge abuse of the writ if he filed a second petition, so the abuse defense was waived.
I join this opinion with the understanding that the holding is confined to the very unusual circumstances of this case. The court’s opinion must not be read to require the state to raise all possible affirmative defenses to a second habeas petition in its answer to a first habeas petition, or at least to indicate that such affirmative defenses will be raised should the prisoner petition again. Otherwise, failure to do so would mean that in a subsequent petition the state had waived each affirmative defense not anticipatorily pleaded and expressly flagged for the prisoner. The state’s attorney should not be obliged to teach the petitioner in the answer of any omission and its potential consequences to a second writ petition, or else later forego an abuse of the writ defense. Pursuant to Rule 9(b) governing § 2254 cases, we routinely dismiss second petitions raising issues that should have been addressed, despite the state’s failure to warn of a potential ground for the petition. And Rule 5 governing § 2254 cases says nothing about the need for an answer to contain polite reminders to defense counsel about future abuse of the writ defenses. As the court recognizes, by definition, the pleading of any affirmative defense would be premature until a second petition is filed. Ante at p. 470.
Also this opinion does not propose that the state and the district court must warn the petitioner at a hearing on a first petition that a second habeas petition might abuse the writ. Neither the rules governing these petitions nor the caselaw contain any such mandate. Litigants are assumed to be familiar with the law before they seek relief. It is not the court’s job — much less that of opposing counsel — to anticipate traps for litigants and make them aware of potential difficulties. Cf. Lorenzen v. Employees Retirement Plan of the Sperry and Hutchinson Co., Inc., 896 F.2d 228, 237 (7th Cir.1990) (Fairchild, J., concurring) (recognizing counsel held responsible for awareness of rules). Our system presumes the competence of attorneys unless there is a strong indication otherwise. See, e.g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) (“a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance”).1
Finally, this opinion is not a serious departure from the current law on waiver. “Federal habeas corpus has its own procedural rules, but the practice in regard to waiver by the respondent (the custodian of the prisoner) is similar to that in ordinary civil cases.” Smith v. Richert, 35 F.3d 300, 305 (7th Cir.1994). Waiver is the voluntary intentional relinquishment of a known right. United States v. Ross, 77 F.3d 1525, 1541-42 (7th Cir.1996) (quoting United States v. Olano, *472507 U.S. 725, 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993)). “[W]aiver must have been made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 1140-41, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Under any other circumstance, the state’s failure to warn a litigant with this caliber of legal representation cannot constitute a “waiver” by the state under these definitions.
Given these caveats, I view the rule of •this case as confined to its precise and extraordinary circumstances. While a prisoner appealed from a new death sentence, he petitioned for habeas corpus. He thereby intentionally bifurcated his challenges. First he argued those issues potentially affecting the judgment of conviction; later he claimed he was denied effective assistance of counsel at sentencing. The first petition was considered at a hearing where ripeness was discussed at great length yet the petitioner was not told by counsel or the court of the consequences of split proceedings, and the state prodded the court to proceed. The climate of the hearing — arguably engendered by the state’s actions — -was one in which the sole issues considered were challenges to Burris’ conviction, not his sentence. Yet when he filed his habeas challenge to the death sentence, the state raised, perhaps disingenuously, the charge of abuse of the writ. With this narrow holding, I concur.
But the court’s opinion cannot be read to apply beyond these unique facts. A legal fiction such as “silence = speech” cannot prevail in most adversarial proceedings. The court must not shift the burden to the state to assert an affirmative defense to a claim not yet filed and to educate a prisoner and his counsel on the law at a hearing, notwithstanding that the prisoner deliberately “split” his habeas challenges and was represented by a criminal law professor (who, the court must presume, did not know the law and did not inform his client about the consequences). I view this case not as a new rule of law but as a prudential decision not to invoke abuse of the writ given these unique circumstances. See Advisory Committee Note to Rule 9(b) Governing § 2254 Cases (“The bar set up by subdivision (b) is not one of rigid application, but rather is within the discretion of the courts on a case-by-case basis.”); Gunn v. Newsome, 881 F.2d 949, 957 (11th Cir.) (whether second or subsequent habeas petition constitutes abuse of the writ is left to sound discretion of district court), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 993, 110 S.Ct. 542, 107 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989).

. Some observers might applaud rather than criticize Burris’ first counsel, the criminal law professor who bifurcated the writ. Burris received a full review of his challenge to the conviction. He received a stay of execution pending an en banc hearing on whether his petition challenging the death sentence was an abuse of the writ. While that decision was pending he received an en banc determination of whether the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 applied to his second petition. With today’s decision, he returns to district court for a determination on the merits of his second petition. Depending on the outcome, he has the opportunity to appeal again. Delay is the name of the game in death penalty cases. Had the professor done it right the first time, this process would have been over months ago. Perhaps the professor was more astute than the court gives him credit for.