Chambers v. Million

16 F. App'x 370
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 24, 2001
DocketNo. 99-6363
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 16 F. App'x 370 (Chambers v. Million) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chambers v. Million, 16 F. App'x 370 (6th Cir. 2001).

Opinion

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Danny Chambers appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We granted a certificate of appealability on three issues relevant to Chambers’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims: first, whether these claims were held procedurally defaulted by the Kentucky Supreme Court, a construction adopted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky Attorney General, the magistrate judge and the district court; second, whether petitioner’s failure to make specific objections to the report and recommendations waived any error of the magistrate judge with respect to the magistrate judge’s holding that petitioner’s incompetence of counsel claims were procedurally barred; third, if this court concludes that the claims are not procedurally barred can we address the merits or is remand required where all of the state trial transcript was not available to the district court.

I.

A Kentucky jury convicted Chambers of murder and the trial judge, after the jury deadlocked on whether Chambers should be sentenced to death, sentenced him to life imprisonment on July 8, 1994. Chambers appealed his conviction and on November 22, 1995, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed. Two months later, on January 23, 1996, Chambers moved the trial court pursuant to Rule 11.42 of the Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. (J.A. at 241) Chambers’s motion included four claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel relating to trial strategy and preparation and one “host of errors” claim, referring to the cumulative effect of counsel’s trial errors. The trial court denied the request and the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed. Chambers then appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed. In affirming, the court rejected in one paragraph Chambers’s first four ineffective assistance claims.1 It ruled:

[372]*372Chambers has failed to meet the criteria required to establish ineffective assistance of counsel. Bare allegations alone will not suffice. After our examination of the record, we cannot say that Chambers’s counsel’s performance fell outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance or that there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different but for counsel’s alleged unprofessional errors.

J.A. at 370. It then moved to the “host of errors” claim.

With regard to the “host of errors” that Chambers’s [sic] contends occurred during his trial, we hold that a RCr. 11.42 proceeding is not the appropriate vehicle to address these alleged errors. A motion pursuant to RCr. 11.42 provides the movant with the opportunity to attack an erroneous judgment on grounds not available by direct appeal. A motion pursuant to RCr. 11.42 is not intended to give the defendant a vehicle for pursuing what amounts to an alternate appeal or for indirectly seeking review of trial errors that should have been raised upon direct appeal. After reviewing the “host of errors” raised by Chambers, we find that they consisted of issues which should have been properly raised on direct appeal.

J.A. at 371.

Chambers, proceeding pro se, then filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on November 25, 1998. The district court referred the matter to a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge filed a report and recommendation in which he held that several claims raised in the original appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court were not contrary to or an unreasonable application of established federal law. These claims are not at issue here. The magistrate judge then found that the Kentucky Supreme Court had ruled that Chambers procedurally defaulted his ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims. Accordingly, the magistrate judge found he was procedurally barred from hearing the merits of those claims. The magistrate judge then concluded that petitioner had failed to establish cause as to why he failed to raise his ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Chambers, still proceeding pro se, filed objections to the report but did not object specifically to the finding that he had procedurally defaulted ineffectiveness of counsel claims or point out that the Kentucky Supreme Court had passed on the merits of the four claims relating to lack of preparation and strategy2 in its decision on his post-conviction proceeding. The district court accepted the magistrate judge’s recommendation and denied the writ.

Chambers now appeals the certified issues.

II.

A.

The magistrate judge appears to have misread the Kentucky Supreme Court’s opinion. The Kentucky Court of Appeals opinion does not state that Chambers waived the four specific ineffective assistance of counsel claims; rather, it rules on the merits of those claims when it states: “After our examination of the record, we cannot say that Chambers’s counsel’s performance fell outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance .... ” J.A. at 370. Thus Chambers presented to the state court his ineffective [373]*373assistance of counsel claims and that court ruled on the merits of all but the “host of errors” claim when it held that trial counsel’s performance did not “fall outside the wide range of competence.” Petitioner is, therefore, entitled to have those issues raised in those four claims reviewed on federal habeas.

Ordinarily a habeas petitioner seeks to excuse the failure to raise incompetence of trial counsel on the incompetence of appellate counsel and to use that incompetence as cause for the failure to raise the deficiencies of trial counsel on direct appeal. However, petitioner did not raise any claim of incompetence of appellate counsel before the Kentucky courts. His first reference to incompetence of appellate counsel came in his objections to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. J.A. 928. The Supreme Court has required that where “cause” is reliance on the incompetence of appellate counsel, it must be raised in a separate proceeding before the state court. Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 456, 120 S.Ct. 1587, 146 L.Ed.2d 518 (2000).

With respect to the “host of errors” claim, we agree with the district court they were procedurally barred unless petitioner established cause and prejudice.

B.

Chambers failed to object specifically to the portion of the recommendation he now challenges. This Circuit has ruled that a party waives its right to appeal an issue to the court of appeals if it fails to object to the magistrate judge’s recommendation and report within ten days of the filing of the report so long as the report informed the party of the effect of such failure. See United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947, 949-50 (6th Cir.1981). This court has extended this rule to generalized objections. See Howard v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 932 F.2d 505, 509 (6th Cir.1991).

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Bluebook (online)
16 F. App'x 370, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chambers-v-million-ca6-2001.