Clark v. Procunier

617 F. Supp. 163, 1985 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22084
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedMarch 5, 1985
DocketCiv. A. No. H-83-6540
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 617 F. Supp. 163 (Clark v. Procunier) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clark v. Procunier, 617 F. Supp. 163, 1985 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22084 (S.D. Tex. 1985).

Opinion

ORDER

McDONALD, District Judge.

Came on to be heard the Motion to Dismiss of Respondent Raymond Procunier. Having considered the arguments of the parties and the applicable law, the Court is of the opinion that the Motion should be GRANTED.

I. Background

Petitioner Clifton Earl Clark brings the instant Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The Application challenges Clark’s March 26, 1980 conviction for aggravated robbery in the 184th District Court of Harris County, Texas in Cause No. 307,851. As a result of that conviction, enhanced by prior felony convictions, Petitioner is currently serving a life sentence in the Texas Department of Corrections (Retrieve Unit). Petitioner did not directly appeal his conviction, but his State Petitions for Writ of Habeas Corpus were denied by the Texas courts.

II. Discussion

The Application at bar raises two grounds on which habeas corpus relief can be granted. First, Petitioner alleges that the evidence in support of his conviction was insufficient as a matter of law. In addition, he claims that the jury charge in his March, 1980 trial was erroneous.

A. Insufficient evidence — Respondent claims initially that Petitioner’s failure to appeal the conviction on the grounds of insufficient evidence of aggravated robbery waived the arguments advanced in the instant Application. Respondent claims that the failure to appeal precluded the state courts from reviewing the insufficient evidence on state petition for habeas corpus, and that consequently review by way of federal habeas corpus is also barred. Respondent cites as authority for his contention O’Bryan v. Estelle, 714 F.2d 365 (5th Cir.1983) and Preston v. Maggio, 705 F.2d 113 (5th Cir.1983).

It is undisputed that failure to appeal directly a claim that the evidence in a criminal proceeding was insufficient to support a conviction waives the claim for purposes of review by habeas corpus petition in Texas. Ex parte Coleman, 599 S.W.2d 305, 306-07 (Tex.Crim.App.1979) and cases cited infra. In other words, Petitioner’s failure to present this argument to the Texas courts on appeal constitutes a procedural default on that point. Ex Parte Easter, 615 S.W.2d 719, 721 (Tex. Cr.App.1981) (en banc); Ex Parte Dunn, 571 S.W.2d 928, 929 (Tex.Cr.App.1978); Ex Parte Dantzler, 571 S.W.2d 536 (Tex.Cr. App.1978). Equally undisputed is that O’Bryan and Preston follow the rule enunciated in Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). In Sykes, the Supreme Court held that a state defendant procedurally defaults a claim by failing to comply with the state’s contemporaneous objection rule, and that this procedural default “precludes consideration of the claim in a federal habeas corpus proceeding absent a showing of cause and prejudice.” Weaver v. McKaskle, 733 F.2d 1103, 1104 (5th Cir.1984), citing Sykes, 433 U.S. at 87, 97 S.Ct. at 2506. However, in the case at bar, whether Petitioner failed to object contemporaneously is unknown. Thus, the question before the Court is whether a procedural default of failing to appeal a conviction directly also waives a ground for purposes of federal habeas review. Respondent does not brief this question. The Court has therefore undertaken the inquiry, and determined that it should be answered in the affirmative.

First, the Supreme Court recently applied the Sykes test to a claim that the district court had held was waived due to the petitioner’s failure to except to constitutionally infirm jury instructions and then appeal the claim directly. See Reed v. [165]*165Ross, — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 2906, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984) {Sykes test applied where petitioner failed to appeal on grounds that jury instruction unconstitutionally shifted burden of proof on defenses of self-defense and lack of malice). Thus Sykes need not be limited to contemporaneous objection rules. Admittedly, the Reed court did not have before it the question of the propriety of applying the Sykes test to failures to appeal as opposed to failures to object contemporaneously, which is the specific inquiry this Court must make. However, this Court has examined the record and the pertinent case law and concluded that to apply Sykes in a situation such as the one at bar is appropriate.

Sykes, as noted above, involved the contemporaneous objections. Sykes was tried for murder in a Florida court; part of the evidence leading to his conviction was a confession to which no objection was lodged at trial. Florida’s law required that defendants challenge the voluntariness of confessions at trial or waive arguments of voluntariness in state appellate and habeas corpus proceedings. Sykes subsequently complained in a federal habeas petition that he had not understood his constitutional rights before confessing. Justice Rehnquist, writing for a plurality of the Court 1, concluded that

Florida procedure did, consistently with the United States Constitution, require that respondents’ confession be challenged at trial or not at all, and thus his failure to timely object to its admission amounted to an independent and adequate state procedural ground which would have prevented direct review here. See Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 85 S.Ct. 564, 13 L.Ed.2d 408 (1965). We thus come to the crux of this case. Shall the rule of Francis v. Henderson, [425 U.S. 536, 96 S.Ct. 1708, 48 L.Ed.2d 149 (1976)], supra, barring federal habeas review absent a showing “cause” and “prejudice” attendant to a state procedural waiver, be applied to a waived objection to the admission of a confession at trial? We answer that question in the affirmative.

Id., 433 U.S. at 86-87, 97 S.Ct. at 2506 (footnote omitted). The plurality based its opinion on the “well-established principle of federalism that a state decision resting on an adequate foundation of state substantive law is immune from review in the federal courts,” id. at 81, 97 S.Ct. at 2503 (citations omitted), and extended that ground in the case before it to encompass procedural defaults. Justice Rehnquist’s opinion rejected dicta in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct.

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617 F. Supp. 163, 1985 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22084, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clark-v-procunier-txsd-1985.