Hoffman v. Arave

973 F. Supp. 1152, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18183, 1997 WL 535188
CourtDistrict Court, D. Idaho
DecidedJune 13, 1997
DocketCivil 94-0200-S-BLW
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 973 F. Supp. 1152 (Hoffman v. Arave) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Idaho primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hoffman v. Arave, 973 F. Supp. 1152, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18183, 1997 WL 535188 (D. Idaho 1997).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER REGARDING PROCEDURAL DEFAULT AND MOTION FOR EVI-DENTIARY HEARING

WINMILL, District Judge.

Pursuant to the court’s scheduling order, the parties to this habeas action have submitted briefs addressing the application of the procedural default bar to the grounds for relief set forth in the final petition for writ of habeas corpus. The parties also have filed briefs addressing the petitioner’s motion for a federal evidentiary hearing. Having examined the available law, the record and the materials submitted by the parties, the court now rules as follows.

DISCUSSION

A. Legal Framework: Exhaustion and Procedural Default

Ordinarily, before a habeas court can consider the merits of a state prisoner’s petition for writ of habeas corpus, the court must be satisfied that each claim set forth in the petition is exhausted. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) (application for a writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted unless the claims asserted have been exhausted in state court); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982) (same). “The exhaustion requirement may be satisfied in two *1158 ways: by showing either that no state remedies are available or that the state supreme court has been presented with a fair opportunity to rule on the merits of the claim.” Harmon v. Ryan, 959 F.2d 1457, 1460 (9th Cir.1992). Where no state remedies remain available, although the claim is deemed exhausted, the petitioner’s failure to timely seek state court review will often constitute a default under the state’s procedural rules. Id. at 1461. If a default rests on a state procedural rule that “provides an independent and adequate state-law ground for the conviction and sentence,” the habeas court must refrain from reviewing the claim unless the petitioner can demonstrate “cause and prejudice” or that a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from a failure to entertain the claim. Gray v. Netherland, — U.S. -, ---, 116 S.Ct. 2074, 2080-81, 135 L.Ed.2d 457 (1996); Wells v. Maass, 28 F.3d 1005, 1008 (9th Cir.1994).

To obtain habeas review, then, the petitioner must satisfy the exhaustion requirement while, at the same time, avoiding procedural default by showing that he has complied with the state’s procedural default rules and presented the state court with a fair opportunity to rule on the merits of his federal claims. See Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365, 115 S.Ct. 887, 888, 130 L.Ed.2d 865 (1995) (claims may be reviewed by the habeas court if the petitioner has “fairly presented” the federal claims to the state courts so as to give the state the “ ‘opportunity to pass upon and correct’ alleged violations of its prisoners’ federal rights”). In this respect, the petitioner must have “fairly presented” the “state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts.” Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 276, 92 S.Ct. 509, 512, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971). Specifically, the petitioner’s federal claim has been “fairly presented” if in state court the petitioner made an express “reference to a specific federal constitutional guarantee, as well as a statement of the facts which entitle the petitioner to relief.” Gray, — U.S. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2081; see also Duncan, 513 U.S. at 365, 115 S.Ct. at 888 (“If a habeas petitioner wishes to claim that an evidentiary ruling at a state court trial denied him due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, he must say so, not only in federal court, but in state court.”).

Enumeration of the claim’s operative facts, without more, is not adequate to alert the state court to the federal nature of the claim. Johnson v. Zenon, 88 F.3d 828, 829-31 (9th Cir.1996). Similarly, the reliance in state court on a state law ground, or on a different theory of federal law than relied upon in the habeas court, does not constitute a fair presentation of the petitioner’s federal claim. Id. In general, then, a claim will be adjudicated in the habeas proceeding only if the same claim has first been expressly presented to the state court.

However, in a situation unique to Idaho, under certain circumstances the federal court is free to address a claim in habeas even though the petitioner did not specifically present the claim to the Idaho Supreme Court. In Beam v. Paskett, 3 F.3d 1301 (9th Cir.1993), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1060, 114 S.Ct. 1631, 128 L.Ed.2d 354 (1994), the Ninth Circuit determined that federal claims alleging a constitutional violation at sentencing have been “implicitly” considered by the Idaho Supreme Court as part of that court’s mandatory review under Idaho Code § 19-2827. 3 F.3d at 1306-02. Because § 19-2827 requires the state supreme court to determine whether a sentence of death was imposed under the influence of “any arbitrary factor,” the Ninth Circuit panel concluded that the. Idaho Supreme Court necessarily considers “claims of error that fall within its obligatory review even if the defendant has not raised those claims with specificity.” Id. Thus, after Beam, a petitioner who alleges a sentencing error in the federal court may obtain habeas review even though the claim has not been fairly presented to the Idaho Supreme Court. 1 See id.

*1159 The scope of Beam, however, is limited to constitutional errors that are alleged to have occurred during the imposition of the death sentence in a particular ease. Id. at 1306 (“Idaho law establishes a mandatory review system in which the state supreme court is required to examine the record on its own initiative in order to determine- whether certain specified types of errors occurred during sentencing.”); Paradis v. Arave, 667 F.Supp. 1361, 1366 (D.Idaho 1987) (explaining that review pursuant to § 19-2827 “does not extend to every issue which may or may not arise as to pretrial and trial proceedings, but only applies to the sentencing procedure and death sentence”). In particular, constitutional challenges to the choice of legal standards, the determination of fact and the application of law to fact during the sentencing proceeding all fit within the Beam rationale. See Beam, 3 F.3d at 1306-07. Claims that make a broad-based constitutional challenge to Idaho’s death penalty process or allege constitutional error unrelated to the sentencing, are not encompassed by § 19-2827 or Beam. See id.

B. Fairly Presented and/or Beam Claims

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Hoffman v. Arave
Ninth Circuit, 2006
Hoffman v. State
121 P.3d 958 (Idaho Supreme Court, 2005)
Maxwell Hoffman v. A.J. Arave, Warden
236 F.3d 523 (Ninth Circuit, 2001)
Hoffman v. Arave
73 F. Supp. 2d 1192 (D. Idaho, 1998)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
973 F. Supp. 1152, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18183, 1997 WL 535188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hoffman-v-arave-idd-1997.