Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 2, 2024 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v. No. 23-4092 (D.C. No. 4:18-CV-00093-DN) STATE OF UTAH, (D. Utah)
Respondent - Appellee. _________________________________
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY* _________________________________
Before TYMKOVICH, BACHARACH, and CARSON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________
Christopher Williams, a Utah state prisoner appearing pro se, seeks a certificate of
appealability (“COA”) to challenge the district court’s denial of his petition under
28 U.S.C. § 2254 for a writ of habeas corpus. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A) (requiring a
COA to appeal “the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention
complained of arises out of process issued by a State court”). We deny Williams’s
request for a COA and dismiss this matter.
* This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 2
I. BACKGROUND
A jury convicted Williams of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault
stemming from his involvement in an attempt to collect on a drug debt in January 2011.
Williams met the victim and drove him to the home of co-defendant David Nichols.
Nichols beat the victim with a walking stick, rendering him unconscious. Nichols and
Williams tied the victim to a chair and threatened to kill him. They took the victim’s
wallet, cell phone, coat, shoes, and a food stamp card worth several hundred dollars.
Williams then retrieved the victim’s car and the title to it, and Nichols forced the victim
to sign a bill of sale transferring title to Williams. Williams and another co-defendant,
Max Dozah, then drove the victim up a canyon, threatening him during the drive. Dozah
threatened to break the victim’s legs or kill him with a metal pipe that was in the car.
Eventually they stopped at a snow closure gate in the canyon and made the coatless
victim get out. Dozah asked Williams to get the pipe from the car. Williams held the
pipe out the window for Dozah, but Dozah never took it. After Dozah shouted threats at
the victim, Dozah and Williams drove off, leaving the victim behind in the freezing
canyon. The victim flagged down someone, who called for help. The police responded,
and the victim was transported by ambulance to a hospital with rope burns on his arms
and multiple bruises and contusions on his face and arms.
The jury convicted Williams of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery but
acquitted him of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to consecutive sentences of
fifteen years to life for the aggravated kidnapping conviction and five years to life for the
aggravated robbery conviction. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed. See State v.
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Williams, 333 P.3d 1287, 1289 (Utah Ct. App. 2014), cert. denied, 343 P.3d 708 (Utah
2015). Williams filed a petition for post-conviction relief (“PCP”). The state district
court (“PCP court”) denied relief. See R., Vol. 1 at 545–64. The Utah Court of Appeals
affirmed in a summary disposition. See id. at 565–69. The Utah Supreme Court denied
review. Williams v. State, 429 P.3d 465 (Utah 2018).
Williams next filed a petition under § 2254 for a writ of habeas corpus. He
advanced eight grounds for relief. The district court denied relief on all grounds and
denied a COA. Before us, Williams seeks a COA on grounds 5 (failure to provide jury
instructions on lesser included offenses), 6 (flawed aggravated kidnapping instruction),
7 (sentencing error), and 8 (ineffective assistance of counsel).
II. COA AND AEDPA REQUIREMENTS
We will issue a COA “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). This standard requires the
applicant to demonstrate that “reasonable jurists would find the district court’s
assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel,
529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). For claims the district court denied on a procedural ground
without reaching the merits, the applicant must also show that the district court’s
procedural ruling is debatable. Id.
Our consideration of Williams’s request for a COA must account for the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which requires
“deferential treatment of state court decisions.” Dockins v. Hines, 374 F.3d 935, 938
(10th Cir. 2004). We therefore “look to the District Court’s application of AEDPA to
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[Williams’s] constitutional claims and ask whether that resolution was debatable amongst
jurists of reason.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). Under AEDPA,
when a state court has adjudicated the merits of a claim, a federal court may grant habeas
relief only if that state court decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of
the United States,” § 2254(d)(1), or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the
facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” § 2254(d)(2).
III. DISCUSSION1
A. Grounds 5 and 6
1. Procedural Default
In his PCP, Williams argued that the trial court, the prosecution, and defense
counsel erred by failing to provide or request jury instructions on lesser included offenses
of aggravated kidnapping (namely, unlawful detention and kidnapping) and aggravated
robbery (namely, theft), depriving him of a due process right to present a complete
defense. He also argued that a jury instruction on aggravated kidnapping omitted
elements of the primary offense of kidnapping.
The PCP court ruled that Williams’s failure to raise the claims on direct appeal
barred post-conviction review under Utah Code Ann. § 78B-9-106(1)(c), which provides:
“A petitioner is not eligible for relief under [the Utah Postconviction Remedies Act] upon
1 Because Williams represents himself, we construe his filings liberally, but we may not act as his advocate. See Yang v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008). 4 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 5
any ground that . . . could have been but was not raised in the trial court, at trial, or on
appeal.” The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling.
Williams raised these claims in Grounds 5 (lesser included offense instructions)
and 6 (aggravated kidnapping instruction) of his § 2254 petition. The district court
concluded those grounds were procedurally defaulted on an independent and adequate
state law ground. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729–30 (1991) (explaining
that “the independent and adequate state ground doctrine . . . applies to bar federal habeas
when a state court declined to address a prisoner’s federal claims because the prisoner
had failed to meet a state procedural requirement”).
In his COA application, Williams advances no argument that § 78B-9-106(1)(c) is
not independent or adequate.2 The only contention he makes that touches on the district
court’s invocation of procedural default is that the state courts “[a]buse[d]” the
procedural bar, which he claims is too “narrow in scope with no circumventions or
statutory protections against blanket bar application” and creates an “impossible
burden[].” COA Appl. at 2. But § 78B-9-106(3)(a) and (b) provide exceptions to the bar
when the failure to raise an issue in the trial court, at trial, or on appeal “was due to
ineffective assistance of counsel” or “to force, fraud, or coercion.” Thus, to the extent
Williams meant his argument to question the independence or adequacy of
§ 78B-9-106(1)(c), it fails to show that reasonable jurists would debate the district court’s
2 “A state procedural default is independent if it relies on state law, rather than federal law.” Black v. Workman, 682 F.3d 880, 918 (10th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[T]o qualify as an adequate procedural ground, a state rule must be firmly established and regularly followed.” Id. at 916 (internal quotation marks omitted). 5 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 6
conclusion that Grounds 5 and 6 were procedurally defaulted on an independent and
adequate state law ground.
2. Failure to Overcome Procedural Default
A federal habeas petitioner can overcome procedural default by demonstrating
“cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal
law” or “that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of
justice.” Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750. We address these exceptions in order.
a. Cause and Prejudice Exception
In his PCP and again in his § 2254 petition, Williams argued that his trial and
appellate counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance with respect to both
grounds. Ineffective assistance of counsel can serve as cause to excuse a procedural
default. See Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 450–51 (2000). To establish
ineffective assistance of counsel, an applicant must show (1) constitutionally deficient
performance that (2) resulted in prejudice by demonstrating “a reasonable probability
that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 694 (1984).
The PCP court held that Williams failed to establish either prong of the Strickland
test as to both procedurally defaulted claims and therefore could not overcome the
procedural bar. The Utah Court of Appeals agreed. Because the state court addressed the
ineffectiveness claims on the merits, AEDPA “confines our review to the question of
whether the [state court’s] decision was contrary to or involved an unreasonable
application of Strickland.” Turrentine v. Mullin, 390 F.3d 1181, 1202 (10th Cir. 2004).
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Thus, in the COA inquiry, we ask whether reasonable jurists could debate the district
court’s conclusion regarding the state court’s Strickland analysis.3
1) Ground 5—lesser included offense instructions
The district court concluded that Williams failed to show his counsel was
ineffective by failing to request lesser included offense instructions. The court observed
that Utah courts apply a two-stage test to determine whether a lesser included offense
instruction is required: (1) there must be “some overlap in the statutory elements of
allegedly included offenses,” State v. Baker, 671 P.2d 152, 159 (Utah 1983) (citing Utah
Code Ann. § 76-1-402(3)(a)); and (2) the evidence must “provide[] a ‘rational basis for a
verdict acquitting the defendant of the offense charged and convicting him of the
included offense,’” id. (quoting § 76-1-402(4)).4
Noting that Williams had analyzed only the first of the two stages, the district
court recounted that two versions of events were presented at trial. In one version, the
3 As we proceed to discuss, the district court determined that Williams had not shown ineffective assistance that would allow him to overcome the procedural default. But the court did not expressly focus its cause-and-prejudice analysis through this AEDPA lens. However, in its later consideration of Williams’s other claims of ineffective assistance, the district court applied AEDPA and concluded that he “failed to show that the state courts unreasonably applied Strickland in rejecting any of his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.” R., Vol. 2 at 712 (emphasis added). We therefore treat the district court’s determination that Williams failed to establish cause and prejudice through ineffective assistance of counsel as equivalent to a determination that the state court rulings were not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland. 4 This test applies to a defendant’s request for the instruction. See State v. Norton, 481 P.3d 445, 455 (Utah 2021). A different standard (the “necessarily included offense” standard) applies when the prosecution requests a lesser included offense instruction. See Baker, 671 P.2d at 156. 7 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 8
victim testified that Williams was present for, but did not participate in, the assault with
the walking stick, but he actively participated in the robbery and the kidnapping. In the
other version, Williams and Nichols both testified that Williams did not participate in any
of the charged offenses. Thus, the district court concluded that counsel’s “decision not to
request lesser included instructions was within the wide range of professionally
reasonable assistance” because requesting them “would have undermined [Williams’s]
total innocence defense.” R., Vol. 2 at 693. The court further concluded that Williams
could not demonstrate Strickland prejudice “because there was no rational basis for a
conviction on lesser included charges even if they had been requested.” Id.
In his COA application, Williams does not engage with the district court’s
reasoning regarding the evidence or its application of Strickland. He instead points out
that a lesser included offense includes one “specifically designated by a statute as a lesser
included offense,” § 76-1-402(3)(c), and at the time of the crimes, kidnapping and
unlawful detention were defined by statute as lesser included offenses of aggravated
kidnapping, see Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-306 (repealed 2022).
This argument overlooks that even when a statute specifically designates an
offense as a lesser included offense (as § 76-5-306 did), the second stage of Utah’s test
still must be satisfied. For example, in State v. Norton, 481 P.3d 445 (Utah 2021), the
Utah Supreme Court observed that “[u]nlawful detention is statutorily defined as a lesser
included offense of aggravated kidnapping.” Id. at 456. But it then went on to analyze
the evidence and concluded the trial court was not obligated to instruct the jury on
unlawful detention because “the evidence before the jury provided no rational basis for a
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verdict acquitting Norton of aggravated kidnapping and instead convicting him of
unlawful detention.” Id. at 457. Thus, Williams’s argument fails to show that reasonable
jurists would debate the district court’s conclusion that his counsel’s failure to request
lesser included offense instructions did not amount to ineffective assistance of counsel or
that the Utah Court of Appeals’ ruling on this issue was contrary to or an unreasonable
application of Strickland. See United States v. Babcock, 40 F.4th 1172, 1177 (10th Cir.
2022) (explaining that “if an argument is meritless, it is likely that the failure to raise it
was not deficient performance,” but “the lack of merit establishes that the defendant was
not prejudiced by the failure to argue the point, thereby defeating [an]
ineffective-assistance claim”).
2) Ground 6—aggravated kidnapping instruction
Under Utah law, two of the five ways kidnapping can occur is if a defendant
“detains or restrains the victim for any substantial period of time” or “detains or restrains
the victim in circumstances exposing the victim to risk of bodily injury.” Utah Code Ann.
§ 76-5-301(1)(a)–(b) (effective to May 3, 2022) (emphasis added).5 In both his PCP and
in Ground 6, Williams argued that a jury instruction on aggravated kidnapping omitted
the italicized phrases in the foregoing quotations and that counsel’s failure to object at
trial or raise the omission on direct appeal amounted to ineffective assistance. His theory
was that because aggravated kidnapping requires the commission of a kidnapping (plus
5 We cite to the version of the Utah statutes in effect at the time of Williams’s offenses. However, as relevant to this case, the only difference between those versions and the current version is that subsections have been renumbered. 9 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 10
any one of a number of other actions), see Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-302(1) (effective to
May 13, 2019), the omission of the subject phrases lessened the State’s burden of proof
in violation of his due process rights.
Applying Strickland, the PCP court reasoned that because kidnapping “does not
require the victim to be detained for any minimum period of time,” the jury instruction
had correctly stated the law, and counsel’s failure to object to a correct instruction was
“not deficient performance.” R., Vol. 1 at 558–59 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The court also determined Williams could not show Strickland prejudice because the
evidence showed the victim had been detained for twelve hours. Employing the same
reasoning, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed.
The district court resolved this issue on Strickland’s prejudice prong, concluding
that Williams could not show prejudice because he could not “support the proposition
that the twelve-hour captivity would fall below the threshold for ‘a substantial period of
time.’” R., Vol. 2 at 695 (quoting § 76-5-301(1)(a)).
In his COA application, Williams argues that it “is a legal impossibility” that he
could be found guilty of aggravated kidnapping because the jury acquitted him of
aggravated assault and he was not charged with constructive possession of a dangerous
weapon by a restricted person. COA Appl. at 8. We fail to see how this shows the Utah
Court of Appeals’ ruling was contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland
with respect to the omitted phrase “any substantial period of time.” It does, however,
bear on the other omitted phrase—“in circumstances exposing the victim to risk of bodily
injury,” § 76-5-301(1)(b). Neither of the state courts addressed the omission of this
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phrase.6 But the reason is obvious. The evidence showed Williams was involved in
detaining the victim for twelve hours, a duration he has not shown to be insubstantial for
purposes of finding the victim was kidnapped within the meaning of § 76-5-301(1)(a).
Thus, the failure to instruct the jury that it could also find Williams committed
kidnapping if it found he detained the victim “in circumstances exposing the victim to
risk of bodily injury” would not have prejudiced Williams because he participated in a
detention that lasted for a substantial period of time. Hence, counsel’s failure to object to
the omission of the “risk of bodily injury” phrase from the jury instructions does not
constitute ineffective assistance under Strickland.7
6 The district court determined it could not review the state court’s ruling that aggravated kidnapping does not require any minimum duration of detention because that ruling involved a matter of state law. See R., Vol. 2 at 694; see also Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67–68 (1991) (“[I]t is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions.”). For the same reason, the district court declined to consider whether, in the absence of the phrase “a substantial period of time,” the instructions should have required proof of “circumstances exposing the victim to risk of bodily injury” or of any of the other alternative ways by which kidnapping could occur under § 76-5-301(1). See R., Vol. 2 at 694. 7 In his COA application, Williams makes a number of other assertions regarding the “risk of bodily injury” phrase, including that he did not know a beating was going to occur; Nichols beat the victim when Williams was not present; Williams feared Dozah and was merely following his order to retrieve the pipe from the car, but Dozah never took the pipe; and “[t]here was only scant circumstantial evidence (at best) showing [Williams] had the requisite mental state to commit any crime,” COA Appl. at 10. None of these assertions alters our conclusion about omission of the “risk of bodily injury” phrase from the jury instructions.
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b. Miscarriage of Justice Exception
The fundamental miscarriage of justice exception to the procedural default rule “is
a markedly narrow one, implicated only in extraordinary cases where a constitutional
violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent.”
Magar v. Parker, 490 F.3d 816, 820 (10th Cir. 2007) (brackets and internal quotation
marks omitted). In this context, an actual innocence “claim must be credible and requires
new reliable evidence . . . that was not presented at trial.” Taylor v. Powell, 7 F.4th 920,
927 (10th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The district court concluded that most of the evidence Williams relied on had
already been presented to the jury. But the court considered Williams’s claim that his
counsel should have more aggressively cross-examined the victim through reference to
the victim’s initial vague, contradictory, and unsworn statements to police. In these
statements, the victim initially told police that he had gone to a house (apparently
Nichols’s house) to confront drug dealers about the way they were treating his
step-daughter and was then beaten, tied to a chair, and forced to sign over title to his car.
See R., Vol. 1 at 152. The victim also stated he was afraid of those who had beaten him
and tied him up. See id. at 153. The victim then changed his story, claiming he was
lured to the house to settle a drug debt and beaten because of that debt. See id. at 153-54.
The court analyzed the victim’s initial statements to police in terms of ineffective
assistance of counsel:
A reasonable juror might reasonably have believed that the victim told the truth at trial even though at th[e] time he was rescued by police, suffering from the immediate trauma of twelve hours of captivity and abuse, the
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victim initially lied to the police to avoid confessing his own liability in criminal activity, or to avoid retribution by [Williams] and the other captors whose whereabouts were at that time unknown. R., Vol. 2 at 696. Thus, the court concluded, Williams’s “counsel might reasonably have
believed that the risks of challenging the victim’s testimony based on the unsworn
statements made in those circumstances outweighed the potential benefits to [Williams’s]
defense.” Id.
Williams has not shown that reasonable jurists would debate the district court’s
conclusion regarding ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to the victim’s initial
statements to police. And, for the same reasons the district court gave regarding
ineffective assistance, we conclude that reasonable jurists would not debate whether the
failure to cross-examine the victim about his initial statements to police probably resulted
in the conviction of one who is actually innocent.
*****
In sum, Williams has not shown reasonable jurists would debate the district
court’s determination that Grounds 5 and 6 are procedurally defaulted and that he failed
to demonstrate that the default should be excused. Accordingly, we deny a COA on
Grounds 5 and 6.
B. Ground 7
In his PCP, Williams argued that the trial court denied him due process by failing
to conduct the interests-of-justice analysis set out in the aggravated-kidnapping statute,
Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-302(4) (effective to May 13, 2019), which permits a lesser
sentence than the statutory sentencing ranges set out in § 76-5-302(3)(a)–(b). Williams
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also argued that the trial court failed to follow Utah Code Ann. § 76-3-401(2) and (3),
which lists factors the sentencing court is to consider when determining whether to run
sentences concurrently or consecutively. He further claimed trial and appellate counsel
were ineffective with respect to these issues.
The PCP court observed that at the time of Williams’s trial, Utah courts
considered the interests-of-justice analysis to be a discretionary aspect of sentencing for
aggravated kidnapping. But the PCP court acknowledged that two years after Williams
was sentenced, the Utah Supreme Court decided that the interests-of-justice analysis was
mandatory. Thus, the PCP court decided that any failure by counsel with respect to such
an analysis was not deficient performance under Strickland because counsel could not
have anticipated the later development in the law. The PCP court also concluded that
Williams could not show Strickland prejudice because he was actively involved in the
kidnapping, Nichols had rendered the victim unconscious, dangerous weapons were
present, and Williams was on parole at the time and had violated parole several times.
As to the consecutive sentences, the PCP court determined it was reasonable to
assume the trial court had considered the statutory factors, and Williams had not shown
counsel’s failure to object to the sentence amounted to deficient performance under
Strickland. The PCP court further concluded that Williams had not shown a reasonable
probability that an objection would have led to a different sentencing outcome.
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Applying the same analysis, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed.8
Williams raised the same arguments in Ground 7 of his § 2254 petition. The
district court concluded that he failed to raise an issue of clearly settled federal law. The
court explained that “there is no federal right to an interests of justice analysis at
sentencing,” and that Williams had offered no “authority for the proposition that his
consecutive sentencing as a parolee offends federal due process rights.”9 R., Vol. 2
at 709.
In his COA application, Williams does not address the basis of the district court’s
ruling. He instead merely repeats his assertions of trial court error. He therefore has not
met his burden to show reasonable jurists would debate the district court’s ruling on the
merits of Ground 7. Nor do we see any reason they would. See United States v. Horn,
946 F.2d 738, 746 (10th Cir. 1991) (“We have rejected the notion that a defendant has a
due process right to a discretionary, individualized sentence in a noncapital case . . . .”);
Dennis v. Poppel, 222 F.3d 1245, 1258 (10th Cir. 2000) (“We afford wide discretion to
the state trial court’s sentencing decision, and challenges to that decision are not
generally constitutionally cognizable, unless it is shown the sentence imposed is outside
the statutory limits or unauthorized by law.”). We therefore deny a COA on Ground 7.
8 Although the state courts analyzed Williams’s arguments in terms of ineffective assistance, their analysis makes plain that they also concluded the underlying claims of failure to follow § 76-5-302(4) and § 76-3-401(2) and (3) were meritless. 9 The Utah statute requires sentences to be consecutive “if the later offense is committed while the defendant is imprisoned or on parole, unless the court finds . . . that consecutive sentencing would be inappropriate.” § 76-3-401(3). 15 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 16
C. Ground 8
In addition to the ineffectiveness claims we have already discussed, Williams
asserted in his PCP many other claims of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate
counsel. The PCP court observed that many of those claims (including failure to prepare
and investigate the case or the relevant law, and failure to properly use available defense
evidence) were no more than “bare allegations and conclusory claims” and, as such,
insufficient to establish either prong of the Strickland test. R., Vol. 1 at 562. As to
Williams’s claim of prosecutorial misconduct on cross-examination, the PCP court
determined that he had identified no genuine or specific instances of misconduct that
could have been raised on direct appeal or any prejudice from the failure to do so.
Regarding his claim that counsel should have tested the rope for DNA, the PCP court
pointed out that trial counsel addressed the lack of DNA testing during cross-examination
and that the State’s evidence showed Williams had participated “in tying the victim to the
chair with the rope.” Id. at 563. As for Williams’s claim that his appellate counsel
should have requested remand under Utah R. App. P. 23B to develop claims of
ineffective assistance of trial counsel, the PCP court determined that Williams had not
shown “appellate counsel could have properly made a 23B request,” id., which “allows
supplementation of the record, in limited circumstances, with nonspeculative facts not
fully appearing in the record that would support the claimed deficient performance,” id.
(internal quotation marks omitted). The court further determined that Williams failed to
show that even if appellate counsel had made a Rule 23B request, the outcome would
have been different.
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For the same reasons, the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of relief on
all these claims.
The district court concluded that the state courts had reasonably applied
Strickland’s ineffective-assistance standard and that Williams had not even addressed that
standard or provided “any analysis showing that his counsel failed to meet that standard,
nor any analysis showing that the state courts unreasonably applied [it].” R., Vol. 2
at 711.
In his COA application, Williams merely advances the identical lengthy list of
conclusory allegations of ineffective assistance set out in his PCP and § 2254 petition.
He does not explain how counsel failed to meet the Strickland standard or why
reasonable jurists would debate the district court’s conclusion that the state courts had not
unreasonably applied Strickland. He therefore has not met his burden to obtain a COA
on Ground 8.
D. Other Arguments
Williams also argues that the district court violated his due process rights by
dismissing his § 2254 petition five years after it was filed and because he named the
wrong respondent. But the length of time it took the district court to adjudicate the
petition is no grounds for a COA or other relief on appeal. And the district court did not
dismiss the petition because Williams named the State of Utah as the respondent. To the
contrary, the district court assumed Williams meant to name the warden of the prison
where he is incarcerated. See R., Vol. 2 at 673 n.1; see also Rule 2(a), Rules Governing
Section 2254 Cases (“If the petitioner is currently in custody under a state-court
17 Appellate Case: 23-4092 Document: 010111073719 Date Filed: 07/02/2024 Page: 18
judgment, the petition must name as respondent the state officer who has custody.”).
Williams also asserts the district court erred by dismissing his petition as frivolous and
without giving the State a chance to respond. These assertions are incorrect. The State
filed an answer to the petition, and the district court denied the petition after an extensive
analysis of the parties’ arguments.
IV. CONCLUSION
We deny a COA and dismiss this matter. We grant Williams’s motion for leave to
proceed on appeal without prepayment of costs or fees.
Entered for the Court
Timothy M. Tymkovich Circuit Judge