Williams v. Wainwright

577 F. Supp. 894, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20455
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedJanuary 12, 1984
DocketNo. 83-8169-CIV-JAG
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 577 F. Supp. 894 (Williams v. Wainwright) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Wainwright, 577 F. Supp. 894, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20455 (S.D. Fla. 1984).

Opinion

ORDER

GONZALEZ, District Judge.

I.

THIS CAUSE arises out of the conviction of Petitioner, Henry Williams, on two counts of selling cocaine.1 At the outset of the trial, Petitioner moved to sever the two counts, claiming they “were [neither] based on the same act or transaction, nor ... connected acts or transactions.” Initial Brief of Appellant, at 2 (filed ca. Feb. 11, 1981). After a hearing on the issue, the trial court denied this motion, and the Petitioner’s conviction followed after a trial on the merits.

A subsequent appeal to Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal raised but one issue: “Whether the trial court erred in denying a severance of offenses.” Id. at 3. Both that appeal, and a subsequent petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Florida, proved unsuccessful; consequently, Petitioner filed a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to section 2254 of Title 28, United States Code.

The issue presented in the habeas petition, unlike that advanced before the Fourth District Court of Appeal, raises for the first time a federal constitutional question: “[W]hether [petitioner was denied due process of law where the Florida state courts denied severance of drug sale counts on the theory that they were part of an ‘ongoing investigation.’ Memorandum in Support of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, at 1 (filed Apr. 5, 1983). The Magistrate reviewed a host of legal documents, and recommended that “the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus be dismissed without prejudice to provide the petitioner with an opportunity to exhaust his available state remedies.” Review and Recommendation, at 7 (filed Oct. 28, 1983).

Pursuant to the review procedures spelled out in section 2254(a),2 this Court must now review de novo the Magistrate’s Recommendation and Petitioner’s objections thereto in order to determine the fate of the petition for writ of habeas corpus. The dispositive issue here is whether Petitioner has exhausted his available state remedies. Finding that he has not, the Court dismisses the petition without prejudice.

II.

“Federal habeas corpus jurisdiction has been described as an ‘untidy area’ of the law, Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 184, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 1593, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947) (Frankfurter, J. dissenting), presenting ‘many procedural problems which are not easy of solution,’ Price v. Johnson, 334 U.S. 266, 269, 68 S.Ct. 1049, 1052, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948).” Daye v. Attorney General of State of New York, 696 F.2d 186,197 (2d Cir.1982) (en banc). Petitioner’s habeas corpus petition is no exception, requiring the Court to interpret and apply a confused area of the law. Although federal law is clear that a habeas petitioner must exhaust his state remedies before seeking relief from the district court, 28 U.S.C.A. [896]*896§§ 2254(b), (c) (1977),3 the law is substantially less clear as to when a habeas petitioner has satisfied this requirement.

The Supreme Court of the United States established a litmus test for determining when a petitioner has exhausted the available state remedies in Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1970). There Justice Brennan explained that before proceeding to the federal district court, the habeas petitioner must provide the state court with a “fair opportunity” to review the constitutional claim by presenting its “substantial equivalent” to the state court. Id. at 276-77, 92 S.Ct. at 512-13.

Trouble began when the courts attempted to define what constituted the “substance” of a federal habeas corpus claim. At one extreme, the Supreme Court observed that “[i]t is not enough that all facts necessary to support the federal claim [are] before the state courts, or that a somewhat similar state-law claim was made.” Anderson v. Harless, — U.S.—, 103 S.Ct. 276, 277, 74 L.Ed.2d 3 (1982). At the other extreme, however, the petitioner need not “cit[e] ‘book and verse on the federal constitution.’ ” Picard, 404 U.S. at 278, 92 S.Ct. at 513. The Court has not often attempted to give meaning to the broad spectrum between these extremes, and so it has been left to the circuit courts to give “substance” to the exhaustion doctrine.4

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit discussed the exhaustion doctrine at length in Daye v. Attorney General of the State of New York, 696 F.2d 186, 190-97 (2d Cir.1982). The court adduced four ways in which a habeas petitioner may satisfy the exhaustion requirement without citing “book and verse on the federal constitution:”

reliance on pertinent federal cases employing constitutional analysis, [2] reliance on state cases employing constitutional analysis in like fact situations, [3] assertion of the claim in terms so particular as to call to mind a specific right protected by the Constitution, and [4] allegation of a pattern of facts that is well within the mainstream of constitutional litigation.

Id. at 194.

Petitioner here asserts that he sufficiently alerted the state courts to his constitutional claim by methods two through four above. This Court’s task is to determine whether Petitioner’s claim is correct.

III.

A. Citation of State Cases Employing Constitutional Analysis in Like Fact Situations

Petitioner first argues that he raised a due process issue before Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal by citing to state cases that allegedly employed con[897]*897stitutional analysis in like fact situations. The Court has reviewed each of these cases, and finds that either no federal issue was in fact ever raised, e.g., Paul v. State, 385 So.2d 1371 (Fla.1980) (adopting dissenting opinion of Judge Smith in appellate court, 365 So.2d 1063, 1065 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979)); Macklin v. State, 395 So.2d 1219 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981); Panzavecchia v. State, 311 So.2d 782 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975), or the constitutional claim asserted in the cited case was not the same as the federal claim on which habeas corpus relief is sought, e.g., Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.1959) (deciding whether death penalty, as applied by juries in rape cases, violates equal protection clause).

The principal case relied on by Petitioner in support of his position is Paul v. State, 385 So.2d 1371 (Fla.1980). Paul addressed the propriety of consolidating a defendant’s trial for sexual offenses committed on separate dates. The supreme court, adopting in part the dissenting appellate opinion of Judge Smith,5 id. at 1372, held that the pretrial consolidation of the alleged sexual offenses was improper because Rule 3.151 of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure prohibits the consolidation of similar offenses which are unrelated in terms of time or sequence.

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577 F. Supp. 894, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20455, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-wainwright-flsd-1984.