Williams v. Broaddus , 331 F. App'x 560 ( 2009 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
May 20, 2009
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
PAUL CHAYNE WILLIAMS,
Petitioner - Appellant, No. 08-1254
v. (D. Colorado)
MARK BROADDUS; JOHN W. (D.C. No. 1:08-CV-00368-ZLW)
SUTHERS, ATTORNEY GENERAL
OF THE STATE OF COLORADO,
Respondents - Appellees.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY
Before BRISCOE, MURPHY, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.
Paul Chayne Williams, proceeding pro se, filed an application for a writ of
habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenging his convictions for equity
skimming and theft in Colorado state court. The United States District Court for
the District of Colorado denied the application as untimely. Mr. Williams seeks
review in this court. We deny a certificate of appealability (COA) and dismiss
the appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c) (requiring COA to appeal dismissal of
§ 2254 application).
A COA will issue “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of
the denial of a constitutional right.” Id. § 2253(c)(2). This standard requires “a
demonstration that . . . includes showing that reasonable jurists could debate
whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in
a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve
encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)
(internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, an applicant must show that
the district court's resolution of the constitutional claim was either “debatable or
wrong.” Id. If the application was denied on procedural grounds,
a COA should issue when the prisoner shows, at least, that jurists of
reason would find it debatable whether the [application] states a valid
claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason
would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its
procedural ruling.
Id. Because the prisoner must make both showings, “a court may find that it can
dispose of the application in a fair and prompt manner if it proceeds first to
resolve the issue whose answer is more apparent from the record and arguments.”
Id. at 485. Moreover, we may deny a COA “if there is a plain procedural bar to
habeas relief, even though the district court did not rely on that bar.” Davis v.
Roberts, 425 F.3d 830, 834 (10th Cir. 2005).
The grounds for relief raised in Mr. Williams’s application all relate to
evidence in his residence found during the execution of a search warrant and the
trial court's treatment of that evidence. Detective Margaret Cassel of the
Colorado Springs Police Department obtained a warrant to search Mr. Williams’s
residence. The warrant stated that “certain documents may contain privileged
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information between attorney and client,” R. Vol. I Doc. 2 at 51; these documents
were not to be reviewed by police officers.
Cassel found 38 boxes of documents at Mr. Williams’s residence. Judge
Theresa Cisneros, presiding over Mr. Williams’s case, ordered that the boxes be
delivered to her chambers. Although the court had originally planned for a
special master to go through the boxes to determine which documents were
privileged, it was unable to find anyone who would perform this task. Judge
Cisneros, the district attorney, and Mr. Williams’s appointed counsel, Michael
McHenry, agreed that Judge Cisneros would go through the boxes herself in
camera. Judge Cisneros then released to the district attorney’s office the evidence
from the boxes that she determined to be unprivileged; that office used the
evidence at trial to convict Mr. Williams.
After losing a direct appeal, Mr. Williams filed a motion for postconviction
relief in the state trial court. The motion was denied, and the Colorado Court of
Appeals (CCA) affirmed. The Colorado Supreme Court denied review.
Mr. Williams now seeks federal postconviction relief under § 2254.
Mr. Williams’s pro se application lists five grounds for relief, but they are
largely repetitive. Construing his pro se application liberally, as we must, see
Freeman v. Watkins, 479 F.3d 1257, 1259 (10th Cir. 2007), we understand
Mr. Williams to be making three claims: (1) the trial judge violated his
constitutional rights by going through the seized boxes and turning over to the
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district attorney documents that were protected by the attorney-client privilege;
(2) he was provided ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney had a
conflict of interest, as evidenced by his attorney’s agreement to the judge’s in
camera review; and (3) his conviction was secured using evidence obtained by
executing an unconstitutional general search warrant.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)
provides that when a claim has been adjudicated on the merits in state court, a
federal court will grant habeas relief only when the applicant establishes that the
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,” or “as based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light
of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1),
(2). As we have explained:
Under the “contrary to” clause, we grant relief only if the state court
arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court
on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently
than the Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.
Under the “unreasonable application” clause, relief is provided only
if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from
the Supreme Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle
to the facts of the prisoner's case. Thus we may not issue a habeas
writ simply because we conclude in our independent judgment that
the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal
law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be
unreasonable.
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Gipson v. Jordan, 376 F.3d 1193, 1196 (10th Cir. 2004) (brackets, citations, and
internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, for those of Mr. Williams's claims
that were adjudicated on the merits in state court, “AEDPA's deferential treatment
of state court decisions must be incorporated into our consideration of [his]
request for COA.” Dockins v. Hines, 374 F.3d 935, 938 (10th Cir. 2004).
Mr. Williams’s first two claims were adjudicated on the merits by the CCA.
The CCA rejected Mr. Williams’s claim that the trial judge violated his
constitutional rights by conducting an in camera review of the seized boxes.
Mr. Williams has cited no authority suggesting that the CCA’s determination was
an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. In camera review
is an appropriate method of determining whether documents are privileged. See
FDIC v. United Pacific Ins. Co., 152 F.3d 1266, 1276 n.6 (10th Cir. 1998) (“In
determining whether the relevant . . . records contain privileged communications,
the district court may adopt procedures, such as in camera review of allegedly
privileged documents, to protect against disclosure of privileged
communications.”). No reasonable jurist could debate that this claim has merit.
To the extent that Mr. Williams may be disputing the trial judge’s decisions
regarding what documents were privileged, he has failed to specify which
documents were improperly released to the district attorney’s office and has not
suggested any constitutional right that would be violated in this context. See
Harvey v. Shillinger, 76 F.3d 1528, 1534 (10th Cir. 1996) (“[T]he only injury that
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will suffice to support [an application] for habeas corpus relief [under § 2254] is
an injury to [an applicant’s] federally protected right.”).
The CCA also rejected Mr. Williams’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
claim. It held that he had failed to show that his attorney “labored under an
actual conflict of interest when he met with the judge and prosecutor . . . to
discuss whether the judge could search the seized evidentiary documents for
privileged information.” R. Vol. I Doc. 2 at 116. No reasonable jurist could
debate that the CCA’s decision “was based on an unreasonable determination of
the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
Finally, Mr. Williams’s general-warrant claim is procedurally defaulted.
He did not raise the claim in his direct appeal in state court. Insofar as he
attempted to raise it in the state postconviction proceedings, the CCA refused to
consider it because it “could have been, but [was] not, raised on direct appeal.”
R. Vol. I Doc. 2 at 123.
In all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims
in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state
procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless
the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual
prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or
demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a
fundamental miscarriage of justice.
Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). Mr. Williams has not
established “cause” or “prejudice,” nor has he demonstrated that our failure to
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consider this claim would “result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Id.Accordingly, we deny a COA on this claim.
We DENY Mr. Williams’s request for a COA and DISMISS this appeal.
We GRANT Mr. Williams’s Motion for Leave to Proceed on Appeal Without
Prepayment of Costs or Fees.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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