James Williams v. Robert Herzog , 656 F. App'x 883 ( 2016 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
SEP 13 2016
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JAMES WILLIAMS, No. 15-35681
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:13-cv-01470-JCC
v.
MEMORANDUM*
ROBERT HERZOG, Superintendent
Monroe Correctional Complex,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Washington
John C. Coughenour, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted August 30, 2016
Seattle, Washington
Before: GOODWIN, SCHROEDER, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
James Williams, a Washington state prisoner, appeals the district court’s
denial of his habeas petition seeking to overturn his conviction of Murder in the
First Degree.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
His claim is that the trial court, at the time he entered his guilty plea, should
have ordered a hearing on his competency. This is referred to as a procedural
competency claim. In the state courts, however, he argued a different claim, i.e.,
that he was incompetent to enter the plea, a claim referred to as a substantive
competency claim. See Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389, 396, 398 (1993). The
State contends the procedural claim is unexhausted and the petition properly
denied on that ground. We agree.
Even assuming Williams’s procedural claim can be regarded as having been
exhausted because it was somehow intertwined with the substantive claim, see
Lounsbury v. Thompson, 374 F.3d 785, 788 (9th Cir. 2004), it lacks merit. There
had been previous determinations of Williams’s competency. In accepting the
plea, the trial court also accepted Williams’s counsel’s representation that although
the plea was entered against the advice of counsel, Williams was competent to
make it. There was no basis for a reasonable judge to question competency at that
time. See Davis v. Woodford, 384 F.3d 628, 644 (9th Cir. 2004).
We decline to issue any further certificate of appealability.
AFFIRMED.
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