Santillanes v. LeMaster

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
APR 23 2001
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
ANDREW MICHAEL
SANTILLANES,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 00-2172
(D.C. No. CIV-97-549-LH/LFG)
TIM LEMASTER, Warden; (D. N.M.)
ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE
STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before EBEL , PORFILIO , and LUCERO , Circuit Judges.
Petitioner-Appellant Andrew Michael Santillanes appeals from the district
court’s order denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus. This matter comes
before us on petitioner’s request for a certificate of appealability (COA).
*
The case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral argument pursuant
to Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This order and judgment is
not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and
judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and
conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
In order to receive a COA, petitioner must make a “substantial showing of
the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). A petitioner meets
this standard if he shows that his issues “are debatable among jurists, or that
a court could resolve the issues differently, or that the questions deserve further
proceedings.” United States v. Sistrunk , 111 F.3d 91, 91 (10th Cir. 1997). To the
extent petitioner attacks the district court’s procedural rulings, he must show both
“that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition 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.” Slack v.
McDaniel , 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Upon consideration, we grant COA but
affirm the district court’s order denying habeas relief.
Petitioner was convicted after a jury trial of first degree felony murder and
two counts of attempted armed robbery. The New Mexico Supreme Court
affirmed his conviction in 1986. Thereafter, he filed three state habeas petitions,
asserting a variety of grounds for relief, each of which was denied by the
New Mexico courts. 1
In his third petition, petitioner raised two issues. He contended: (1) that the
prosecution had unconstitutionally failed to disclose evidence favorable to him;
1
Petitioner also filed a previous habeas petition in federal district court,
which was dismissed as a mixed petition to allow petitioner to exhaust his state
remedies. See Rose v. Lundy , 455 U.S. 509 (1982).
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and (2) that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal.
The state district court denied this petition on February 21, 1997. Petitioner
attempted to file a petition for writ of certiorari in the New Mexico Supreme
Court within the thirty days allowed. The certiorari petition was due on
March 24, 1997, but was not received by the supreme court until April 1, 1997.
An employee of the Supreme Court clerk’s office returned the petition unfiled,
because she had received it after the deadline.
Petitioner asserts that he placed his petition in the prison legal mailbox five
days prior to the expiration of the thirty-day filing deadline. However, it was not
even postmarked until nine days later, after the deadline had passed. He
thereafter filed this petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court,
raising the same claims raised in his third state habeas petition. After an
evidentiary hearing, the district court ruled that petitioner had procedurally
defaulted his claims by failing to raise them on a timely basis to the New Mexico
Supreme Court. The district court determined that New Mexico would not
follow the “mailbox rule” established for the federal courts in Houston v. Lack ,
487 U.S. 266 (1988).
Petitioner contests this determination. He contends that his ineffective
assistance of counsel claims have not been procedurally defaulted. Alternatively,
he argues that his procedural default should be excused.
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Resolution of petitioner’s arguments requires us to consider four distinct
procedural issues. The first is, whether New Mexico follows or would adopt the
mailbox rule in determining the timeliness of petitions for certiorari from the
denial of habeas petitions. The second question is whether New Mexico’s
enforcement of its thirty-day filing deadline constituted an independent and
adequate state ground for rejecting petitioner’s petition. If so, the third issue is
whether petitioner can show cause and prejudice sufficient to excuse the
procedural default. Finally, we take up the issue of whether petitioner has made
a colorable showing of actual innocence sufficient to excuse his procedural
default. In assessing petitioner’s claims, “[w]e review the district court’s legal
conclusions de novo and its factual findings under the clearly erroneous
standard.” Ross v. Ward , 165 F.3d 793, 798 (10th Cir. 1999).
1. Would New Mexico adopt the mailbox rule for certiorari petitions?
In Houston v. Lack , the Supreme Court held that a prisoner’s “notice of
appeal was filed at the time [the prisoner] delivered it to the prison authorities for
forwarding to the court clerk.” Houston , 487 U.S. at 276. This rule became
known as the “prison mailbox rule” or simply the “mailbox rule.” Houston was
based on language of a Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure governing timely
notice of appeal. While some states have adopted a similar rule as a matter of
state law, others have not.
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We previously considered the mailbox rule under New Mexico law
in Adams v. LeMaster , 223 F.3d 1177 (10th Cir. 2000), cert. denied , 121 S. Ct.
1198 (2001). There, we addressed New Mexico court rules pertaining to
post-conviction habeas proceedings and held that “the New Mexico Supreme
Court would side with those state courts relying on the plain meaning of their
respective state procedural rules to reject the prison mailbox rule.” Id. at 1183.
Petitioner attempts to distinguish Adams . He points out that Adams was
concerned with when a habeas corpus petition was “properly filed” in state
district court for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). Here, by contrast, we are
concerned with whether the mailbox rule applies to the filing of a petition for writ
of certiorari to the New Mexico Supreme Court. We acknowledge that different
courts within a state system may treat the mailbox rule differently. See, e.g. ,
Hunnicutt v. State , 952 P.2d 988, 989 (Okla. Crim. App. 1997) (refusing, in
appeal to Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, to follow mailbox rule adopted
by Oklahoma Supreme Court which rested on special statute applicable only to
appeals to that court).
Although it was not specifically at issue in Adams , we also had occasion to
discuss application of the mailbox rule to petitions for certiorari filed in the
New Mexico Supreme Court:
[I]n habeas cases once a petitioner “files” a petition for certiorari
with the New Mexico Supreme Court, the petition is deemed denied
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if “certiorari is not granted by the Supreme Court within thirty (30)
days after filing.” N.M. R. Crim. P. 5-802G (3). While we are
unable to find any case law on point, it strains credulity to argue the
thirty-day period begins running prior to the petition’s arrival at the
New Mexico Supreme Court.
Adams , 223 F.3d at 1182.
In other words, a petition for certiorari is not considered “filed” until
actually received by the clerk. This filing (that is, receipt by the clerk) must
occur within thirty days of the district court’s decision. N.M. R. Crim. P. 5-802G.
Moreover, the three-day mailing period established elsewhere in the appellate
rules does not apply to extend this filing period. See N.M. R. App. P. 12-501(B).
“Thirty days” appears to mean exactly what it says.
We have stressed that the mailbox rule is not constitutional or equitable in
nature, but depends entirely upon interpretation of the word “filed” as it is used
in the applicable rule or statute. See Jenkins v. Burtzloff , 69 F.3d 460, 461
(10th Cir. 1995) (discussing Houston v. Lack ). The interplay of the New Mexico
court rules appears to leave no room for application of the mailbox rule to
this case.
Petitioner argues that, notwithstanding the text of the rules, the
New Mexico Supreme Court takes a flexible attitude toward filing deadlines.
He claims that, given the chance, the New Mexico Supreme Court would
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institutionalize this flexibility by adopting the mailbox rule. He urges us to test
this hypothesis by certifying the question to that court.
We have reviewed the cases cited by petitioner for his “flexibility”
hypothesis, and find them inapposite here. In Chavez v. U-Haul Co. of
New Mexico, Inc. , 947 P.2d 122 (N.M. 1997), the pro se appellant faxed his
notice of appeal to the district court fifty-eight minutes late. The New Mexico
Supreme Court excused his late filing in part because it was only marginally
untimely, and because the New Mexico Constitution provides an aggrieved party
with an absolute right to one appeal. Id. at 170.
The circumstances here are significantly different. The proceeding at issue
here was not petitioner’s direct appeal, guaranteed by the New Mexico
Constitution, but an application for a discretionary writ of certiorari from his third
habeas petition. Cf. State v. Peppers , 796 P.2d 614, 619 n.2 (N.M. Ct. App.
1990) (distinguishing habeas petition, from which there is no right of appeal,
from right to directly appeal conviction once , guaranteed by New Mexico
Constitution). Moreover, he was more than marginally late.
Petitioner also cites Trujillo v. Serrano , 871 P.2d 369, 374 (N.M. 1994).
In that case, the New Mexico Supreme Court stated that an untimely appeal
should be heard if the actions of the magistrate court from which appeal was
taken caused the untimely filing. No such allegation is made here. We conclude
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that New Mexico would not adopt the mailbox rule for petitions for certiorari to
the New Mexico Supreme Court from denial of state habeas petitions.
2. Is the decision based on an independent and adequate state ground?
We must next ask whether the decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court
rejecting petitioner’s petition for certiorari as untimely “rests on a state law
ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the
judgment.” Coleman v. Thompson , 501 U.S. 722, 729 (1991). If so, petitioner
has procedurally defaulted the issues raised in his certiorari petition, and we will
not consider them.
The procedural rule applied by the New Mexico Supreme Court clearly is
independent of the federal question posed by the underlying petition, because it
“relies on state law, rather than federal law, as the basis for the decision.”
English v. Cody , 146 F.3d 1257, 1259 (10th Cir. 1998). We turn to the more
difficult issue of its adequacy. “[I]n order to be adequate, a state rule of
procedural default must be applied evenhandedly in the vast majority of cases.”
Id.The certiorari deadline in habeas cases is phrased in mandatory terms:
“Petitions for writs of certiorari shall be filed with the supreme court clerk within
thirty (30) days of the district court’s denial of the petition.” N.M. R. App. P.
12-501(B) (emphasis added). In an attempt to show that New Mexico does not
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apply this deadline evenhandedly or consistently, petitioner cites cases involving
writs of certiorari directed to the New Mexico Court of Appeals. Serna v. Bd. of
County Comm’rs , 540 P.2d 212 (N.M. 1975); Gulf Oil Corp. v. Rota-Cone Field
Operating Co. , 515 P.2d 640 (N.M. 1973). In each of these cases, while
recognizing the possibility of unusual circumstances justifying a late filing, the
New Mexico Supreme Court ultimately refused to excuse the untimely filing.
This falls short of a showing that certiorari deadlines in habeas cases are not
regularly followed. We conclude that the thirty-day deadline for filing petitions
for certiorari is applied evenhandedly and is both “independent” and “adequate”
for purposes of procedural bar.
3. Has petitioner shown cause and prejudice?
Since petitioner “defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an
independent and adequate state procedural rule,” we cannot review them unless he
either demonstrates “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 consider
first whether petitioner has established cause and prejudice that would excuse his
procedural default.
Petitioner alleges cause in that he deposited his petition for certiorari in the
prison mail system prior to the deadline. In other words, he relies for his showing
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of cause on the same “mailbox rule” that we have concluded would be rejected by
the New Mexico Supreme Court. Even if this situation constitutes cause for
missing the deadline, we hold that petitioner’s argument fails because he has not
shown prejudice sufficient to excuse his procedural default.
Petitioner alleges that he was prejudiced because his counsel was
ineffective under the test in Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
Strickland requires a petitioner to show both that his counsel was ineffective and
that he suffered prejudice from the error. Id. at 687. Petitioner argues that his
attorney was ineffective in failing to have him take a polygraph test and in failing
to allow him to testify. Had the test come out positive (that is, had it validated
his account that he was not involved in the felony murder for which he was
convicted), petitioner argues, his counsel would have had good reason to put him
on the stand. He meets the prejudice prong of Strickland , he argues, because the
evidence against him was weak and the jury’s verdict is unreliable absent his
testimony in his own behalf.
Petitioner testified at the evidentiary hearing concerning the facts he would
have related if he had been allowed to testify. The district court adopted the
magistrate judge’s conclusion that petitioner failed to show a reasonable
probability that the outcome would have been different if he had testified or if his
attorney had advised him to take a polygraph test. Upon our review of the record,
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we agree with the district court’s conclusion, for substantially the same reasons
stated in Magistrate Judge Garcia’s findings and recommended disposition dated
March 7, 2000.
4. Has petitioner shown a fundamental miscarriage of justice?
The “fundamental miscarriage of justice” exception is extremely narrow.
It applies only in “an extraordinary case, where a constitutional violation has
probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent.” Murray v.
Carrier , 477 U.S. 478, 496 (1986). The district court concluded that petitioner
failed to meet his burden of showing that no reasonable juror, after hearing
petitioner’s story, would have concluded that he had not at least attempted to rob
the victim. This attempted robbery, together with the fact of the victim’s death,
forms the factual predicate for the felony murder conviction. Given these facts,
petitioner has failed to demonstrate that he is actually innocent of the crime.
We affirm on this issue, for substantially the reasons stated in Magistrate Judge
Garcia’s findings and recommended disposition dated March 7, 2000.
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Petitioner’s application for a COA is granted. His motion for certification
of an issue of state law is denied. The judgment of the United States District
Court for the District of New Mexico is AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Carlos F. Lucero
Circuit Judge
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