Yahweh v. Zavaras

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
JUN 6 1997
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TYRONE “McDANIEL” YAHWEH,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
No. 96-1517
ARISTEDES W. ZAVARAS,
(D.C. No. 95-N-3258)
Executive Director, Department of
(D. Colo.)
Corrections; GALE A. NORTON,
Attorney General of the State of
Colorado,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BRORBY, EBEL, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner-Appellant Tyrone “McDaniel” Yahweh was convicted by a
Colorado state court jury on two counts stemming from an incident in which
Yahweh had sexual intercourse with (and impregnated) his fourteen year-old half
sister. Yahweh was 27 or 28 years old at the time. The incident occurred in
*
The case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral argument pursuant to
Fed. R. App. P. 34(a) and 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral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.
November 1991, but was not reported to law enforcement authorities until April
1992. On May 8, 1992, Yahweh was arrested. Yahweh was tried in December
1992, but the jury could not agree on a verdict. He was retried and convicted in
March 1993, and sentenced to eight years in prison. The conviction and sentence
were subsequently affirmed by the Colorado Court of Appeals. People v.
McDaniel, No. 93-CA-0936 (Colo. Ct. App. Sept. 15, 1994) (unpublished order),
cert. denied, No. 94-SC-645 (Colo. Mar. 27, 1995) (unpublished order).
Yahweh then brought the present petition for federal habeas corpus relief
under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Supp. 1996), alleging that his Sixth Amendment right to
a Speedy Trial was violated by the eleven-month period of incarceration to which
he was subject prior to his conviction. The district court granted Yahweh’s
motion to proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b) (as amended
in 1996). A magistrate judge then recommended dismissal of Yahweh’s petition,
on the grounds that Yahweh had failed to exhaust his state remedies. Yahweh v.
Zavaras, No. 95-N-3258 (D. Colo. Mar. 14, 1996) (Recommendation of
Magistrate Judge Borchers). After considering Yahweh’s objections, the district
court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation, and dismissed Yahweh’s
petition. Yahweh v. Zavaras, No. 95-N-3258 (D. Colo. Sept. 26, 1996) (Order of
Dismissal).
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In addition, the district court denied Yahweh’s subsequent request for a
certificate of appealability. Yahweh v. Zavaras, No. 95-N-3258 (D. Colo. Nov.
12. 1996) (Order Denying Certificate of Appealability). “In a habeas corpus
proceeding in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a
State court, an appeal by the applicant for the writ may not proceed unless a
district or a circuit judge issues a certificate of appealability. . . .” Fed. R. App.
P. 22(b) (as amended in 1996); accord 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A) (as amended in
1996). Where, however, as here, the district judge denies a habeas applicant’s
request for such a certificate, “the applicant for the writ may then request
issuance of the certificate by a circuit judge.” Id. If, as here, “no express request
for a certificate is filed, the notice of appeal shall be deemed to constitute a
request addressed to the judges of the court of appeals.” Id. Thus, we will
consider Yahweh’s notice of appeal to constitute a request for issuance of a
certificate of appealability.
A certificate of appealability may issue “only if the applicant has made a
substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. §
2253(c)(2) (as amended in 1996). If issued, the certificate of appealability shall
indicate which specific issue or issues satisfy this showing. 28 U.S.C. §
2253(c)(3) (as amended in 1996).
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In the present case, Yahweh has shown that he was incarcerated for eight
months prior to his initial trial, and eleven months prior to his conviction.
Further, he has alleged that Colorado’s Speedy Trial Act, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-
405 (1986 & Supp. 1996), is the only Speedy Trial Act in the United States which
begins to run from the time of arraignment rather than the time of arrest, and that
the United States Constitution requires that a “speedy trial” be measured from the
time of arrest. Because we think that Yahweh’s claims raise substantial
constitutional questions, we hereby grant Yahweh’s request for a certificate of
appealability.
Nonetheless, we must deny Yahweh’s application for a writ of habeas
corpus. Under Section 104 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996:
[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in
custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted
unless it appears that:
(A) the applicant has exhausted the remedies available
in the courts of the State; or
(B)(i) there is an absence of available State corrective
process; or (ii) circumstances exist that render such
process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1) (as amended in 1996). Section 104 applies even when it
appears to a federal court that a state prisoner has made a substantial showing that
he is being held in violation of his federal constitutional rights.
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In the present case, Yahweh concedes that he has not exhausted his state
court remedies. Indeed, he concedes that he never raised his Speedy Trial Claim
at his trial, on his direct appeal, or in any state proceeding for postconviction
relief. Yahweh claims, however, that he need not exhaust state processes because
“circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of
the applicant.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(B)(ii) (as amended in 1996). Specifically,
Yahweh claims that any proceeding in a Colorado state court would be futile
because the Colorado courts have already decided the precise issue Yahweh
raises, adversely to Yahweh’s position. See Goodwin v. Oklahoma, 923 F.2d 156,
158 (10th Cir. 1991) (holding that exhaustion of state remedies is not necessary
where the state’s highest court has explicitly and recently addressed the precise
issue advanced by a petitioner); Alvarez v. Turner, 422 F.2d 214, 216 n.3 (10th
Cir.), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 916 (1970) (same).
In support of his claim, Yahweh cites an unpublished opinion of the
Colorado Court of Appeals in which an identical federal constitutional challenge
to Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-405 (1986 & Supp. 1996) was rejected. See People v.
Green, No. 92-CA-1728, slip op. at 8 (Colo. Ct. App. Dec. 2 1993) (unpublished
Order), cert. denied, No. 94-SC-62 (Colo. Apr. 25, 1994) (unpublished Order).
The defendant in Green had argued that Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-405 (1986 &
Supp. 1996) violates the Sixth Amendment by failing to begin the computation of
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the permissible trial period from the date of arrest, and by allowing the state six
months to begin the trial, rather than 120 days. Yahweh advances identical
arguments here.
Despite the Green case, however, we must reject Yahweh’s claim that
recourse to the Colorado courts would be futile. As an initial matter, we note that
Green was an unpublished opinion of the Colorado Court of Appeals, and is
therefore not binding on any court in Colorado. Colo. App. R. 35(f). Indeed,
even published opinions of a panel decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals are
not binding on any other panel of that court. See People v. Young, 825 P.2d
1004, 1007 (Colo. Ct. App. 1991) (expressly declining to follow a recent opinion
of a different panel of the same court). Thus, for present purposes, the decision
of the Green panel is simply not equivalent to a binding opinion of the Colorado
Supreme Court.
Further, Colorado courts have recognized the defect in the Colorado Speedy
Trial Act of which Yahweh complains. Correspondingly, Colorado courts have
been willing to recognize constitutional “speedy trial” claims even where the
requirements of the Colorado Speedy Trial Act were fully complied with. See,
e.g. Barela v. People, 826 P.2d 1249, 1255 n.5 (Colo. 1992) (“The fact that the
defendant was accorded his statutory right to a speedy trial . . . does not
necessarily resolve whether the delay occasioned by the dismissal of the
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impaneled but unsworn jury and the rescheduling of the trial violated the
defendant's constitutional right to a speedy trial or was otherwise violative of due
process of law.”) (emphasis in original); accord Gelfand v. People, 586 P.2d
1331, 1332 (Colo. 1978). Under these circumstances, we cannot agree that
recourse to the Colorado courts would be “futile.”
Finally, we note that under Colo. R. Crim. P. 35(c)(3), a prisoner “who is
aggrieved and claiming either a right to be released or to have a judgment of
conviction set aside on [constitutional] grounds . . . may file a motion at any time
in the court which imposed sentence to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence,
or to make such order as necessary to correct a violation of his constitutional
rights.” We see no reason why Yahweh cannot avail himself of this procedure.
We therefore hold that Yahweh has not exhausted his state remedies. See 28
U.S.C. § 2254(c) (as amended in 1996) (“An applicant shall not be deemed to
have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State . . . if he has the
right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question
presented.”).
Finally, we note that in the present appeal, Yahweh for the first time claims
that he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and that the state trial judge
was incompetent. These claims were neither raised in any Colorado state
proceedings, nor in the district court below. We thus decline to reach them. See
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Walker v. Mathers, 959 F.2d 894, 896 (10th Cir. 1992) (this court will not
consider an issue on appeal that was not raised below).
We therefore AFFIRM the Order of the district court dismissing Yahweh’s
habeas corpus petition on the ground that Yahweh failed to exhaust his state
remedies. We also DENY Yahweh’s recently-filed Motion of Objection to Order,
in which Yahweh asks us to reconsider our Order of May 2, 1997, denying
Yahweh’s request to submit a 101 page brief.
The mandate shall issue forthwith.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
David M. Ebel
Circuit Judge
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