TANYA WALTON PRATT, District Judge.
Before the Court is Petitioner Eric Kyner's ("Mr. Kyner") Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. In 2006, Mr. Kyner pled guilty to rape and criminal confinement in an Indiana state court. On November 1, 2006, he was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment with three years suspended to probation for these crimes. Mr. Kyner now seeks a writ of habeas corpus.
For the reasons explained in this Entry, Mr. Kyner's Petition is
District court review of a habeas petition presumes all factual findings of the state court to be correct, absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. See Daniels v. Knight, 476 F.3d 426, 434 (7th Cir. 2007). On post-conviction appeal, the Indiana Court of Appeals summarized the relevant factual and procedural history:
Kyner v. State, 2013 WL 3776972, *1 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013) ("Kyner").
The Indiana Court of Appeals in Kyner affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief. See id. at *3. Mr. Kyner then filed a petition to transfer with the Indiana Supreme Court, and it denied transfer on October 10, 2013. See Kyner v. State, 995 N.E.2d 620 (Ind. 2013).
Mr. Kyner was released from state prison on or about January 3, 2015 with the condition of sex-offender parole which included of GPS monitoring. According to Mr. Kyner, he was unfortunately returned to the New Castle Correctional Facility for a parole violation as of July 1, 2015 for a technical violation "concerning the GPS monitoring, added to the petitioner's sentence, when he was once again improperly placed on sex-offender parole, and also labeled a `SVP', January 2nd, 2015." (
A federal court may grant habeas relief only if the petitioner demonstrates that he is in custody "in violation of the Constitution or laws . . . of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a) (1996). Mr. Kyner filed his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition after the effective date of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"). His petition, therefore, is subject to AEDPA. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 336 (1997).
"Under the current regime governing federal habeas corpus for state prison inmates, the inmate must show, so far as bears on this case, that the state court which convicted him unreasonably applied a federal doctrine declared by the United States Supreme Court." Redmond v. Kingston, 240 F.3d 590 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Guys v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000); Morgan v. Krenke, 232 F.3d 562 (7th Cir. 2000)). Thus, "under AEDPA, federal courts do not independently analyze the petitioner's claims; federal courts are limited to reviewing the relevant state court ruling on the claims." Rever v. Acevedo, 590 F.3d 533, 536 (7th Cir. 2010). "A state-court decision involves an unreasonable application of this Court's clearly established precedents if the state court applies this Court's precedents to the facts in an objectively unreasonable manner." Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 131, 141 (2005) (internal citations omitted). "The habeas applicant has the burden of proof to show that the application of federal law was unreasonable." Harding v. Sternes, 380 F.3d 1034, 1043 (7th Cir. 2004) (citing Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 25 (2002)).
Mr. Kyner raises several claims in his Petition as well as in a subsequent filing entitled Amended Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which the Court deemed to amend and expand his habeas Petition. (
The Respondent contends that Mr. Kyner's challenges to his January 2015 placement on parole are unexhausted because he has not raised these claims in state court. The Court disagrees. Mr. Kyner's claims with respect to his most recent placement on parole are essentially the same as those he raised in Kyner, and the parole period challenged in both instances stems from the same 2006 convictions for rape and criminal confinement. Therefore, Mr. Kyner's claims are not new, unexhausted claims, but a continuation of his challenges raised in Kyner that are still affecting him.
Even if the Respondent was correct that Mr. Kyner's claims are unexhausted or procedurally defaulted, because his claims are meritless, it is still prudent for the Court to address them on the merits. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(2) ("An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State."); see also Brown v. Watters, 599 F.3d 602, 610 (7th Cir. 2010); Miller v. Mullin, 354 F.3d 1288, 1297 (10th Cir. 2004). Accordingly, the Court will address all of Mr. Kyner's challenges to his placement on parole.
Mr. Kyner raises the following claims in his Petition: (1) whether the Kyner court erred in concluding that he was properly designated a sexually violent predator; (2) whether the Kyner court erred in concluding that he was properly placed on parole after he was discharged from probation; and (3) whether his double jeopardy or due process rights were violated when he was placed on parole, since his plea agreement and criminal judgment only provided for probation.
With respect to his first claim, Mr. Kyner argues that his designation as a sexually violent predator under Indiana law is unconstitutional because the law was passed in 2007, yet he plead guilty in 2006 and therefore should not be subject to the requirements of a 2007 law. This appears to be a claim that Mr. Kyner's rights under the Ex Post Facto Clause were violated. The Indiana Court of Appeals addressed this claim on the merits in Kyner, with the following reasoning:
Kyner, 2013 WL 3776972, at *2.
The nature of Mr. Kyner's challenges are not entirely clear. To the extent that he argues that he was not notified in his plea agreement or the criminal judgment that he would be designated as a sexually violent predator—and thus subject to lifetime registration—this does not violate his due process or any other constitutional rights. Under Indiana law, the sexually violent predator designation and corresponding lifetime registration requirement are mandatory for individuals committing certain crimes, including rape. See Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.5(b); Ind. Code § 11-8-8-19(b). Where "there [is] no room for the exercise of judicial discretion" because a collateral consequences of a sentence is "mandatory," as is the case here, "the omission of [such a consequence] from the judgment d[oes] not make the sentence unlawful." Carroll v. Daugherty, 764 F.3d 786, 788-89 (7th Cir. 2014).
This does not, however, resolve his ex post facto challenge that he made in Kyner and appears to be re-asserting here. Unlike in Carroll, the Indiana statute designating Mr. Kyner as a sexually violent predator was not passed until the year after his conviction. The Indiana Court of Appeals in Kyner relied on Indiana Supreme Court jurisprudence to conclude that subjecting Mr. Kyner to the requirements of a law passed in 2007 did not violate Indiana's similar state constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws. Given that federal habeas relief is only available for violations of federal law, the question here is whether the federal constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws was violated.
The United States Constitution "prohibits both federal and state governments from enacting any `ex post facto Law.'" Peugh v. United States, 133 S.Ct. 2072, 2081 (2013) (citing Art. I, § 9, cl. 3; Art. I, § 10). Among other things, this clause prohibits laws "that chang[e] the punishment, and inflic[t] a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed." Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). "[T]he constitutional prohibition on ex post facto laws applies only to penal statutes which disadvantage the offender affected by them." Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37, 41 (1990). "The [Supreme] Court has emphasized the restriction of the Clause to penal statutes, and thus a civil regulatory regime will implicate ex post facto concerns only if it can be fairly characterized as punishment." United States v. Leach, 639 F.3d 769, 772 (7th Cir. 2011) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Simply put, "[t]o violate the Ex Post Facto Clause . . . a law must be both retrospective and penal." Id.
Mr. Kyner cannot point to any clearly established federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court that the sexually violent predator designation and corresponding requirements, such as lifetime registration, violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. "[W]hether a comprehensive registration regime targeting only sex offenders is penal . . . is not an open question," given that the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), held that "an Alaska sex offender registration and notification statute posed no ex post facto violation because it was a civil, rather than penal, statute." Leach, 639 F.3d at 773. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit has held that the federal registration statute, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, "is not an ex post facto law." Id.
Finally, to the extent Mr. Kyner is challenging only the State's decision to apply the 2007 law retroactively, the State's decision to do so does not violate his federal constitutional rights. Wainwright v. Stone, 414 U.S. 21, 23-24 (1973). This is because the United States Supreme Court has made clear that "the Federal Constitution has no voice upon the subject" of a State's decisions regarding the retroactivity of its laws. Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U.S. 858, 364 (1932); see also Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 629 (1965) ("[W]e believe the Constitution neither prohibits nor requires retrospective effect.").
Accordingly, Mr. Kyner's ex post facto challenge to his designation as a sexually violent predator and the corresponding requirements of that designation has no merit.
Next, Mr. Kyner raises various challenges to his placement on parole. He argues that the Kyner court erred in concluding that he was properly placed on parole after he was discharged from probation because the discharge from probation ended his criminal sentence. Mr. Kyner also maintains that his double jeopardy and due process rights were violated when he was placed on parole because his plea agreement provided only for probation.
The Indiana Court of Appeals in Kyner addressed similar claims on the merits, reasoning as follows:
Kyner, 2013 WL 3776972, at *3.
To the extent that Mr. Kyner is again raising his challenges from Kyner regarding his eligibility for parole and whether he was discharged from his sentence, these are questions of state law. The United States Supreme Court has "repeatedly held that `federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law.'" Wilson v. Corcoran, 562 U.S. 1, 5 (2010) (quoting Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67 (1991)). Accordingly, Mr. Kyner cannot obtain habeas relief for these claims.
To the extent Mr. Kyner is asserting constitutional challenges to his placement on parole, these challenges are likewise without merit. Mr. Kyner maintains that due process and the prohibition on double jeopardy require the entire sentence to be included in his criminal judgment, which his parole was not. But as explained above, with respect to Mr. Kyner's challenge to his designation as a sexually violent predator, the Seventh Circuit's decision in Carroll addressed a very similar claim from Illinois and rejected it. Indiana law in place at the time of Mr. Kyner's conviction provided that those convicted of rape "shall be placed on parole for not more than ten (10) years." Kyner, 2013 WL 3776972, at *3 (quoting Ind. Code § 35-50-6-1(d)). Again, where "there [is] no room for the exercise of judicial discretion" because the consequences of a sentence are "mandatory," as is the case here with Indiana's parole statutes and the corresponding requirements of parole, "the omission of [such a consequence] from the judgment d[oes] not make the sentence unlawful." Carroll, 764 F.3d at 788-89; see also id. at 790 ("The failure to mention supervised release in [the petitioner's] sentence did not deprive him of life, liberty, or property."). Accordingly, neither the Due Process Clause nor the Double Jeopardy Clause require that mandatory consequences of a conviction be included in a criminal judgment.
For these reasons, Mr. Kyner is not entitled to habeas relief on these claims.
This Court has carefully reviewed the state record in light of Mr. Kyner's claims and has given such consideration to those claims as the limited scope of its review in a habeas corpus proceeding permits. Because Mr. Kyner is unable to carry his burden on these claims, he is not entitled to habeas relief, and his Petition is therefore
Judgment consistent with this Entry shall now issue.
Rule 11(a) of the Rules Governing § 2254 Cases requires the district courts to "issue or deny a certificate of appealability when it enters a final order adverse to the applicant," and "[i]f the court issues a certificate, the court must state the specific issue or issues that satisfy the showing required by 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2)." Pursuant to § 2253(c)(2), a certificate of appealability may issue "only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." Such a showing includes demonstrating "that reasonable jurists could debate whether . . . 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) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
The Court concludes that the following claim's resolution could be debated by reasonable jurists or that it is adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further, and therefore, a certificate of appealability on this claim is
The Clerk is
