DEBORAH K. CHASANOW, District Judge.
On July 17, 2014,
On October 15, 2001, after a jury trial, Hoskins was convicted in the Circuit Court for Cecil County of first-degree premeditated murder.
While his appellate proceedings were pending, on January 2, 2003, Hoskins filed a motion for new trial in the Circuit Court, raising three grounds for new trial: two allegations of misconduct or fraud by the State's Attorney involving evidence presented at trial or prior to trial; and the admission of an expert witness and the testimony she provided in her capacity as an expert. ECF No. 9, p. 6; ECF No. 9, Ex. 1, p. 28; ECF No. 9, Ex. 5, p. 1. The motion for new trial was denied, after hearing,
In the interim period, on February 23, 2004, Hoskins filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Circuit Court, raising thirty-two allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and judicial error. ECF No. 1, p. 2; ECF No. 9, Ex, 1. p. 29. Following an April 12, 2010, hearing, ECF No. 9, Ex. 7, the post-conviction court denied the petition on January 11, 2011. ECF No. 9, Ex. 8. On February 11, 2011, Hoskins filed an application for leave to appeal the adverse decision, ECF No. 9, Ex. 9, which the Court of Special Appeals summarily denied on June 11, 2013, ECF No. 9, Ex. 10. The intermediate appellate court's mandate issued on July 12, 2013. Id.
Hoskins presents the following issues for the court's review:
ECF No. 1, pp. 3-5; ECF No. 14, pp. 1-2. Respondents mount a variety of challenges to Petitioner's claims, including lack of timeliness, failure to exhaust, procedural default, failure to state a cognizable basis for relief, and, finally, failure to state a basis for relief on the merits. See, generally, ECF Nos. 9 and 18.
A one-year statute of limitations applies to habeas petitions in non-capital cases for a person convicted in state court. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). Section 2244(d) provides that:
28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).
Respondents argue that the petition is time-barred. ECF No. 9, pp. 18-20. They correctly note that the statute of limitations was tolled during the pendency of Hoskins' post-conviction and other collateral proceedings. Id., p. 19. Thus, Hoskins had one year from the Court of Special Appeals' July 12, 2013, mandate in which to file his petition. Id. Respondents contend that, although the Petition is dated July 9, 2014, (a Wednesday) within the statutory filing period, it was not postmarked until July 16, 2014, after the limitations period expired. Id. According to Respondents, "Hoskins has not provided the required proof to show that his mailing was deposited in the prison mail system before July 13, 2014. Absent such proof, his petition should be deemed time-barred." Id., p. 20.
Hoskins has provided a Certificate of Service wherein he states: "I hereby certify that on this 9th day of July, 2014, a copy of this foregoing Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was mailed, postage prepaid," to the Attorney General of Maryland, followed by the Attorney General's address and Hoskins' signature. ECF No. 1, p. 6. In addition, the envelope in which the petition was mailed contains a notation that the correspondence was "legal," and the postage meter date is July 16, 2014, the same date as the postmark. ECF No. 1-1. It is reasonable to infer that (1) the Petition was placed in the prison system for handling legal mail, and (2) it took prison officials a week, which included two weekend days, to process and mail Hoskins' Petition. Based on the foregoing, the court concludes that the Petition is timely pursuant to the "mailbox rule." See Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266, 274-75 (1988).
Before a petitioner may seek habeas relief in federal court, he must exhaust each claim presented to the federal court by pursuing remedies available in state court. See Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 521 (1982). This exhaustion requirement is satisfied by seeking review of the claim in the highest state court with jurisdiction to consider the claim. See O'Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999); 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) and (c).
Where a petitioner has failed to present a claim to the highest state court with jurisdiction to hear it, whether it be by failing to raise the claim in post-conviction proceedings or on direct appeal, or by failing timely to note an appeal, the procedural default doctrine applies. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 749-50 (1991) (failure to note timely appeal); Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 489-91 (1986) (failure to raise claim on direct appeal); Murch v. Mottram, 409 U.S. 41, 46 (1972)(failure to raise claim during post-conviction); Bradley v. Davis, 551 F.Supp. 479, 481 (D. Md. 1982) (failure to seek leave to appeal denial of postconviction relief). A procedural default also may occur where a state court declines "to consider the merits [of a claim] on the basis of an adequate and independent state procedural rule." Yeatts v. Angelone, 166 F.3d 255, 260 (4th Cir. 1999). As the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has explained:
Breard v. Pruett, 134 F.3d 615, 619 (4th Cir. 1998).
If a procedural default has occurred, a federal court may not address the merits of a state prisoner's habeas claim unless the petitioner can show (1) both cause for the default and prejudice that would result from failing to consider the claim on the merits; or (2) that failure to consider the claim on the merits would result in a miscarriage of justice, i.e. the conviction of one who is actually innocent.
Respondents contend that most of Hoskins' claims have been procedurally defaulted. ECF No. 9, pp. 28-30. According to Respondents, Grounds One, Four, and Seven have not been presented to any state courts, at least in the form in which they are presented to this court. Id., pp. 24, 29 n.3. Therefore, Respondents argue the petition should be dismissed for nonexhaustion unless Hoskins withdraws those claims. Id., p. 24. However, it does not appear that Hoskins has any remedies available to him in the state courts, see id., pp. 22-24 (citing authorities); therefore, he has procedurally defaulted the claims, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(c).
In addition, Respondents state that the post-conviction court found that Grounds Two, Three, and Five had been waived,
Hoskins may overcome the procedural default of his claims by showing (1) both cause for the default and prejudice that would result if this court declines to consider the claims on the merits; or (2) that failure to consider the claim on the merits would result in the conviction of one who is actually innocent. See Murray, 477 U.S. at 495-96; Breard, 134 F.3d at 620. Hoskins does not directly address the cause factor or argue prejudice, although he contends that to the extent his claims were waived, such waiver demonstrates the ineffectiveness of his trial and appellate counsel. ECF No. 1, p. 5; ECF No. 11, p. 3. However, ineffective assistance of defense counsel cannot be considered "some objective factor external to the defense [that] impeded counsel's efforts to raise the claim in state court at the appropriate time." Breard, 134 F.3d at 620; see also Coleman, 501 U.S. at 753 (citing Murray, 477 U.S. at 488) ("We explained clearly that `cause' under the cause and prejudice test must be something external to the petitioner, something that cannot fairly be attributed to him."). Hoskins has not shown cause and prejudice to excuse his procedural default.
With respect to actual innocence, although he states that he is "indeed innocent," ECF No. 13, p. 1, Hoskins has not made a proper showing that declining to consider the Petition will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. "To be credible, such a claim requires petitioner to support his allegations of constitutional error with new reliable evidence—whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence— that was not presented at trial." Schlup, 513 U.S. 298 at 324. Moreover, in order to use actual innocence as a gateway to raising an otherwise defaulted constitutional claim, a petitioner must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that a reasonable juror could not have convicted him in light of the new evidence. See Buckner, 453 F.3d at 199-200. Presumably Hoskins would point to the police reports mentioned above as "new reliable evidence." It cannot be said, however, that the reports were "new," as they existed at the time of Hoskins' trial. Despite his claim that the reports were not provided to the defense, Hoskins has provided no explanation as to why it took him "[a]pproximately 2 years after [his] sentencing," ECF No. 1, p. 3, to file a Maryland Public Information Act request to the Cecil County Sheriff's Department. Nor has he made any showing that even if defense counsel had had the reports at trial, reasonable jurors could not have convicted him in light of those reports. Accordingly, to the extent he makes such an argument, the court rejects Hoskins' actual innocence gateway argument.
Turning to Hoskins' claims in ground nine, he contends that the post-conviction court "erred in its decision in stating this Petitioner waived all of his allegations and in the alternative failed to establish ineffective assistance of counsel." ECF No. 1, p. 5 (internal quotation mark omitted). According to Hoskins, counsel objected during pre-trial proceedings and the trial to some of the issues raised in his post-conviction petition, while others could not have been raised because they did not develop until after he was sentenced. Id. Thus, he states, "issues were not all waived if any at all." Id. Further, he argues that "if all the allegations made by Petitioner were waived, this fact alone would establish the fact(s) that Petitioner's constitutional rights across the board were violated and both trial and appellate counsel were ineffective[.]" Id.
First, as argued by Respondents, it is not at all clear that ground nine states a freestanding federal claim with regard to the finding of waiver. Hoskins takes issue with portions of the court's decision denying post-conviction relief. Errors in state post-conviction proceedings are not subject to federal habeas review. Lawrence v. Branker, 517 F.3d 700, 717 (4
The post-conviction court stated:
ECF No. 9, Ex. 8, pp. 16-17 (alteration in original)(footnotes omitted).
The Circuit Court's determination that the majority of Hoskins' claims had been waived constitutes an adequate and independent state ground for denying relief on those claims. See Coleman, 501 U.S. at 729. In Coleman, the Supreme Court stated that: "This Court will not review a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision of that court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment. This rule applies whether the state law ground is substantive or procedural." Id. (internal citations omitted). In the habeas corpus context, "[t]he doctrine applies to bar federal habeas when a state court declined to address a prisoner's federal claims because the prisoner had failed to meet a state procedural requirement. In these cases, the state judgment rests on independent and adequate state procedural grounds." Id. at 729-30; see also Sharpe, 593 F.3d at 377 (quoting Burket v. Angelone, 208 F.3d 172, 183 (4th Cir. 2000)("In general, `a federal habeas court may not review constitutional claims when a state court has declined to consider their merits on the basis of an adequate and independent state procedural rule.'"); id. ("A federal habeas court does not have license to question a state court's finding of procedural default or to question whether the state court properly applied its own law.")(internal quotation marks omitted).
The Coleman Court held that:
501 U.S. at 750.
As discussed previously, Hoskins has not demonstrated either cause or prejudice for the procedural default of his claims or that failure to consider the claims would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. The court need not repeat that discussion here. Therefore, the court concludes that the post-conviction court's waiver finding constitutes an adequate and independent state ground, and federal review of the claims is barred. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750.
Ground nine also asserts that the post-conviction court erroneously rejected his ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The only specific ineffective representation claims presented here were procedurally defaulted because they were not raised in the application for leave to appeal. To the extent that the merits of those or any other claim actually presented to the post-conviction court need to be addressed, this court finds that the Circuit Court correctly and reasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), to the facts of the case in finding that counsel's conduct was reasonable under the circumstances.
The statutory framework of the federal habeas statute sets forth a "highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings." Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333 n.7 (1997); see also Bell v. Cone, 543 U.S. 447, 455 (2005). The standard is "difficult to meet," and requires courts to give state-court decisions the benefit of the doubt. Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011); see also Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011)("If this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be."). A federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless the state's adjudication on the merits: (1) "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or (2) "resulted in a decision that 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).
A state adjudication is contrary to clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1) where the state court "arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law," or "confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at a result opposite to [the Supreme Court]." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000). Under the "unreasonable application" analysis pursuant to 2254(d)(1), a "state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as `fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101 (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). "[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because [it] concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied established federal law erroneously or incorrectly." Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 773 (2010)(quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 411). "Rather, that application must be objectively unreasonable." Id. Thus, "an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 101 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 410). As recently observed by the Supreme Court "In order for a state court's decision to be an unreasonable application of this court's case law, the ruling must be `objectively unreasonable, not merely wrong; even clear error will not suffice.'" Virginia v. LeBlanc, __ S.Ct. ___, ___, 2017 WL 2507375, * 3 (June 12, 2017) (quoting Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. ____, ____, 135 S.Ct. 1372, 1376, (2015) (per curiam)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, nothing in ground nine merits relief.
For the reasons stated herein, the court will deny and dismiss the petition with prejudice.
A separate Order follows.