MICHAEL R. MERZ, Magistrate Judge.
This capital habeas corpus case is again before the Court on the question of whether the Petition must be transferred to the Sixth Circuit as a second-or-successive habeas application. After the Magistrate Judge filed a Supplemental Report in support of transfer, Petitioner again objected (ECF No. 23). The Warden as responded (ECF No. 25) and Judge Rose has recommitted the matter (ECF No. 24).
Wogenstahl fights very hard against transfer. At this point in time he has filed 156 pages of briefing on the issue. This is consistent with the behavior of other counsel from the Ohio Public Defender Death Penalty Department and the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Public Defender for this District. These counsel refuse to acknowledge the dilemma this Court faces in dealing with second-in-time habeas petitions: if we conclude the applications are not second-orsuccessive and litigate them, probably for a number of years, and the circuit court disagrees on an eventual merits appeal, the time in district court will have been wasted, because we will have acted without subject matter jurisdiction and everything we have done will be void. Franklin v. Jenkins, 839 F.3d 465 (6
On the other hand, if this Court erroneously decides the Petition is second-or-successive, the Sixth Circuit will quickly correct that error and dismiss the transfer as unnecessary. Jackson v. Sloan, 800 F.3d 260, 261 (6
In sum, denial of transfer risks several years of intense litigation which will be useless if the circuit court decides transfer was required. On the other hand, transferring the case in error gets quickly corrected by the circuit court.
This issue is adequately dealt with in the Supplemental Report (ECF No. 22). The Magistrate Judge agrees the standard of review is de novo.
Wogenstahl argues his second-in-time Petition is not an abuse of the writ and criticizes the Magistrate Judge for not applying the abuse of the writ doctrine (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1299-1300).
The Supplemental Report noted that the Sixth Circuit has employed the abuse of the writ doctrine in analyzing second-or-successive questions, but noted that § 2244(b), adopted as part of the AEDPA, "does not codify the old abuse-of-the-writ doctrine." (ECF No. 22, PageID 1291.) There is new law on this question since the Supplemental Report was filed. In In re: Raymond Tibbetts, supra, the Sixth Circuit again noted that the abuse of writ doctrine is generally applied to the second-or-successive issue. Id. at *5. It went on, however, to reject Tibbetts' assertion that his lethal injection claims were newly-arising.
Wogenstahl's claims are not lethal injection grounds for relief, but purport to be for suppression of favorable evidence under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)(First Claim); presentation of perjured testimony under Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959)(Second Claim); and ineffective assistance of trial counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)(Claim Three).
Wogenstahl objects that a number of courts have acknowledged that "newly discovered Brady Material may create a new claim" (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1301, citing Carter v. Mitchell, 828 F.3d 455, 467 (6
In Carter the Sixth Circuit affirmed this Court's denial of a stay and abey order to allow Carter to "exhaust" new evidence. It specifically disclaimed any adoption of the Ninth Circuit's Gonzalez decision. 829 F.3d at 467. It specifically did not find that Carter had a newly-arising Brady claim based on his new evidence.
In Bowling the Sixth Circuit found that the petitioner could not have brought his Atkins v. Virginia claim while his first petition was pending because the factual basis for the claim — the Kentucky courts' ruling on his Atkins claim — did not exist when he filed his first petition. Analyzing his five claims individually, it found three were not second or successive and two claims were. The opinion contains no criticism at all of the district court's decision to transfer what turned out to be a mixed petition. In contrast, of course, if the district court had retained jurisdiction and adjudicated Claims 2 and 5 which were found in Bowling to be second-orsuccessive, its eventual judgment on those claims would have been void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Wogenstahl claims in part that his claims are newly-arising because the Department of Justice concluded in August 2013 that some of the expert testimony at his trial "exceeds the limits of the science." (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1302-04.) He argues that the State should have known this at the time of trial in 1991. No authority is offered for that proposition. It is certainly true that a great deal of progress has been made in forensic science in the twentyplus years since Wogenstahl was tried.
The Magistrate Judge has no quarrel with Wogenstahl's claim, accepted by the Ohio courts, that he pursued relief on the basis of the new science with due diligence (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1303-04). But § 2244(b)(2)(B) allows the circuit court (and not this Court) to consider proven diligence in fact gathering only if
Wogenstahl does not purport to meet this standard.
Wogenstahl's fourth subpart relies on Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), and Trevino v. Thaler, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 185 L. Ed. 2d 1044 (2013). In Martinez the Supreme Court held:
132 S. Ct. at 1318-1319. In Trevino the Court extended Martinez to the Texas system. The Sixth Circuit has not yet decided whether Martinez and Trevino apply to the Ohio system of litigating ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims, but this Court "assumes they do" (Supplemental Report ECF No. 22, PageID 1295). Despite that assumption, the Supplemental Report found that Martinez and Trevino did not support relief here. Id.
In his Objections, Wogenstahl points to an affidavit of post-conviction counsel, Joseph Edwards, stating he had neither time nor funds to hire a psychologist, a forensic pathologist, a crime scene expert, or an eyewitness identification expert. The Magistrate Judge fails to understand the relevance of these facts. Martinez and Trevino provide a non-constitutional exception to the holding in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991), that ineffective assistance in post-conviction proceedings will not excuse a procedural default; the exception applies only to substantial claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Wogenstahl pleads an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim, with many, many sub-claims, as his Third Claim for Relief in this second-in-time petition (ECF No. 1-1, PageID 148-64). Martinez and Trevino would be applicable, if at all, to excuse post-conviction counsel Edwards' failure to raise any of these sub-claims in post-conviction.
Wogenstahl also criticizes the Supplemental Report for not giving weight to the Affidavit of Gregory Meyers, Assistant Ohio Public Defender who became habeas counsel to Wogenstahl while his first petition was pending a report and recommendations on the merits (Affidavit, ECF No. 19-1). Most of the Affidavit reports Meyers' opinion of the performance of his habeas cocounsel, John Gideon. If Meyers' statements are accepted as true,
Wogenstahl's present counsel posit the finding of exhibits now tendered in support of his Third Claim for Relief at a time when his first habeas petition was on appeal and assert that he would have had no options at that point, that his "claims would have been [procedurally] defaulted until Martinez and Trevino were decided." (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1310.) Wogenstahl could have presented the new evidence to the Sixth Circuit and asked for a remand and an opportunity to reopen the judgment; if that relief had been granted, there would be no second-or-successive question in the case.
In support of the proposition that his ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim is substantial, Wogenstahl points to the February 13, 2015, Affidavit of Carl J. Schmidt (ECF No. 23, PageID 1328-31) and March 13, 2014, report of Forensic Science Consultant Gary Rini (ECF No. 23, PageID 1332-1338), and asks "How can it be that trial counsel (and in turn postconviction counsel) were not ineffective for failing to bring forth evidence that contradicted the State's entire theory at trial?" (Objections, ECF No. 23, PageID 1311.) Whether or not there is a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is not at issue at this juncture in the case. Martinez and Trevino in no way speak to the second-or-successive question; they only address ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel as an excusing cause to allow an otherwise defaulted ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim to be presented. The argument about Martinez and Trevino is a red herring at this point in the case — Wogenstahl has presented no authority even suggesting those cases can help a habeas petitioner avoid the second-orsuccessive bar.
Wogenstahl's Objections are unpersuasive. The Court should overruled them and transfer this case to the Sixth Circuit for a determination under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) of whether or not it can proceed.