Sarabia v. Blades et al

Filing 16

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER DISMISSING CASE granting 8 MOTION to Dismiss Motion for Summary Dismissal; granting 12 MOTION for Enlargement of Time to Respond. This action is DISMISSED with prejudice. The Court does not find its resolution of this habeas matter to be reasonably debatable, and a certificate of appealability will not issue. Signed by Judge Edward J. Lodge. (caused to be mailed to non Registered Participants at the addresses listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) by (cjs)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO

HERIBERTO F. SARABIA,
Petitioner,

Case No. 1:14-cv-00313-EJL
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND
ORDER

v.
RANDY BLADES, BRENT REINKE,
and LAWRENCE WASDEN,
Respondents.

Pending before the Court is Petitioner Heriberto F. Sarabia’s Petition for Writ of
Habeas Corpus. (Dkt. 1.) Respondent has filed a Motion for Summary Dismissal, and
Petitioner has filed a response.1 (Dkt. 8, 14.) Having carefully reviewed the record,
including the state court record, the Court finds that the parties have adequately presented
the facts and legal arguments in the briefs and record and that oral argument is
unnecessary. See D. Idaho L. Civ. R. 7.1(d). Accordingly, the Court enters the following
Order granting Respondents’ Motion and dismissing all of Petitioner’s claims with
prejudice as procedurally defaulted.

The Court will grant Petitioner’s Motion for Enlargement of Time (Dkt. 12) to Respond to
Respondents’ Motion for Summary Dismissal. Petitioner’s response (Dkt. 14) is deemed timely.

1

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 1

BACKGROUND
The Court takes judicial notice of the records from Petitioner’s state court
proceedings, lodged by Respondents on February 12, 2015. (Dkt. 10.) See Fed. R. Evid.
201(b); Dawson v. Mahoney, 451 F.3d 550, 551 (9th Cir. 2006).
Petitioner was convicted by a jury in the Fourth Judicial District in Ada County,
Idaho, of three counts of lewd conduct with a minor under sixteen years of age, and one
count of injury to a child, in violation of Idaho Code §§ 18-1508 and 18-1501(1). (State’s
Lodging D-3 at 1.) He was sentenced to concurrent unified sentences of life in prison with
ten years fixed on each of the lewd conduct counts, and ten years in prison with four years
fixed on the injury to a child count. (State’s Lodging B-3 at 1.)
On direct appeal, Petitioner claimed that the trial court abused its discretion in
imposing excessive sentences. (State’s Lodging B-1.) The Idaho Court of Appeals
affirmed. (State’s Lodging B-3.) The Idaho Supreme Court accepted Petitioner’s untimely
petition for review, which it later denied. (State’s Lodging B-7 & B-8.)
Petitioner then filed a state petition for postconviction relief, alleging three broad
categories of claims: (1) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; (2) ineffective assistance of
direct appeal counsel; and (3) prosecutorial misconduct. These claims contained numerous
sub-claims. (State’s Lodging C-1 at 8-14.) The state district court appointed counsel for
Petitioner and ordered an evidentiary hearing. (State’s Lodging C-1 at 51; C-2 at 6-8.)
At the evidentiary hearing, Petitioner submitted evidence with respect only to three
sub-claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel: (1) counsel failed to investigate and
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 2

present the testimony of the victim’s biological father; (2) counsel failed to investigate and
present the testimony of Petitioner’s niece; and (3) counsel failed to allow Petitioner to
plead guilty on the injury to a child count and go to trial only on the lewd conduct counts.
(State’s Lodging C-3.)
Following the evidentiary hearing, the state postconviction court denied these three
claims on the merits. The trial court (1) held that the victim’s biological father and
Petitioner’s niece had no material testimony to offer, and (2) found incredible Petitioner’s
testimony that he asked to plead guilty to the injury to a child count. (State’s Lodging C-1
at 136-40.) With respect to the other claims included in Petitioner’s postconviction
application, the court noted that “the only issue that evidence was offered on [at the
evidentiary hearing] was the failure to call [the victim’s father and Petitioner’s niece] and
some error with respect to [the injury to a child count].” (Id. at 137.) Relying on Loveland
v. State, 120 P.3d 751 (Idaho Ct. App. 2005)—which held that a court need not accept as
true the allegations in a postconviction petition if an evidentiary hearing is held—the court
dismissed “all other claims” in Petitioner’s postconviction application. (State’s Lodging
C-1 at 137.)
On appeal from the denial of postconviction relief, Petitioner argued only that the
state district court erred by “fail[ing] to rule on all of [Petitioner’s] claims in
post-conviction.” (State’s Lodging D-1 at 3.) In so arguing, Petitioner relied on an Idaho
Supreme Court decision for the proposition that a court “abuses its discretion and creates
reversible error when it fails to issue a ruling on matters before it.” (Id., citing Dawson v.
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 3

Cheyovich Family Trust, 234 P.3d 699, 704 (Idaho 2010).) Petitioner did not cite a single
federal case or federal constitutional provision in his appellate briefing, nor did Petitioner
argue that the trial court erred in rejecting, on the merits, his ineffective assistance claims
regarding the two potential witnesses and the plea issue on the injury to a child count. The
Idaho Court of Appeals noted that Petitioner “posit[ed] no error with respect to the district
court’s dispositions of these three claims,” held that the lower court properly dismissed the
remaining claims for failure to support them with evidence at the evidentiary hearing, and
rejected Petitioner’s argument that the lower court had not actually ruled on all of
Petitioner’s postconviction claims. (State’s Lodging D-3 at 2, 3.)
Petitioner requested that the Idaho Supreme Court review the decision of the court
of appeals, again arguing only that the state district court failed to rule on all of his
claims—Petitioner did not assert any error with respect to the claims decided on the merits
by the state district court. (State’s Lodging D-5.) The Idaho Supreme Court denied review.
(State’s Lodging D-6.)
In the instant federal habeas petition, Petitioner asserts numerous claims and
sub-claims, all of which allege ineffective assistance of trial counsel, ineffective assistance
of direct appeal counsel, or prosecutorial misconduct. (Dkt. 1; Dkt. 4 at 3.)
DISCUSSION
1.

Standards of Law
Rule 4 of the Habeas Rules authorizes the Court to summarily dismiss a petition for

writ of habeas corpus or claims contained in the petition when “it plainly appears from the
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face of the petition and any attached exhibits that the petitioner is not entitled to relief in the
district court.”
A habeas petitioner must exhaust his or her remedies in the state courts before a
federal court can grant relief on constitutional claims. O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S.
838, 842 (1999). To do so, the petitioner must invoke one complete round of the state’s
established appellate review process, fairly presenting all constitutional claims to the state
courts so that they have a full and fair opportunity to correct alleged constitutional errors at
each level of appellate review. Id. at 845. In a state that has the possibility of discretionary
review in the highest appellate court, like Idaho, the petitioner must have presented all of
his federal claims at least in a petition seeking review before that court. Id. at 847. “Fair
presentation” requires a petitioner to describe both the operative facts and the legal theories
upon which the federal claim is based. Gray v. Netherland, 518 U.S. 152, 162-63 (1996).
The mere similarity between a federal claim and a state law claim, without more,
does not satisfy the requirement of fair presentation. See Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364,
365-66 (1995) (per curiam). General references in state court to “broad constitutional
principles, such as due process, equal protection, [or] the right to a fair trial,” are likewise
insufficient. See Hiivala v. Wood, 195 F.3d 1098, 1106 (9th Cir. 1999). The law is clear
that, for proper exhaustion, a petitioner must bring his federal claim before the state court
by “explicitly” citing the federal legal basis for his claim. Lyons v. Crawford, 232 F.3d 666,
669 (9th Cir. 2000), as amended, 247 F.3d 904 (9th Cir. 2001).
When a habeas petitioner has not fairly presented a constitutional claim to the
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 5

highest state court, and it is clear that the state court would now refuse to consider it
because of the state’s procedural rules, the claim is said to be procedurally defaulted. Gray,
518 U.S. at 161-62. Procedurally defaulted claims include those within the following
circumstances: (1) when a petitioner has completely failed to raise a claim before the Idaho
courts; (2) when a petitioner has raised a claim, but has failed to fully and fairly present it
as a federal claim to the Idaho courts; and (3) when the Idaho courts have rejected a claim
on an adequate and independent state procedural ground. Id.; Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S.
27, 32 (2004); Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991).
If a petitioner’s claim is procedurally defaulted, a federal district court cannot hear
the merits of the claim unless the petitioner meets one of two exceptions: (1) a showing of
actual innocence, which means that a miscarriage of justice will occur if the constitutional
claim is not heard in federal court, Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 329 (1995); or (2) a
showing of adequate legal cause for the default and prejudice arising from the default,
Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986).
2.

All of Petitioner’s Claims Are Procedurally Defaulted
The simplest manner in which to resolve the exhaustion and procedural default

status of Petitioner’s federal claims is to review which claims were raised and addressed on
the merits in the state court appellate proceedings.
The only claim raised by Petitioner during his direct appeal is that his sentences
were excessive under Idaho state law. (State’s Lodging B-1.) During Petitioner’s state
postconviction proceedings, the only claim Petitioner raised to the Idaho Court of Appeals
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and the Idaho Supreme Court is that the state district court erred, as a matter of Idaho state
law, by failing to rule on all of Petitioner’s postconviction claims. (State’s Lodging D-3 &
D-5.)
But Petitioner does not assert either claim in the instant petition. Indeed, such
claims, based on state law, would be dismissed as non-cognizable on federal habeas
review. Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991) (“[I]t is not the province of a federal
habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions. In conducting
habeas review, a federal court is limited to deciding whether a conviction violated the
Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.”). Petitioner did not raise any of his
federal habeas claims in his state appellate briefing, and it is now too late for him to do so.
See Gray, 518 U.S. at 161-62. Therefore, Petitioner’s claims are procedurally defaulted.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, all of the claims included in the instant habeas petition
are procedurally defaulted. Because Petitioner does not contend that cause and prejudice or
actual innocence excuses the default (see Dkt. 14), the entire Petition is subject to summary
dismissal with prejudice.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED:
1.

Petitioner’s Motion for Enlargement of Time to Respond to Respondents’
Motion for Summary Dismissal (Dkt. 12) is GRANTED.

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2.

Respondents’ Motion for Summary Dismissal (Dkt. 8) is GRANTED, and
this action is DISMISSED with prejudice.

3.

The Court does not find its resolution of this habeas matter to be reasonably
debatable, and a certificate of appealability will not issue. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c); Habeas Rule 11. If Petitioner wishes to appeal, he must file a
timely notice of appeal with the Clerk of Court. Petitioner may seek a
certificate of appealability from the Ninth Circuit by filing a request in that
court.

DATED: July 13, 2015

_________________________
Edward J. Lodge
United States District Judge

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