EDWARDS v. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY et al

Filing 24

OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 7/13/2015. (TH, )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

RENE D. EDWARDS,
Petitioner,
v.
The ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, et al,
Respondents.

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Civil Action No. 14-2802 (NLH)

OPINION

APPEARANCES:
Rene D. Edwards, SBI #219205-B/658117
East Jersey State Prison
Lock-BAG-R
Rahway, NJ 07065
Plaintiff Pro Se

HILLMAN, District Judge:
Petitioner Rene D. Edwards (“Petitioner”), a prisoner
confined at East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, New Jersey,
filed the instant petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (“Petition”), challenging a sentence imposed
for a state conviction of criminal sexual contact in 2006. 1

For

the reasons stated below, the Petition is DENIED.

1

The Court previously granted provisional in forma pauperis
status to Petitioner, contingent upon submission of a proper
Affidavit of Poverty and Certification. Having received said

I.

BACKGROUND

On January 11, 2006, Petitioner pled guilty to one count of
criminal sexual contact in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
Division, in Camden County.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Rta1 at 10.)

On

February 17, 2006, He was sentenced, upon the prosecutor’s
recommendation in exchange for the guilty plea, to 5 years of
probation.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Rta2 at 6.)

Petitioner appealed his sexual contact conviction, and it
was affirmed by the Appellate Division on January 10, 2007.
(Dkt. 13, Ex. Ra7.)

The New Jersey Supreme Court denied

certification on June 1, 2007.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Ra8.)

Petitioner

sought post-conviction relief (“PCR”) on July 20, 2007.
13, Ex. Ra9.)

PCR was denied on February 22, 2008.

(Dkt.

(Dkt. 13,

Ex. Ra11.)
On appeal, the Appellate Division reversed and remanded the
PCR application back to the Law Division for failure to fully
explain its denial of Petitioner’s ineffective assistance of
counsel claim.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Ra15 at 2-3.)

On remand, the Law

Division again denied the Petition on January 29, 2010.
13, Ex. Ra16.)

(Dkt.

That decision was affirmed, and the New Jersey

Supreme Court denied certification on September 7, 2012.

(Dkt.

13, Ex. Ra24.)

affidavit from Petitioner, (Dkt. 11), the Court now formally
grants Petitioner in forma pauperis status.
2

In 2010, prior to the expiration of his probation,
Petitioner was convicted for another crime and, on May 17, 2010,
sentenced to five years imprisonment with two and half years of
parole ineligibility.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Rta6 at 38.)

On that same

day, because of the new conviction, Petitioner was found to have
violated the terms of his probation from the 2006 conviction,
and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment with nine months of
parole ineligibility, to be served first before the sentence for
his 2010 conviction.

Id. at 3.

On May 2, 2014, Petitioner filed the instant Petition
challenging his 2006 sentence.

All of Petitioner’s claims

challenge his original plea agreement; Petitioner does not argue
that the 18-month sentence imposed for violating probation was
unconstitutional.
II.

DISCUSSION

Petitioner raises three claims in the Petition. The first
claim alleges that the Camden County prosecutor “lied” at the
plea hearing about the existence of an indictment.
5.)

(Dkt. 4 at

The second and third claims both relate to, Petitioner

alleges, false promises made by the trial court which induced
him to agree to the plea agreement.

Id. at 7-8.

Respondents

argue that Petitioner is procedurally defaulted from raising
these claims in a federal habeas petition because none of these

3

claims were ever raised in the state court, either on direct
appeal or in his PCR application.

The Court agrees.

A petitioner in state custody is required to exhaust state
court remedies before a federal court can consider his habeas
claim.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); Robinson v. Beard, 762 F.3d

316, 328 (3d Cir. 2014).

The exhaustion requirement gives the

state courts “‘the opportunity to pass upon and correct alleged
violations of its prisoners’ federal rights.’”

Collins v. Sec’y

of Pa. Dep’t. of Corr., 742 F.3d 528, 542 (3d. Cir. 2014)
(quoting Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U.S. 27, 29 (2004)); see 28
U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1).

A state prisoner must exhaust the remedies

available in state courts before bringing his federal habeas
petition, unless “there is an absence of available state
corrective process[] or . . . circumstances exist that render
such process ineffective.”

28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(B).

A habeas petitioner exhausts his state court remedies by
presenting his federal constitutional claims at each level of
state court empowered to hear such claims, either on direct
appeal or in post-conviction proceedings.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(c);

Holloway v. Horn, 355 F.3d 707, 714 (3d Cir. 2004) (citing
O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 844-45 (1999)); Robinson,
762 F.3d at 328.

A claim is not only unexhausted but is also

procedurally defaulted if state procedures prohibit the
petitioner from later presenting the unexhausted claim in state
4

court.

Id. (citing Jimenez v. Walker, 458 F.3d 130, 149 (2nd

Cir. 2006)).

“[A] habeas petitioner who has failed to meet the

State's procedural requirements for presenting his federal
claims has deprived the state courts of an opportunity to
address those claims in the first instance.”
Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 451 (2000).

Edwards v.

“We therefore require a

prisoner to demonstrate cause for his state-court default of any
federal claim, and prejudice therefrom, before the federal
habeas court will consider the merits of that claim.”

Id.

Procedural default may be excused and a federal habeas
court may address the claim if the petitioner shows cause and
prejudice for the default or that a fundamental miscarriage of
justice will occur if the claim is not addressed.

Collins, 742

F.3d at 542, n.8 (citing Jimenez, 458 F.3d at 149) (citing
Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 495-96 (1986)).

“The existence

of cause for procedural default must ordinarily turn on whether
the prisoner can show that some objective factor external to the
defense impeded counsel’s efforts to comply with the State’s
procedural rule.”

Murray, 477 U.S. at 488.

The prejudice

required to excuse procedural default is more than the
possibility of prejudice, but that the trial errors “worked to
his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting the entire
trial with error of constitutional dimensions.”

5

Albrecht v.

Horn, 485 F.3d 103, 124, n.7 (3d Cir. 2007) (quoting Murray, 477
U.S. at 494)).
Procedural default may also be excused where a “fundamental
miscarriage of justice” will occur if the habeas court does not
address the merits of the claim.
722, 750 (1991).

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S.

“To establish a miscarriage of justice

excusing a procedural default a habeas petitioner must
‘persuade[] the district court that, in light of the new
evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find
him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’”

Cristin v. Brennan, 281

F.3d 404, 420 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S.
298, 329 (1995)).

Thus, “[a]n allegation of ‘actual innocence’

if credible, is one such ‘miscarriage of justice’ that enables
courts to hear the merits” of otherwise procedurally defaulted
habeas claims.

Hubbard v. Pinchak, 378 F.3d 333, 338 (3d Cir.

2004).
Here, none of the three claims raised in the Petition was
raised in state court.

On direct appeal, Petitioner raised only

one claim, arguing that the sentence he received was
inappropriate.

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Rta3 at 70; Ex. Ra7.)

In his

brief to the New Jersey Supreme Court seeking certification for
his PCR denial, Petitioner also raised only one claim, that his
trial counsel was ineffective for failing to inform him of the
Megan’s Law consequences of his plea.
6

(Dkt. 13, Ex. Ra22, at

12.)

Neither of these two claims are related to any of the

claims that Petitioner is raising in the instant Petition.
New Jersey Court Rules specifically state that “[a]ny
ground for relief not raised in the proceedings resulting in the
conviction . . . or in any appeal taken in any such proceedings
is barred from assertion [in PCR review].”

R. 3:22-4(a).

Because Petitioner never raised these claims on direct appeal,
even if Petitioner had raised them on PCR review, the PCR court
would have been prohibited from considering them under R. 3:224(a).

State v. McQuaid, 147 N.J. 464, 483 (1997) (“A defendant

ordinarily must pursue relief by direct appeal, [] and may not
use post-conviction relief to assert a new claim that could have
been raised on direct appeal”).

New Jersey courts have

routinely upheld and enforced R. 3:22-4(a) on PCR review.

See

State v. Hayes, Indictment No. 05-04-533, 2014 WL 3881511, at *3
(N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Aug. 8, 2014); State v. Edmisten,
Indictment No. 08-05-01170, 2014 WL 3819047, at *8 (N.J. Super.
Ct. App. Div. Aug. 5, 2014); State v. Berta, Indictment No. 8308-1146, 2014 WL 2515693, at *4-5 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div.
June 5, 2014).

As such, it would be futile for the Court to

allow Petitioner to exhaust these claims in state court; if
Petitioner goes back to state court to raise these claims on a
second PCR application, the state court is likely to deny the
claims as procedurally barred.
7

Petitioner also alleges no reason or cause for his failure
to raise these claims in the state courts, nor argues that the
state process would have been ineffective.

Indeed, nothing in

the Petition or in the record suggests that Petitioner could not
have raised these issues on direct appeal, as the alleged
unconstitutional conduct all occurred during Petitioner’s plea
hearing.

The Court also finds that there is no prejudice or

miscarriage of justice in barring Petitioner from asserting
these claims; Petitioner has not alleged any error that would
have “infected the entire trial with error of constitutional
dimensions,” Albrecht, 485 F.3d at 124 n.7, nor presented any
credible argument of his actual innocence.

As such, the Court

finds that Petitioner is procedurally barred from asserting
these claims on federal habeas review, and the Petition is
denied.
III. CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY
Finally, the Court denies a certificate of appealability.
AEDPA provides that an appeal may not be taken to the court of
appeals from a final order in a § 2254 proceeding unless a judge
issues a certificate of appealability on the ground that "the
applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a
constitutional right." 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).

In Slack v.

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000), the United States Supreme
Court held that “[w]hen the district court denies a habeas
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petition on procedural grounds without reaching the prisoner's
underlying constitutional claim, a COA should issue when the
prisoner shows, at least, that jurists of reason would find it
debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the
denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason
would find it debatable whether the district court was correct
in its procedural ruling."
Here, the Court denies a certificate of appealability
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c) because jurists of reason would
not find it debatable that dismissal of the Petition is correct.
Iv.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, the Petition is DENIED. 2

At Camden, New Jersey

Dated:

s/ Noel L. Hillman
United States District Judge

July 13, 2015

2

Because the Court is denying the Petition, Respondents’
Motion to Seal, (Dkt. 14), is dismissed as moot.
9