HURST v. BRANKER
Filing
48
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER denying 29 Motion to Stay signed by MAG/JUDGE L. PATRICK AULD on 5/18/11. (Wilson, JoAnne)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
JASON WAYNE HURST,
Petitioner,
v.
GERALD BRANKER, Warden, Central
Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina,
Respondent.
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1:10CV725
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This case comes before the Court on Petitioner’s Motion to
Stay and Hold in Abeyance Petitioner’s Habeas Corpus Petition
(Docket Entry 29).
Because Petitioner has not presented a sound
basis for such a stay, the Court will deny the instant Motion.
BACKGROUND
Petitioner received a death sentence in the North Carolina
Superior Court in Randolph County following his conviction for
first-degree murder; the North Carolina Supreme Court thereafter
affirmed both that conviction and sentence.
360 N.C. 181, 624 S.E.2d 309 (2006).
See State v. Hurst,
On June 25, 2007, Petitioner
(through counsel) filed a Motion for Appropriate Relief in the
state trial court.
(Docket Entries 2-1, 3-1.)
He amended that
motion (again through counsel) on September 19, 2007.
(Docket
Entry 5-1.) On February 4, 2008, the North Carolina Superior Court
in Randolph County denied all but one of the claims in Petitioner’s
foregoing Motion for Appropriate Relief as amended.
6-1.)
(Docket Entry
Petitioner (again through counsel) then filed a further
amendment to his state collateral challenge on September 16, 2008.
(Docket Entry 6-2.)
By order dated December 16, 2008, the state
trial court denied all of Petitioner’s remaining collateral claims.
(Docket Entry 6-3.)
Petitioner sought further review in the North
Carolina Supreme Court by petition dated June 22, 2009, which that
court denied by order dated June 16, 2010.
See State v. Hurst, 364
N.C. 244, 698 S.E.2d 664 (2010).
On August 11, 2009, during the pendency of Petitioner’s
request for collateral review in the North Carolina Supreme Court,
the State of North Carolina enacted the Racial Justice Act (“RJA”).
See N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 15A-2010 et seq.
After the North Carolina
Supreme Court denied further review of his above-referenced (twiceamended) Motion for Appropriate Relief, Petitioner filed a new
Motion for Appropriate Relief to assert claims under the RJA in the
North Carolina Superior Court in Randolph County on August 10,
2010.
(See Docket Entry 30 at 3.)
On September 20, 2010, prior to
any action by the state trial court on his RJA-based Motion for
Appropriate
Relief
(see
id.),
Petitioner
(through
counsel)
commenced the instant federal case by filing a Petition under 28
U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his conviction and sentence (Docket Entry
1).
Respondent answered and moved for summary judgment.
Entries 16, 17.)
(Docket
Petitioner responded to Respondent’s summary
judgment motion and filed the instant Motion seeking a stay of this
case.
(Docket Entries 22-24, 29.)
DISCUSSION
Petitioner has requested a stay of the instant federal case
while he litigates his claim(s) under the RJA in the state courts
-2-
of North Carolina.
In his brief in support of that request,
Petitioner made two general arguments:
1) if he succeeds on his RJA claim(s) in state court, his
challenges to his sentence in the instant federal case will become
moot and thus principles of comity warrant a stay (Docket Entry 30
at 4); and
2) “if this Court declines to grant a stay and abeyance and
moves forward prior to the resolution of the RJA motion, the
Petitioner may lose his opportunity for federal review of any
unexhausted evidence” (id. at 5 (emphasis added)).
As support for his first argument, Petitioner cites the
principle from Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 43 (1971), that
“‘the National Government will fare best if the States and their
institutions are left free to perform their separate functions in
their separate ways.’”
(Docket Entry 30 at 4-5.)
“Younger
abstention is a doctrine requiring federal courts to refrain from
interfering with ongoing state judicial proceedings that implicate
important state interests.”
Life Partners, Inc. v. Morrison, 484
F.3d 284, 300 (4th Cir. 2007) (emphasis added). Petitioner has not
alleged, much less shown, how resolution of the instant federal
case will “interfer[e]” with his litigation of his RJA claim(s) in
the North Carolina state court system.
Accordingly, the Court
cannot find that Younger requires a stay in this case.1
1
Another district court recently reached the same conclusion. Forte v.
Branker, No. 5:09-HC-2054-FL, slip op. at 2-3 (E.D.N.C. Oct. 21, 2009)
(unpublished) (“Petitioner, citing to Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 43 (1971),
requests that as a matter of comity the court hold his habeas petition in
abeyance [while he litigates a claim under the RJA in state court]. . . .
[P]etitioner’s pursuit of relief under the [RJA] does not present circumstances
-3-
Petitioner also quotes Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269, 273-74
(2005), for the proposition that “‘one court should defer action on
causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another
sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the
litigation have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter.’”
(Docket Entry 30 at 4.)
This argument, however, presupposes that
this
will
Court
eventually
evaluate
the
RJA
claim(s)
that
Petitioner has raised in state court, a presupposition for which
Petitioner’s brief provides no support.
(See id.)
In fact, as
Respondent has noted (see Docket Entry 34 at 2), because the RJA
affords Petitioner rights under North Carolina law, “[t]he state
court’s resolution of [his] RJA claim will not be cognizable in
federal court.
Thus, if the state court rejects [his] RJA claim,
he cannot seek federal review of that state-law question in this
proceeding.” Harden v. Branker, No. 3:06CV248, 2011 WL 1103801, at
*2 (W.D.N.C. Mar. 23, 2011) (unpublished) (internal citations
omitted) (citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991), in
declining
to
hold
federal
habeas
action
in
abeyance
pending
exhaustion of petitioner’s RJA claim in state court); see also
Kandies v. Branker, No. 1:99CV764, 2011 WL 1328860, at *13 n.5
(M.D.N.C. Apr. 5, 2011) (agreeing that this Court “is not the
proper forum for a claim under the RJA”).
under which stay and abeyance of the habeas petition is warranted. . . . This
court’s consideration of petitioner’s habeas petition has no bearing upon, and
will in no way infringe upon, the state courts’ future consideration of any
motion petitioner may file under the [RJA].”).
-4-
Nor does any possible conservation of this Court’s resources
that might arise if Petitioner prevails on an RJA claim in state
court warrant the granting of a stay on more general prudential
grounds (apart from the specific bases for abstention and abeyance
identified in Younger and Rhines, respectively).
Petitioner’s
claim(s) under the RJA relate only to the validity of his sentence
and thus this Court still will have to review the portions of the
instant Petition that challenge Petitioner’s conviction, regardless
of the outcome of the RJA-related proceedings in state court.
Moreover, “[s]taying a federal habeas petition frustrates [the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996’s] objective
of encouraging finality by allowing a petitioner to delay the
resolution of the federal proceedings.”
Rhines, 544 U.S. at 277.
The certain cost to this statutorily-enshrined interest in prompt
completion
of
federal
review
that
would
result
from
a
stay
outweighs the contingent, marginal benefit in reduced expenditure
of federal judicial resources that would flow from a stay.
See
generally Forte v. Branker, No. 5:09-HC-2054-FL, slip op. at 2-3
(E.D.N.C. Oct. 21, 2009) (unpublished) (“[B]ecause a stay and
abeyance has the potential to frustrate the objectives of [the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996], ‘stay and
abeyance should be available only in limited circumstances.’ . . .
[I]nsofar as petitioner generally argues a stay should be granted
because relief under the [RJA] will moot his request for relief
from his death sentences in his habeas petition, the court finds
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this to be an inadequate basis to stay his habeas petition.”
(quoting Rhines, 544 U.S. at 276)).
Petitioner’s second ground for a stay, i.e., that, “if this
Court . . . moves forward prior to the resolution of the RJA
motion, [he] may lose his opportunity for federal review of any
unexhausted evidence” (Docket Entry 30 at 5 (emphasis added)),
similarly lacks merit.
Indeed, the flaw in Petitioner’s foregoing
argument appears on the very face of his brief, in which he
contends “that a stay is justified when a petitioner ‘runs the risk
of forever losing his opportunity for any federal review of his
unexhausted
(emphasis
claims’”
added)
(id.
(internal
(quoting
brackets
Rhines,
544
omitted)).
U.S.
at
275)
Simply
put,
Petitioner’s own quotation from Rhines reflects that the United
States Supreme Court endorsed a stay of federal habeas proceedings
only to allow a petitioner to exhaust “claims” (not “evidence”) in
state court to avoid forfeiting the opportunity to present such
“claims” (not “evidence”) in federal court.
For reasons noted above, see supra, pp. 4-5, Petitioner has no
right to federal review of his RJA “claims” (and thus he faces no
risk of forfeiting federal review of said claims).
The language
from Rhines on which Petitioner relies thus does not support a stay
in this case. Moreover, Petitioner’s brief cited no authority that
a federal court must stay consideration of a habeas petition to
allow completion of state proceedings as to state claims, so that
a petitioner later may utilize “evidence” gathered in such state
proceedings to litigate federal claims in federal court.
-6-
(See
Docket Entry 30 at 5.)
Magistrate
Judge
located
Nor has the undersigned United States
any
such
authority.
Without
such
authority and in the absence of circumstances as to which the
Supreme Court approved a stay in Rhines, the Court declines to stay
proceedings in this case.
See generally Rhines, 544 U.S. at 276
(holding that “stay and abeyance should be available only in
limited circumstances”).2
CONCLUSION
Petitioner has failed to show that this Court should defer
consideration of his instant Petition until after he completes
litigation in state court of his claims under the RJA.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Petitioner’s Motion to Stay and
Hold in Abeyance Petitioner’s Habeas Corpus Petition (Docket Entry
29) is DENIED.
/s/ L. Patrick Auld
L. Patrick Auld
United States Magistrate Judge
May 18, 2011
2
In his reply brief, Petitioner argues for the first time that his RJAbased Motion for Appropriate Relief “raises federal constitutional claims under
the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution . . . [and thus that his] RJA claims are cognizable in federal court
in that they raise federal constitutional claims.”
(Docket Entry 40 at 2.)
Petitioner’s reply brief offers no explanation for his failure to present this
argument in his initial brief. (See id.) Nor has Petitioner explained why he
failed to assert any such federal constitutional claims in his instant Petition.
(See id.) In the absence of any such explanations, the Court finds no basis to
stay this case while Petitioner litigates his RJA claim(s) in state court. The
Court similarly finds unpersuasive Petitioner’s contention that the instant
federal case should not proceed because “[t]here is also a possibility that the
state court’s adjudication of [his] RJA claims could give rise to a federal due
process claim.” (Id. at 2.) This Court will not delay adjudication of this case
based on an assumption that another court will violate the Constitution.
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