Contreras v. Davis

Filing 8

MEMORANDUM OPINION re 5 MOTION to Dismiss by Keith W. Davis. (See Memorandum Opinion For Details). Signed by District Judge James C. Cacheris on 12/11/13. (nhall)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
Alexandria Division
JASON MICHAEL CONTRERAS,
Petitioner,

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v.
KEITH W. DAVIS,
Respondent.

1:13cv772 (JCC)

M E M O R A N D U M

O P I N I O N

Petitioner Jason Michael Contreras (“Petitioner”) has
filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 2254, in which he alleges that he is being held in
state custody in violation of his federal constitutional
rights.

(Pet. [Dkt. 1] at 1-4.)

Petitioner's state custody

arises from a 1997 judgment of conviction entered in Norfolk
Circuit Court, following his guilty plea, on charges of first
degree murder, robbery, use of a firearm in the commission of a
felony, and attempted robbery.

(Pet. at 4.)

Respondent has

filed a Motion to Dismiss and Rule 5 Answer, with a supporting
brief.

[Dkts. 5-7.]

filed a reply.

Despite ample time, Petitioner has not

For the reasons that follow, the petition will

be dismissed.

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I.

Background

The state charges against Petitioner stem from his
involvement in a botched carjacking that resulted in the death
of David Semko.

(Pet. at 13-14.)

It is undisputed that

Petitioner fatally shot Semko as he was walking to his vehicle.
(Pet. at 13.)
On or about October 30, 1996, Petitioner was arrested
and charged with capital murder, robbery, and several related
offenses.

(Pet. at 13-14.)

Although only fifteen years old at

the time of his arrest, Petitioner was certified and charged as
an adult.

(Pet. at 14.)

mandatory life sentence.

Capital murder then carried a
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(Pet. at 15.)

On March 27, 1997, Petitioner pled guilty to first
degree murder along with the aforementioned charges.
4.)

(Pet. at

According to Petitioner, he took this plea deal to avoid

the life sentence associated with a capital murder conviction.
(Pet. at 15.)
On May 20, 1997, the court sentenced Petitioner to
seventy-seven years in prison.
file a direct appeal.

(Pet. at 4.)

(Pet. at 4.)

Petitioner did not

Nevertheless, on June 10,

1999, Petitioner filed a pro se motion for habeas relief in the

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Respondent submits that capital murder did not carry a mandatory life
sentence at the time of Petitioner’s conviction. (Resp’t Br. in Supp. of
Mot. to Dismiss at 20-21.) This is simply incorrect. See Yarbrough v.
Commonwealth, 258 Va. 347, 366-69 (1999). Accordingly, the Court will not
address any of Respondent’s arguments based on this contention.

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Norfolk Circuit Court.

(Pet. at 4.)

court dismissed the motion.

Following a hearing, the

(Pet. at 4.)

Petitioner’s case

remained dormant until he filed the instant petition.
In the habeas petition currently before the Court,
Petitioner alleges that his guilty plea is invalid because it
was induced by the prosecutor’s threat of a now unconstitutional
sentence: mandatory life without parole for a capital murder
charge.

Petitioner’s argument rests upon the recent Supreme

Court case Miller v. Alabama, __ U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 2455
(2012), in which the Court held that mandatory life sentences
for juveniles are unconstitutional.

(Pet. at 3.)

Applying

Miller retroactively, petitioner asks the Court to “discharge[]
[him] from his unconstitutional confinement and restraint and/or
relieve[] [him] from his unconstitutional sentence.”

(Pet. at

32.)
Respondent has moved to dismiss the petition on
grounds that it is time-barred, the claims are unexhausted, and
finally the arguments are without merit.

(Resp’t Br. at 3, 5,

17.)
II.

Analysis

There are several problems with the pending petition,
the most glaring of which is its timeliness.

Under the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”),
state prisoners have a one-year period within which they must
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seek federal habeas review.

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1).

Ordinarily, this limitation period begins to run from the date
on which the state court judgment becomes final. See Gonzalez v.
Thaler, __ U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 641, 652-53 (2012).

However, in

some circumstances, AEPDA expressly permits accrual of the
limitations period from a later date.
2244(d)(1).

See 28 U.S.C. §

Pertinent here, AEDPA allows for a belated

commencement of the limitation period when the Supreme Court
recognizes a new constitutional right.

In that case, the

limitations period runs from the “date on which the
constitutional right asserted was initially recognized by the
Supreme Court, if the right has been newly recognized by the
Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on
collateral review.”

28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(C).

Here, Petitioner’s habeas claims are facially timebarred.

The window to bring a federal challenge to his 1997

conviction expired sometime in 1998 after he opted not to seek
direct review.

See Gonzalez, 132 S. Ct. at 653.

Consequently,

the current petition, filed in 2013, is precluded unless
Petitioner can demonstrate a belated commencement of the
limitations period.

See 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(d)(1)(B)-(D).

Recognizing this impediment, Petitioner appears to
argue that he is entitled to a later accrual date based on the
Supreme Court’s decision in Miller.
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(Pet. at 4.)

Petitioner

maintains that the new rule set forth in Miller is retroactive
to his case and sufficient to qualify for a belated commencement
under § 2244(d)(1)(C).

(Pet. at 4.)

As explained below,

however, the Court is unpersuaded by this position.
First, Petitioner cannot avail himself of a later
accrual date on account of Miller because, on its face, Miller
has no bearing on his case.

The crux of Petitioner’s claim is

that his guilty plea is flawed because the prosecution
threatened to pursue a mandatory life sentence, a punishment
that is now unconstitutional for juvenile offenders such as
Petitioner.

(Pet. at 3.)

In Miller, however, the Supreme Court

ruled “that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme
that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for
juvenile offenders.”

132 S. Ct. at 2469.

Miller did not

address the legitimacy of a guilty plea executed on the threat
of such a sentence.

In essence, Petitioner asks the Court to

read into Miller a rule that any guilty plea executed on the
threat of a lawful sentence later held unconstitutional is
itself invalid.

There is nothing in Miller to suggest this

expanded reading, and the Court declines Petitioner’s invitation
to create such a rule now.
well-established precedent.

Indeed, this position would violate
See Brady v. United States, 397

U.S. 742, 756 (1970) (“[A] voluntary plea of guilty
intelligently made in the light of the then applicable law does
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not become vulnerable because later judicial decisions indicate
that the plea rested on a faulty premise.”); Hudgins v.
Cartledge, C.A. No. 5:10–3282–JFA–KDW, 2012 WL 761673, at *4
(D.S.C. Mar. 8, 2012) (holding that a guilty plea to murder
which resulted in a life sentence was not involuntary where the
prosecutor had threatened a juvenile with a death sentence, the
kind of sentence that was later found unconstitutional under
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)).

Given the issue as

framed by Petitioner, it is apparent that the Miller ruling did
not recognize a right that could potentially lead to relief in
this case.
Moreover, since Petitioner received a sentence of
seventy-seven years, the ruling in Miller, as properly
interpreted, is inapplicable.

As remarked above, Miller

pertains only to juveniles sentenced to life without the
possibility of parole.

See Friedlander v. United States, No.

13–70918, 2013 WL 5614774, at *1 (9th Cir. Oct. 8, 2013)
(“Miller is inapplicable because [defendant] was not sentenced
to life without parole.”).
Nevertheless, even interpreting Miller as Petitioner
suggests, it does not offer relief from the statute of
limitations.

This Court is persuaded that the new rule

announced in Miller is not retroactively applicable to cases on

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collateral review.

As such, Petitioner cannot claim the benefit

of Miller, either in its substance or to make his action timely.
To fall under the statute of limitations exception
Petitioner relies upon, § 2244(d)(1)(C), it must be shown that
(a) the Supreme Court has recognized a new constitutional right,
and (b) the Supreme Court made this right retroactive to cases
on collateral review.

Id.

While Miller undoubtedly created a

new rule as prescribed in this section, see Craig v. Cain, No.
12–30035, 2013 WL 69128, at *1 (5th Cir. Jan. 4, 2013),
retroactivity is absent.
Under long-settled precedent, “the integrity of
judicial review requires that [the Court] apply [newly decided
constitutional rules] to all similar cases pending on direct
review.”

Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 323 (1987).

By

contrast, new constitutional rules are not applicable to those
cases which have become final unless they fall within one of two
familiar exceptions set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288
(1989).

The first exception applies to rules prohibiting

certain primary conduct or prohibiting a certain category of
punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or
offense.

See Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 416 (2004).

These

rules are deemed “substantive” and generally apply retroactively
on collateral review.

Id.

The vast majority of courts to

address this issue have found that the rule set forth in Miller
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does not fall under this rubric, and we agree with their
analysis.

See, e.g., Johnson v. Ponton, Civil Action No. 3:13–

CV–404, 2013 WL 5663068, at *5 (E.D. Va. Oct. 16, 2013).
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s language indicates that it intended
the Miller rule to be procedural, rather than substantive.

See

Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2471 (“Our decision does not categorically
bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime—as, for
example, we did in Roper or Graham.

Instead, it mandates only

that a sentencer follow a certain process—considering an
offender's youth and attendant characteristics—before imposing a
particular penalty.”).
exception to Teague.

Such a holding falls outside the first
See Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348,

354 (2004).
The second Teague exception applies to “watershed
rules of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental fairness
and accuracy of the criminal proceeding” or “implicit in the
concept of ordered liberty.”

Beard, 542 U.S. at 417.

“In

providing guidance as to what might fall within this exception,
[the Court has] repeatedly referred to the rule of Gideon v.
Wainwright, . . . and only to this rule.”
417 (citations omitted).

Beard, 542 U.S. at

The Court further noted that “it

should come as no surprise that we have yet to find a new rule
that falls under the second Teague exception.”

Id.

Although

the rule handed down in Miller plays an important role in our
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jurisprudence, it is far from the “watershed” rule set forth in
Gideon.

Indeed, the rule in Miller “is an outgrowth of the

Court's prior decisions that pertain to individualizedsentencing determinations.

[Thus, it] does not qualify as a

watershed rule of criminal procedure implicating the fundamental
fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.”

Craig, 2013

WL 69128, at *2 (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted).
Given the Miller rule does not qualify under either
Teague exception, it is not retroactively applicable to cases on
collateral review.

Consequently, Petitioner cannot claim the

substantive benefit of Miller or use the case as grounds to
claim this action is timely.

Petitioner has not alleged any

other plausible basis for tolling the limitations period.
Accordingly, the petition is time-barred from federal
consideration and will be dismissed.

Respondent's alternate

arguments regarding procedural default and the merits of
Petitioner's claims consequently need not be addressed. 2

2

It is worth noting that the petition would also fail under Respondent’s
alternate arguments. First, Petitioner’s claims are clearly unexhausted
because he never presented them in any state proceeding.
More importantly,
his position is meritless. It is well-settled that a subsequent change in
the available punishments for a charged crime, standing alone, does not
render a prior guilty plea involuntary. See Hudgins, 2012 WL 761673, at *4
(holding that a guilty plea was not involuntary where the prosecutor had
threatened a juvenile with a death sentence, the kind of punishment that was
later found unconstitutional).

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III.

Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, Respondent's Motion to
Dismiss will be granted and the petition will be dismissed with
prejudice.

An appropriate Order will issue.

December 11, 2013
Alexandria, Virginia

/s/
James C. Cacheris
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

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