White v. Rob St. Andre

Background

Latrail White filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging convictions in Alameda County Superior Court for murder, shooting from a motor vehicle, unlawful firearm activity, and carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person in a city. According to the petition, he was sentenced on October 13, 2022, to life without the possibility of parole, three years in state prison, and one year in county jail. His state appeals were unsuccessful, apart from a limited remand to correct the sentencing minute order and abstract of judgment. The California Supreme Court denied review on July 31, 2024.

White’s federal petition raised three claims: an alleged failure to instruct the jury properly on imperfect self-defense and voluntary manslaughter; an alleged failure to suppress phone records that were the fruits of an unconstitutional search; and ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The court stated that the first two claims were exhausted in state court and the ineffective-assistance claim was not.

Stay standards

A federal court generally may consider a habeas claim only after the petitioner has exhausted available state remedies. Because White’s petition contained both exhausted and unexhausted claims, it was a mixed petition. The court considered two possible procedures for pausing the case: a stay under Rhines v. Weber and an alternative procedure under Kelly v. Small.

Under Rhines, a stay may be appropriate when the petitioner shows good cause for failing to exhaust, the unexhausted claims are potentially meritorious, and the petitioner has not intentionally delayed the litigation. The court determined that White’s inability to exhaust the ineffective-assistance claim while his direct appeal was pending constituted good cause. It also found that the claim was potentially meritorious and that White had not engaged in delaying tactics.

Ruling

The court found that a stay under Rhines was more appropriate and granted White’s motion to stay the federal habeas proceedings. Because it granted the motion under Rhines, it did not address the alternative request under Kelly.

The court ordered the action stayed until 28 days after the California Supreme Court issues its final decision on the unexhausted claim. White must file a state habeas petition within 60 days of the order, if he has not already done so, and notify the federal court that he filed it. If he wants the federal court to consider the unexhausted claim, he must present it to the California Supreme Court and, if he does not obtain relief, file a motion to reopen within 28 days after that court’s decision, stating that all claims in the federal petition have been exhausted.

The clerk was directed to administratively close the case while the stay is in effect. The court explained that administrative closure is only a statistical procedure and has no legal effect; the case may be administratively reopened after White reports that he has exhausted the additional claim.