Simon v. Uribe

Background

Mar-Nique Simon is a state prisoner serving a 20-year sentence based on a plea agreement. He pleaded no contest to attempted murder and second-degree robbery with use of a deadly weapon. He sought federal review under a law allowing federal courts to review certain state convictions.

Simon’s federal petition asserted three groups of claims: (1) he was incompetent to enter the plea and the plea was not knowing and voluntary; (2) his attorney was ineffective for failing to investigate his competence, request a competency hearing, and explain the plea agreement’s consequences; and (3) his attorney was ineffective for failing to investigate Simon’s age when the crimes occurred and challenge the adult court’s jurisdiction.

Simon previously presented state petitions raising his mental-competency and plea-related claims, but not the particular claim that counsel failed to investigate his age and challenge adult-court jurisdiction. The federal court had previously ruled that the procedural default of the first two claims was excused because Simon’s severe mental impairment justified extending the filing deadline. The court then ordered additional briefing on whether the claims had been exhausted in state court.

Analysis

A state prisoner generally must fairly present each federal claim to the state courts, including the state’s highest court, before the federal court may decide it. Presenting one ineffective-assistance theory does not ordinarily exhaust a different ineffective-assistance theory based on different alleged failures.

The court held that Simon’s claim about investigating his age and challenging adult-court jurisdiction was unexhausted. Although his state petitions mentioned his age and used the word “competency,” the court determined that those petitions addressed mental competency, not age or adult-court jurisdiction. The claim’s language also appeared only in an exhibit to a reply brief and was not discussed in the briefs themselves. The court therefore concluded that the state courts had not received fair notice of that claim.

The court described the exhaustion of Simon’s first two claims as a closer question because those issues had been raised in state court. The state filings appeared to request an evidentiary hearing, but those requests had not led to further proceedings. The court decided that those claims should also return to state court, along with the benefit of the factual record developed in the federal case and any additional record developed in state court.

Disposition

The court remitted all of Simon’s remaining claims to state court for exhaustion and stayed the federal habeas proceedings until the claims had been exhausted. Judge William Alsup directed Simon’s counsel to represent him in state court, seek reimbursement from the state court system, promptly return the matter to state court, and complete the proceedings within ten months. The court also set a status conference for July 9, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. The order did not decide the merits of Simon’s competency, plea, ineffective-assistance, age, or jurisdiction claims.