Lynch v. Davis

Background

Franklin Lynch filed a federal petition containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. In an earlier order, the court rejected his request for expedited summary-judgment review of one or more exhausted claims. The court instructed Lynch either to choose between two possible stay-and-abeyance procedures—one associated with Kelly v. Small and one associated with Rhines v. Weber—or to delete the unexhausted claims and proceed with the exhausted claims.

Lynch then moved to clarify that order. He asked the court to order briefing on whether Martinez v. Ryan permitted him to present his unexhausted claims alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel without first presenting them to the state courts.

Court’s analysis

The court declined to order additional briefing and said the earlier order needed no further clarification. It explained that the Kelly and Rhines stay-and-abeyance procedures were potentially available and that Lynch had been instructed to choose how he wanted to proceed.

The court distinguished exhaustion from procedural default. Exhaustion requires a petitioner to use available state-court remedies before the federal court considers the claims. Procedural default limits a federal court’s ability to reach the merits of a claim that was not properly presented under state procedures. The court stated that showing cause and prejudice for procedural default does not eliminate the separate exhaustion requirement.

The court also rejected Lynch’s understanding of Martinez. It explained that Martinez held that ineffective assistance during an initial state collateral-review proceeding may provide cause for a procedural default of an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. According to the court, Martinez did not eliminate the obligation to exhaust such a claim.

The court found substantial reasons to conclude that Lynch might still have a state-court remedy. It noted that California’s timeliness rule is not inflexible, that ineffective assistance by habeas counsel may provide good cause for delay, and that actual innocence is among the possible exceptions. The court also noted uncertainty about California’s rules governing successive habeas petitions and an actual-innocence exception to those rules.

The court stated that Lynch must reduce his federal petition to claims that are exhausted or cannot be exhausted before the court would address whether any remaining claims were procedurally defaulted and, if so, whether Martinez supplied cause for the default. The court did not consider Lynch’s separate argument that extraordinary delay in California’s post-conviction process excused exhaustion because he raised that argument for the first time in a reply brief.

Disposition

The court denied Lynch’s motion to clarify and declined to order additional briefing on Martinez. The court reiterated that Lynch had potential stay-and-abeyance options that could allow him to exhaust his claims without dismissing the mixed petition. It gave him a final opportunity to file an appropriate motion by February 15, 2021; the respondent’s response was due March 1, 2021, and any reply was due March 8, 2021. The order disposed of Docket No. 68.