Haywood v. Minnesota D.O.C

Background

Xavier Alfred Haywood sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 from his Minnesota state-court conviction and 190-month sentence for aiding an offender after the fact in a 2017 murder. He raised four main challenges: judicial bias; admission of alleged hearsay while allegedly preventing him from calling the declarant; the trial court’s sentencing-severity determination; and ineffective assistance of counsel related to denial of a continuance.

United States Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster issued a Report and Recommendation on May 1, 2023, concluding that Haywood was not entitled to relief and recommending that the petition be denied. Haywood’s deadline to object was May 15, 2023, and he filed no objections. Without specific objections, Judge Menendez reviewed the recommendation and record for clear error.

Court’s Analysis

Judicial-bias claim. The court agreed that a challenge to the Minnesota chief judge’s decision not to disqualify the trial judge involved state law and could not be reviewed in a federal proceeding under § 2254. Even if the claim were understood as alleging a due-process violation, the court found no clear evidence that the trial judge was biased or had an interest in the outcome. The jury, rather than the judge, decided the facts at trial. The judicial-bias ground was denied.

Hearsay and witness claim. Noah Baker testified that he heard codefendant Deandre Davenport tell Haywood during a phone call that Davenport, Baker, and Noah King had committed a robbery that went badly. The state trial court treated Davenport as unavailable because he had a pending direct appeal and would likely invoke his privilege against self-incrimination. Haywood claimed that the court admitted Davenport’s statement but prevented him from calling Davenport as a witness. The record did not support that claim: the trial judge had ordered the Minnesota Department of Corrections to transport Davenport to testify, but Haywood chose not to call him. The court agreed that admitting the evidence did not deprive Haywood of a fair trial. This claim was dismissed.

Sentencing-severity claim. Haywood challenged the trial court’s decision to set his crime’s severity level at 10, the highest possible level. The court held that this was an issue of state law and therefore could not be reviewed in a § 2254 proceeding. The sentencing-severity claim was denied.

Ineffective-assistance claim. Haywood argued that his counsel was ineffective in connection with the denial of a request for a trial continuance. The court agreed that the claim was unexhausted because Haywood raised it in the Minnesota Court of Appeals but not in his petition for review to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The court did not rely on possible procedural default because the parties had not been given notice and an opportunity to address that issue.

The court nevertheless denied the claim on the merits, as federal law permits when a state remedy was not exhausted. Applying the deferential standard for ineffective-assistance claims under Strickland v. Washington, the court agreed that Haywood had not shown that his trial counsel’s strategy was so unreasonable that it violated the Sixth Amendment. The court also explained that Haywood’s allegations largely challenged the state trial court’s denial of a continuance, which was a state-law issue not subject to federal habeas review. Haywood’s original retained lawyer had missed several court appearances and had been suspended, while replacement counsel was hired before trial and later sought a continuance. The state trial court denied that request, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

Disposition

Judge Menendez accepted the Report and Recommendation. The court ordered that Haywood’s habeas petition be denied, and it did not grant a certificate of appealability.