Ighovojah v. Pugh

Background

Suvwe Peter Ighovojah pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to aiding and abetting intentional second-degree murder and received a 406-month prison sentence. He alleged that he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence at the middle of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines range, which the parties expected to be 406 months based on a criminal-history score of 5. At sentencing, the state court determined that his criminal-history score was 4 and that the middle of the guideline range was 386 months, but it imposed a 406-month sentence. The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the sentence was authorized under state law.

Ighovojah filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the sentence. He argued that the sentence violated federal law because it was based on an incorrect criminal-history score. Ighovojah represented himself. A magistrate judge recommended denying the petition because applying the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines was a state-law matter not subject to federal habeas review and because Ighovojah had not raised the scoring issue in his state-court appeal. Ighovojah objected, repeating the arguments he had made to the magistrate judge.

Court’s analysis

The district court explained that objections to a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation are generally reviewed de novo, meaning independently, when they specifically identify the challenged portions and provide grounds for the objections. Because Ighovojah repeated his earlier arguments without identifying a specific portion of the recommendation, the court reviewed the recommendation for clear error. The court also interpreted his objections liberally because he was self-represented.

The court held that a claim alleging that the Ramsey County District Court misapplied the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines concerned state law and did not present a federal issue that could be addressed through federal habeas review. The court rejected Ighovojah’s reliance on federal sentencing cases because those cases interpreted the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which differ from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines.

The court further held that, to the extent Ighovojah claimed he was inadequately advised about the consequences of his guilty plea because of the criminal-history-score mistake, he had not exhausted that claim in state court. Exhaustion requires a person seeking federal relief from a state-court sentence to fairly present each claim to the highest state court before seeking federal review. The Minnesota Court of Appeals had not addressed a mistake-based challenge to Ighovojah’s plea.

Disposition

The court found no clear error in the unobjected-to portions of the recommendation and adopted the recommendation. It overruled Ighovojah’s objection, dismissed the petition without prejudice because it failed to state a cognizable, exhausted federal claim, denied the motion identified as docket entry 2, and ordered that no certificate of appealability issue. The opinion does not identify the subject of that motion.