Cepeda v. Morton, Jr.

Background

David Cepeda moved to stay his federal petition for habeas corpus so he could pursue a state-court claim for ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. The proposed claim alleged that appellate counsel should have argued that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the trial court’s handling of a jury note seeking clarification of the charges and its failure to reread the instruction on circumstantial evidence.

Legal standard

The court explained that a federal court generally may not decide a habeas petition containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. Under the stay-and-abeyance procedure, a court may pause the federal case so the petitioner can present unexhausted claims to the state court first. To obtain that relief, the petitioner must show good cause for the earlier failure to exhaust, that the claims are potentially meritorious, and that the petitioner is not intentionally using delay tactics.

Court’s analysis

The respondent acknowledged that all claims in Cepeda’s original petition had been exhausted. The court therefore said the stay request was premature. It nevertheless considered whether the request would succeed if Cepeda’s proposed ineffective-assistance claim were treated as part of the petition.

The court applied the two-part test for ineffective assistance of counsel: deficient performance and prejudice. The respondent pointed to transcript passages showing that the trial court read the jury note to the parties and then again in the jury’s presence. The respondent also explained that the trial court reinstructed the jury on the definitions and elements of the criminal charges, which addressed the jury’s request. The jury had not asked for the circumstantial-evidence instruction to be reread and did not request further clarification when that instruction was not reread. Because Cepeda did not dispute these points, the court found that he had not shown that appellate counsel acted unreasonably by failing to argue that trial counsel’s lack of objection constituted ineffective assistance. Cepeda therefore had not shown that the proposed claim was potentially meritorious.

The court also found that Cepeda had not shown good cause for failing to pursue the appellate-counsel claim in state court before filing the federal petition. The court stated that doing so earlier would have avoided piecemeal litigation and the delay Cepeda was seeking. The court did not decide the respondent’s argument that the proposed claim was barred by the one-year limitation period or could not be added under the rule governing relation back of amended pleadings.

Disposition

Judge John G. Koeltl denied Cepeda’s motion for a stay. The respondent was instructed to mail Cepeda a copy of its opposition to the underlying habeas petition, filed June 19, 2019. Cepeda was permitted to reply by February 10, 2020, and the clerk was directed to close Docket Number 16.