United States District Court, D. Alaska
THOMAS R. SADDLER, Petitioner,
v.
JOHN CONANT, Respondent.
ORDER RE PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
SHARON
L. GLEASON UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Before
the Court at Docket 23 is Petitioner Thomas R. Saddler's
Merit Brief in Support of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus.
Respondent John Conant filed a response at Docket 30, to
which Mr. Saddler replied at Docket 33. The Petition was
referred to a United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B).
On
April 18, 2016, at Docket 36, Magistrate Judge Deborah M.
Smith issued an Initial Report and Recommendation. The
magistrate judge recommended that the petition be denied and
that this action be dismissed with prejudice. Mr. Saddler
filed objections to the Initial Report and Recommendation at
Docket 37, to which the Government filed a response at Docket
38. The magistrate judge issued a Final Report and
Recommendation at Docket 40 on April 4, 2017, which addressed
the objections and recommended that the Petition for Writ of
Habeas Corpus be denied.
The
matter is now before this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
636(b)(1). That statute provides that a district court
“may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part,
the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate
judge.”[1] A court is to “make a de novo
determination of those portions of the magistrate judge's
report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to
which objection is made.”[2] But as to those topics on which
no objections are filed, “[n]either the Constitution
nor [28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)] requires a district judge to
review, de novo, findings and recommendations that the
parties themselves accept as correct.”[3]
DISCUSSION
Mr.
Saddler's First Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas
Corpus raises the following questions:
1. “Where the doctrine of judicial estoppel is neither
uniformly accepted nor applied and where the court of appeals
failed to delineate the requirements for the application of
the doctrine, did the court of appeals err in” holding
that judicial estoppel prevented Mr. Saddler from pursuing
his claim regarding double jeopardy?
2. When “five jurors indicate that they were
‘unavailable' if the trial . . . was continued 45
days, ” does that alone “establish a manifest
necessity for a mistrial”?
3. “Did the court of appeals err in affirming the trial
court, where both courts' analysis of the concept of
prejudice in a post-conviction case was inconsistent with the
degree of autonomy a defendant otherwise has, in a criminal
prosecution?”[4]
The
Initial Report and Recommendation concluded that it could
properly review the merits of Mr. Saddler's double
jeopardy claim because the Alaska Court of Appeals'
decision did not rest on adequate state law
grounds.[5] But in reviewing the merits of Mr.
Saddler's double jeopardy claim, the Initial Report and
Recommendation held that the state trial judge “did not
violate or unreasonably apply clearly established Supreme
Court double-jeopardy caselaw.”[6] The Initial Report and
Recommendation also found that because the record establishes
that Mr. Saddler did not present to the Alaska Court of
Appeals his argument regarding his attorney's failure to
advise him to take an interlocutory appeal on his double
jeopardy claim, Mr. Saddler has not exhausted that claim, and
thus it is not properly before the Court.
In
response, Mr. Saddler filed timely objections, asserting
that:
1. “The Initial Report and Recommendation fails to
accurately account for the sequence of events which led to
the mistrial decision.”[7]
2. The Initial Report and Recommendation mistakenly finds
that the Alaska Court of Appeals based its decision on
independent state grounds, as “there can be no
procedural default as long as the state court reviews the
merits of the federal claim.”[8]
3. The Initial Report and Recommendation “relies on
unreasonable factual findings to uphold the mistrial
declaration and misconstrues the manifest necessity
standard.”[9]
4. The Initial Report and Recommendation mistakenly finds
that Mr. Saddler did not “exhaust his Sixth Amendment
claims at all stages of post-conviction
review.”[10]
The
Government filed a response to Mr. Saddler's objections,
which asserted that the Court should overrule Mr.
Saddler's objections to the Initial Report and
Recommendation. The magistrate judge then issued a Final
Report and Recommendation that addressed each of Mr.
Saddler's objections and continued to recommend that the
petition for writ of habeas corpus be denied.[11] Pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), the Court will make a de novo
determination of each of Mr. Saddler's objections.
1.
Factual Objections
Mr.
Saddler objects to the magistrate judge's description of
certain facts. He maintains the following facts were omitted:
(1) Mr. Saddler's trial counsel “made it abundantly
clear that he would be raising a double jeopardy
challenge”; (2) trial counsel “ultimately
consented to a continuance before the jurors
reassembled”; (3) the trial judge “declared a
mistrial less than a minute after the jurors
reassembled” and without soliciting input from the
attorneys; (4) “the trial judge acknowledged in a
written order that his mistrial decision was insufficient to
support a showing of manifest necessity”; and (5)
“the trial judge reinstated the charges anyway based on
a plainly erroneous legal theory that was rejected by the
Alaska Court of Appeals.”[12]
Upon de
novo review of the record, the Court finds that Mr.
Saddler's trial counsel, Joshua Fannon, stated at least
twice that if the trial court declared a mistrial, he would
“make a double jeopardy argument.”[13] But Mr.
Fannon also acknowledged that if he were responsible for the
delay, “I think that it would stop me from being able
to make a double jeopardy argument.”[14] The trial
judge then stated on record that he could not make a finding
as to who was at fault for the missing discovery. As a
result, the trial judge informed the attorneys that they
could either take a continuance or proceed with trial:
“So your choice is to take the continuance-if the
jury's not available, I'll probably have to call a
mistrial in the interest of justice.”[15] Mr. Fannon
then “accept[ed] the court's proposal for a
continuance” and did not reassert a double jeopardy
argument prior to the judge's declaration of a mistrial.
Accordingly, on de novo review, the Court finds that while
Mr. Fannon did state he would make a double jeopardy
argument, he did not make his intent “abundantly
clear.”
Second,
upon de novo review and as noted in the preceding paragraph,
the Court finds that Mr. Fannon did ultimately consent to a
continuance before the jurors reassembled. However, the Court
notes that Mr. Fannon asserted that a continuance was an
inadequate remedy several times during the
proceeding.[16] Both he and the trial court expected
that a lengthy continuance would not be feasible. The trial
judge warned the attorneys before he summoned the jury that
“if the jury's not available, [the court would]
probably have to call a mistrial in the interest of
justice.”[17] The trial judge also voiced considerable
doubt that all of the jurors would be available 45 days
later: “I mean, my-I would be shocked if all 14 of them
are willing to hang around on this case for 45
days.”[18]
As to
the third objection, on de novo review the Court finds that
the trial judge declared a mistrial almost immediately after
the jury had reassembled and five jurors indicated their
unavailability. The judge did not solicit the attorneys'
input at that time, but no attorney raised any objection. And
after the jury had been excused, the lawyers remained silent
on the double jeopardy issue and began coordinating how to
exchange the missing discovery.[19] Yet the record also
reflects that there had been considerable discussion about
the likelihood of a mistrial between the court and counsel
before the jury returned to the courtroom that day.
Fourth,
upon de novo review, the Court finds that the trial judge
issued a written order on November 14, 2005, in which he
concluded that there was manifest necessity to declare a
mistrial but that “the court had an inadequate record
on which to find that it was manifestly necessary to declare
a mistrial.”[20] Material to the trial judge's
decision at that time was the state's failure to file an
opposition to the motion, and thus the state's apparent
concession that the trial court should have further inquired
into the reasons the five jurors were unavailable. The state
then filed a motion for reconsideration of that order, which
the trial court granted.[21] Here, in the November 14, 2005 order
the trial court found that there was manifest necessity for a
mistrial, but the court had an inadequate record on which to
find that it was manifestly necessary. However, the Alaska
Court of Appeals, after reviewing the record, found the
record adequate to support the mistrial.[22]
Fifth,
upon de novo review, the Court agrees that the trial judge
reinstated the charges based on Alaska Criminal Rule 27, a
legal theory that the Alaska Court of Appeals rejected in
Friedmann v. State.[23]
Although
the Court agrees with some of Mr. Saddler's recitation of
the facts, the Court finds that these additional facts have
no bearing on the Court's conclusion described below that
the trial judge in declaring the mistrial did not violate or
unreasonably apply clearly established federal law as
determined by Supreme Court precedent.
None of
the facts identified by Mr. Saddler in his objections
undermines the conclusion that Mr. Fannon knew of the missing
discovery before the jury was impaneled, but waited until
after the jury had been sworn to bring the issue to the trial
judge's attention and request a
continuance.[24] The Court agrees with the magistrate
judge's conclusion that Mr. Fannon's delay suggests
the need for a mistrial was created, at least in part, by Mr.
Fannon's decision to delay notifying the trial court of
the need for a continuance until after the jury had been
impaneled.[25]
2. Independent and Adequate State Grounds
Mr.
Saddler's second objection maintains that there was no
procedural default because the Alaska Court of Appeals
reached the merits of Mr. Saddler's federal double
jeopardy claim.[26]
A
federal habeas court will not consider an issue of federal
law from a judgment of a state court “if that judgment
rests on a state-law ground that is both
‘independent' of the merits of the federal claim
and an ‘adequate' basis for the court's
decision.”[27] However, a state court
“‘need not fear reaching the merits of a federal
claim in an alternative holding, ' as long as the court
also articulates ‘a state holding that is a sufficient
basis for the state court's judgment, ' even when the
state court also relies on federal law.”[28] Here, the
state court did just that. The Alaska Court of Appeals held
that “Saddler is estopped from pursuing his claim that
Judge Smith failed to conduct a sufficient inquiry into the
unavailability of the jurors . . . [because] Saddler's
attorney invited the error.”[29] The Alaska Court of
Appeals then added “[I]n any event, Judge Smith could
reasonably conclude that there was a manifest necessity for
the mistrial.” That the court reached the merits of Mr.
Saddler's federal double jeopardy claim in an alternative
holding does not alter the fact that it independently rested
its judgment on state procedural grounds.[30]
However,
the Court agrees with the magistrate judge that the state
grounds were inadequate, as it is not apparent that the
Alaska Court of Appeals applied a “firmly established
and regularly followed” state procedural rule when it
applied estoppel to Mr. Saddler's double jeopardy
claim.[31] Mr. Saddler's objection on this
point is thus moot, and the Court will review the merits of
his federal double jeopardy claim.
3.
Double Jeopardy
Mr.
Saddler's third objection maintains that the magistrate
judge “relies on unreasonable factual findings to
uphold the mistrial declaration and misconstrues the manifest
necessity standard.”[32]
Both
parties agree that the Perez standard of manifest
necessity should apply to the trial judge's declaration
of a mistrial.[33] But Mr. Saddler argues that a reviewing
court may not extrapolate facts not identified by the trial
judge to support a finding of manifest necessity. Rather, he
maintains that the trial judge is required to “make
efforts to assure himself that the situation
warrants action on his part foreclosing the
defendant from a potentially favorable judgment by the
tribunal.”[34] Mr. Saddler asserts that by its own
admission in the November 14, 2005 order, the trial judge
“had an inadequate record on which to find that it was
manifestly necessary to declare a
mistrial.”[35] Then, according to Mr. Saddler, the
Alaska Court of Appeals erred by extrapolating several
additional facts in the record that were never identified by
the trial judge to support its holding of manifest necessity.
The
magistrate judge found that the trial judge's conduct
“was well within the broad discretion granted to him by
U.S. Supreme Court precedent.”[36] The magistrate judge also
emphasized the highly deferential standard of review for
federal habeas petitions, noting that the trial judge's
“mistrial ruling and the Alaska Court of Appeal's
affirmance of that decision is entitled to dual layers of
deference.” Accordingly, the magistrate judge
recommends the rejection of Mr. Saddler's double jeopardy
claim.[37]
The
Court adopts and agrees with the magistrate judge's
well-reasoned analysis of the double jeopardy claim, with the
following additional comments:
Under
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a
federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus unless
the state court's decision on the merits of the
constitutional claim “was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,
as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States.”[38] “[A]n unreasonable application of
federal law is different from an incorrect application of
federal law.”[39] “[A] federal habeas court may not
issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its
independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision
applied clearly established federal law erroneously or
incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be
unreasonable.”[40] Accordingly, AEDPA “imposes a
‘highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court
rulings, ' and ‘demands that state-court decisions
be given the benefit of the doubt.'”[41]
This
“highly deferential standard” is at its height
when evaluating whether a trial court abused its broad
discretion in the double jeopardy context, because the
Supreme Court has held that in this context there is greater
potential for “reasoned disagreement among fair-minded
judges.”[42] In Renico v. Lett, the trial
judge received a note from the jury asking “what if we
can't agree?” After briefly confirming that the
jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, the trial judge
declared a mistrial without making a specific finding of
manifest necessity or developing the record. The trial court
then scheduled a new trial, at which Mr. Lett was convicted.
The state's highest court in the state affirmed Mr.
Lett's conviction and found that the trial judge
exercised his “sound discretion” in declaring the
mistrial. The state supreme court also cited to facts in the
record that supported a mistrial determination that had not
been identified by the trial court.[43] On federal habeas review,
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state court's ruling
and held that the state court's decision was not
unreasonable under established Supreme Court precedent. The
Court added that under Supreme Court precedent, “a
trial judge declaring a mistrial is not required to make
explicit findings of ‘manifest necessity' nor to
‘articulate on the record all the factors that informed
...