Johnson, Warden v. Lee

JOHNSON, WARDEN v. LEE

on petition for writ of certiorari to the united

states court of appeals for the ninth circuit

No. 15–789. Decided May 31, 2016 Under California's “Dixon bar,” a defendant procedurally defaults a claim raised for the first time on state collateral review if he could have raised it earlier on direct appeal. Respondent Lee was convicted of first-degree murder. She sought federal habeas review, raising mostly new claims that she had not raised on direct appeal in state court. The District Court stayed the proceedings to allow Lee to pursue the new claims in a state habeas petition. The California Supreme Court denied her petition in a summary order citing Dixon. Lee returned to the District Court, which dismissed her new claims as procedurally defaulted. Lee then challenged the Dixon bar's adequacy, citing 9 cases out of 210 summary denials on a single day in which the California Supreme Court flailed to cite Dixon where it should have been applied. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded to permit the warden to submit contrary evidence. The warden submitted a study analyzing more than 4,700 summary habeas denials showing that the California Supreme Court cited Dixon in nearly 12% of all denials. Based on this evidence, the District Court found the Dixon bar adequate. The Ninth Circuit again reversed, holding that the Dixon bar was irregularly applied. Held: Because California's Dixon bar is both “firmly established and regularly followed,” Beard v. Kindler, 558 U. S. 53, 60, it is an “ `adequate' procedural ground” capable of barring federal habeas review, Walker v. Martin, 562 U. S. 307, 316. It is “firmly established” because it was decided decades before Lee's procedural default and reaffirmed in two other cases. And the State Supreme Court's repeated Dixon citations prove that the bar is “regularly followed.” Nine purportedly missing Dixon citations in a 1-day sample of summary orders hardly support an inference of inconsistency. California's rule is not unique. Federal and state habeas courts across the country follow the same rule. And nothing suggests that California courts apply the rule in a way that disfavors federal claims. The Ninth Circuit's contrary reasoning is unpersuasive and inconsistent with this Court's precedents. The bar's simplicity of application does not imply that missing citations refect state-court inconsistency. Since the bar has several exceptions, the State Supreme Court can

hardly be faulted for failing to cite Dixon whenever a petitioner raises a claim that he could have raised on direct appeal. And California courts need not address procedural default before reaching the merits, so the purportedly missing citations show nothing. The Ninth Circuit's attempt to distinguish Martin and Kindler on the ground that California's Dixon bar is “mandatory” rather than discretionary also flails. Certiorari granted; 788 F. 3d 1124, reversed and remanded.

Per Curiam.

Federal habeas courts generally refuse to hear claims “defaulted . . . in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule.” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 750 (1991). State rules count as “adequate” if they are “firmly established and regularly followed.” Walker v. Martin, 562 U. S. 307, 316 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). Like all States, California requires criminal defendants to raise available claims on direct appeal. Under the so-called “Dixon bar,” a defendant procedurally defaults a claim raised for the first time on state collateral review if he could have raised it earlier on direct appeal. See In re Dixon, 41 Cal. 2d 756, 759, 264 P. 2d 513, 514 (1953). Yet, in this case, the Ninth Circuit held that the Dixon bar is inadequate to bar federal habeas review. Because California's procedural bar is longstanding, oft-cited, and shared by habeas courts across the Nation, this Court now summarily reverses the Ninth Circuit's judgment.

Respondent Donna Kay Lee and her boyfriend Paul Carasi stabbed to death Carasi's mother and his ex-girlfriend. A California jury convicted the pair of two counts each of first-degree murder. Carasi received a death sentence, and Lee received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. In June 1999, Lee unsuccessfully raised four claims on direct appeal. After the California appellate courts affirmed, Lee skipped state postconviction review and filed the federal habeas petition at issue. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a). The peti-

Having exhausted state remedies, Lee returned to federal court to litigate her federal habeas petition. The District Court dismissed her new claims as procedurally defaulted. Then, for the first time on appeal, Lee challenged the Dixon bar's adequacy. In her brief, Lee presented a small sample of the California Supreme Court's state habeas denials on a single day about six months after her default. Lee claimed that out of the 210 summary denials on December 21, 1999, the court flailed to cite Dixon in 9 cases where it should have been applied. The court instead denied the nine petitions without any citation at all. In Lee's view, these missing citations proved that the California courts inconsistently applied the Dixon bar. Without evaluating this evidence, the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded “to permit the Warden to submit evidence to the contrary, and for consideration by the district court in the first instance.” Lee v. Jacquez, 406 Fed. Appx. 148, 150 (2010).

On remand, the warden submitted a study analyzing more than 4,700 summary habeas denials during a nearly 2-year period around the time of Lee's procedural default. From August 1998 to June 2000, the study showed, the California Supreme Court cited Dixon in approximately 12% of all denials—more than 500 times. In light of this evidence, the District Court held that the Dixon bar is adequate.

The Ninth Circuit again reversed. Lee v. Jacquez, 788 F. 3d 1124 (2015). Lee's 1-day sample proved the Dixon bar's inadequacy, the court held, because the “failure to cite Dixon where Dixon applies . . . reflects [its] irregular application.” 788 F. 3d, at 1130. The general 12% citation rate

The Ninth Circuit's decision profoundly misapprehends what makes a state procedural bar “adequate.” That question is a matter of federal law. Lee v. Kemna, 534 U. S. 362, 375 (2002). “To qualify as an `adequate' procedural ground,” capable of barring federal habeas review, “a state rule must be `firmly established and regularly followed.' ” Martin, supra, at 316 (quoting Beard v. Kindler, 558 U. S. 53, 60 (2009)).

California's Dixon bar satisfies both adequacy criteria. It is “firmly established” because, decades before Lee's June 1999 procedural default, the California Supreme Court warned defendants in plain terms that, absent “special circumstances,” habeas “will not lie where the claimed errors could have been, but were not, raised upon a timely appeal from a judgment of conviction.” Dixon, supra, at 759, 264 P. 2d, at 514. And the California Supreme Court eliminated any arguable ambiguity surrounding this bar by reaffirming Dixon in two cases decided before Lee's default. See In re Harris, 5 Cal. 4th 813, 825, n. 3, 829–841, 855 P. 2d 391, 395, n. 3, 398–407 (1993); In re Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th 770, 814–815, and n. 34, 959 P. 2d 311, 340–341, and n. 34 (1998).

The California Supreme Court's repeated Dixon citations also prove that the bar is “regularly followed.” Martin recently held that another California procedural bar—a rule requiring prisoners to file state habeas petitions promptly— met that requirement because “[e]ach year, the California Supreme Court summarily denies hundreds of habeas petitions by citing” the timeliness rule. 562 U. S., at 318. The same goes for Dixon. Nine purportedly missing Dixon

Nor is California's rule unique. Federal and state habeas courts across the country follow the same rule as Dixon. “The general rule in federal habeas cases is that a defendant who flails to raise a claim on direct appeal is barred from raising the claim on collateral review.” Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U. S. 331, 350–351 (2006). Likewise, state post-conviction remedies generally “may not be used to litigate claims which were or could have been raised at trial or on direct appeal.” 1 D. Wilkes, State Postconviction Remedies and Relief Handbook § 1:2, p. 3 (2015–2016 ed.). It appears that every State shares this procedural bar in some form. See Brief for State of Alabama et al. as Amici Curiae 1, n. 2 (collecting citations). For such well-established and ubiquitous rules, it takes more than a few outliers to show inadequacy. Federal habeas courts must not lightly “disregard state procedural rules that are substantially similar to those to which we give full force in our own courts.” Kindler, 558 U. S., at 62. And it would be “[e]ven stranger to do so with respect to rules in place in nearly every State.” Ibid. Nothing suggests, moreover, that California courts apply the Dixon bar in a way that disfavors federal claims. The Court therefore holds that it qualifies as adequate to bar federal habeas review.

The Ninth Circuit's contrary reasoning is unpersuasive and inconsistent with this Court's precedents. Applying the Dixon bar may be a “straightforward” or “mechanica[l]”

More importantly, California courts need not address procedural default before reaching the merits, so the purport-edly missing citations show nothing. Cf. Bell v. Cone , 543 U. S. 447, 451, n. 3 (2005) (per curiam ) (declining to address the warden's procedural-default argument); Lambrix v. Sin-gletary, 520 U. S. 518, 525 (1997) (explaining that “[j]udicial economy might counsel” bypassing a procedural-default question if the merits “were easily resolvable against the habeas petitioner”). Ordinarily, “procedural default . . . is not a jurisdictional matter.” Trest v. Cain, 522 U. S. 87, 89 (1997). As a result, the appropriate order of analysis for each case remains within the state courts' discretion. Such discretion will often lead to “seeming inconsistencies.” Martin, 562 U. S., at 320, and n. 7. But that superficial tension does not make a procedural bar inadequate. “[A] state procedural bar may count as an adequate and independent ground for denying a federal habeas petition even if the state court had discretion to reach the merits despite the default.” Id., at 311; see Kindler, supra, at 60–61.

The Ninth Circuit's attempt to get around Martin and Kindler flails. The Court of Appeals distinguished those cases on the ground that California's Dixon bar is “mandatory” rather than discretionary because it involves a discretion-free general rule, notwithstanding exceptions that might involve discretion. 788 F. 3d, at 1130. The Court assumes, without deciding, that this description is accurate and the Dixon bar's exceptions leave some room for discretion. Even so, there is little difference between discretion exer-

The Ninth Circuit was accordingly wrong to dismiss the 500-plus summary denials citing Dixon simply because they do not reveal which cases potentially implicate the bar. 788 F. 3d, at 1133. Martin already rejected this precise reasoning. There, the habeas petitioner unsuccessfully argued that “[u]se of summary denials makes it impossible to tell why the California Supreme Court decides some delayed petitions on the merits and rejects others as untimely.” 562 U. S., at 319 (internal quotation marks omitted). So too here, “[w]e see no reason to reject California's [procedural] bar simply because a court may opt to bypass the [Dixon ] assessment and summarily dismiss a petition on the merits, if that is the easier path.” Ibid.

By treating every missing citation as a sign of inconsistency, the Court of Appeals “pose[d] an unnecessary dilemma” for California. Kindler, 558 U. S., at 61. The court forced the State to choose between the “finality of [its] judgments” and a burdensome opinion-writing requirement. Ibid.; see Martin, supra, at 312–313 (noting that the California Supreme Court “rules on a staggering number of habeas petitions each year”); Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86, 99 (2011) (discussing the advantages of summary dispositions). “[F]ederal courts have no authority,” however, “to impose mandatory opinion-writing standards on state courts” as the price of federal respect for their procedural rules. Johnson v. Williams, 568 U. S. 289, 300 (2013). The Ninth Circuit's decision is thus fundamentally at odds with the “federalism and comity concerns that motivate the adequate state ground doctrine in the habeas context.” Kindler, supra, at 62.

* * *

“A State's procedural rules are of vital importance to the orderly administration of its criminal courts; when a federal court permits them to be readily evaded, it undermines the criminal justice system.” Lambrix, supra, at 525. Here, the Ninth Circuit permitted California prisoners to evade a well-established procedural bar that is adequate to bar federal habeas review. The petition for a writ of certiorari and respondent's motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.