Burton v. Stewart
127 S.Ct. 793, 549 U.S. 147 (2007)
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Rule of Law:
A federal habeas corpus petition is "second or successive" under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) if it challenges the same state-court judgment as a prior federal petition, even if the claims in the second petition were not yet exhausted in state court at the time the first petition was filed and decided on the merits.
Facts:
- In 1994, a Washington jury convicted Lonnie Burton of rape, robbery, and burglary.
- The state trial court initially sentenced Burton to 562 months, grounding the sentence on two alternative calculations: one running the sentences for each crime consecutively, and another imposing a single "exceptional" sentence for the rape conviction.
- After an unrelated prior conviction was overturned, Burton's criminal history was recalculated, and the court entered an amended judgment in 1996, relying solely on the single exceptional sentence for the rape conviction.
- This 1996 sentence was later found to raise judicial vindictiveness concerns because it altered Burton's eligibility for early release credits.
- In 1998, the trial court entered a second amended judgment, reimposing the 562-month sentence by reverting to its original method of running the three within-guidelines sentences consecutively. This 1998 judgment is the basis for Burton's current custody.
Procedural Posture:
- Following his 1998 resentencing, Lonnie Burton challenged his sentence on direct review and in state postconviction proceedings, which were ultimately unsuccessful.
- While state review was pending, Burton filed a 1998 federal habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court, challenging only his 1994 convictions, not his sentence.
- The District Court denied the 1998 petition, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
- In 2002, after exhausting his state remedies, Burton filed a second federal habeas petition in the U.S. District Court, this time challenging only his 1998 sentence.
- The District Court denied the 2002 petition on the merits, rejecting the State's argument that it was a barred "second or successive" petition.
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with Stewart as appellee, affirmed, holding that Burton had a "legitimate excuse" for not raising his sentencing claims earlier and thus the petition was not successive.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
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Issue:
Is a state prisoner's federal habeas petition 'second or successive' under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), requiring authorization from the court of appeals, when it raises sentencing claims that were unexhausted at the time he filed his first petition challenging only his convictions under the same judgment?
Opinions:
Per Curiam - The Court
Yes, the petition is 'second or successive.' When a petitioner with both exhausted and unexhausted claims chooses to have the exhausted claims adjudicated on the merits, a later petition raising the previously unexhausted claims is considered 'second or successive' under AEDPA if it attacks the same judgment of custody. The fact that the claims were unexhausted is not a legitimate excuse to bypass AEDPA's gatekeeping requirement that a petitioner obtain authorization from the court of appeals before filing. Burton filed his 1998 and 2002 petitions while in custody pursuant to the same 1998 state-court judgment. The proper procedure for a petitioner with a 'mixed petition' is to either withdraw the petition to exhaust all claims in state court before returning to federal court, or to proceed only with the exhausted claims and risk forfeiting the unexhausted ones. Burton chose the latter course, so his 2002 petition was an unauthorized successive petition over which the District Court lacked jurisdiction.
Analysis:
This decision strictly interprets AEDPA's gatekeeping provisions for "second or successive" habeas petitions, prioritizing finality and efficiency in federal postconviction review. It solidifies the hard choice prisoners with mixed petitions face under Rose v. Lundy, clarifying they cannot use the exhaustion requirement as a shield to engage in piecemeal litigation. The ruling effectively forecloses the strategy of splitting conviction and sentencing challenges into separate federal habeas petitions, thereby reinforcing the legislative intent to streamline federal habeas proceedings and limit prisoners to, in effect, one full opportunity for federal collateral review.
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