Ybarra v. Filson, No. 13-17326 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CasePetitioner claimed that he was categorically exempt from the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). The Nevada Supreme Court rejected petitioner's claim of intellectual disability on the merits. The district court then deferred to its determination under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254. The Ninth Circuit did not decide whether petitioner was intellectually disabled, nor whether the Nevada Supreme Court made a reasonable or an unreasonable determination of fact when it concluded that he is not. Instead, panel decided only that the district court erred in its analysis under AEDPA, and thus the panel remanded for reconsideration in light of Bromfield v. Cain, 135 S. Ct. 2269 (2015), and in light of a doctor's report concluding that petitioner was intellectually disabled. The panel affirmed the district court's order holding that petitioner's Hurst-based Rule 60(b) motion was disguised as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition. Finally, the panel held that Hurst did not apply retroactively and thus denied petitioner's application for leave to file a second or successive habeas petition.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty. The panel (1) vacated the district court’s order denying Nevada state prisoner Robert Ybarra’s motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) to reopen his habeas corpus proceedings challenging his death sentence based on Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), and remanded for reconsideration; (2) affirmed the district court’s order denying Ybarra’s Rule 60(b) motion raising a claim based on Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016), which invalidated Florida’s capital sentencing scheme; and (3) denied Ybarra’s application for leave to file a second or successive habeas petition raising a claim based on Hurst. Ybarra claims that he is categorically exempt from the death penalty because he is intellectually disabled. The panel held that Ybarra’s Atkins-based Rule 60(b) motion was not a disguised second or successive habeas petition, and that the district court therefore did not err in concluding that it had jurisdiction to consider it. Reviewing de novo, the panel held that the district court erred in its AEDPA analysis of the Atkins-based motion by overlooking a number of instances where the Nevada Supreme Court contradicted the very clinical guidelines that it purported to apply, which is especially problematic in light of the decision in Bromfield v. Cain, 135 S. Ct. 2269 (2015), and by refusing to consider a doctor’s report concluding that Ybarra was intellectually
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