Alfaro v. Johnson, No. 15-55337 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of habeas relief and held that petitioner's claim was barred by her failure to exhaust available state court remedies, and was untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c). Even assuming that futility persists as a potential exception to AEDPA's exhaustion requirement, it did not excuse petitioner's failure to exhaust her state court remedies in this instance. Furthermore, the fact that petitioner's claim implicates delay in California's post-conviction process did not excuse her failure to exhaust her present claim. The panel held that neither relation back nor the emergence of new facts rendered petitioner's claim timely.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus The panel reversed the district court’s grant of Maria Alfaro’s habeas corpus relief on her claim, based on Jones v. Chappell, 31 F. Supp. 3d (C.D. Cal. 2014), rev’d sub nom., Jones v. Davis, 806 F.3d 538, 541 (9th Cir. 2015), that California’s post-conviction system for administering the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The panel held that Alfaro’s claim is barred by her failure to exhaust available state court remedies, and is untimely under Fed. R. Crim. P. 15(c). The panel held that Alfaro is not excused from her failure to exhaust the claim. The panel wrote that even assuming futility persists as a potential exception to AEDPA’s exhaustion requirement, it does not excuse Alfaro’s failure to exhaust her state court remedies in this instance in which the California Supreme Court has not definitively rejected the claim she now raises in her habeas petition. The panel rejected Alfaro’s argument that her failure to exhaust should be excused because requiring her to return to state court would compound the delay she has already suffered. The panel explained that Alfaro will not be prejudiced by application of the exhaustion requirement because so long as her petition is pending in state court, the constitutional
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