Chades v. Hill, No. 19-70365 (9th Cir. 2020)
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The Ninth Circuit denied Karen Denise Chades's application for leave to file a second or successive habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(1). Chades was convicted of first degree murder in California state court. In her application, Chades claimed that she was denied effective assistance of counsel in her federal habeas proceedings because her habeas counsel did not adequately press her ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim against her trial counsel.
The panel held that it has no authority under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to authorize Chades to file a second or successive application. In this case, Chades concedes that her application does not meet the statutory exceptions under which a second or successive claim can be reviewed. The panel declined to accept Chades' invitation to hold that the panel nevertheless has jurisdiction to entertain her request directly under the Constitution, because doing so would necessarily require the panel to find that the provisions in section 2244 that bar Chades's application are unconstitutional as applied to her. The panel concluded that the statute does not impermissibly preclude judicial review of an inmate's constitutional challenges, but rather acts as a mere regulation of repetitious requests for relief.
The panel raised sua sponte the question of whether a single member of the panel could construe Chades's request as a habeas corpus application and transfer it to a district court for further proceedings. Regardless of whether a transfer is properly done by a panel or by an individual judge, the panel each declined to transfer here. Finally, the panel noted that Chades is not left entirely without a forum for airing her due process claim while seeking habeas relief.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus. The panel denied Karen Denise Chades’s application for leave to file a second or successive habeas corpus petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1) claiming that she was denied effective assistance of counsel in her federal habeas proceedings because her habeas counsel did not adequately press her ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim against her trial counsel. Chades was convicted of first-degree murder in California state court. Noting that Chades concedes that her application does not meet the statutory exceptions under which a second- or-successive claim can be reviewed, the panel held that it has no authority under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to authorize her to file a second-or- successive application. The panel declined Chades’s invitation to set aside the strictures of § 2244 by holding that this court has jurisdiction to entertain her request directly under the Constitution. The panel explained that the statute does not impermissibly preclude judicial review of an inmate’s constitutional challenges, but rather acts as a mere regulation of repetitious requests for relief. Before oral argument, the panel raised sua sponte whether a single member of the panel could construe Chades’s request as a habeas corpus application and transfer it to a district court for further proceedings. Regardless of whether a CHADES V. HILL 3 transfer is properly done by a panel or an individual judge, each member of the panel declined to transfer here. The panel wrote that treating Chades’s claim as a habeas application amenable to transfer would invariably mean that it is an action subject to § 2244, and that the district court would be without power to entertain the application given that it is second or successive in nature and requires this court’s authorization. The panel noted that AEDPA does not foreclose Chades from filing an original petition for habeas corpus with the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Collins concurred in the judgment. He wrote that because only a habeas petitioner who asserts that he or she can satisfy the requirements of § 2244(b)(2) must first file an application to a three-judge panel, and because the three- judge panel’s corresponding statutory jurisdiction to decide such applications extends only to such applications, Chades’s proposed second or successive habeas petition is not subject to § 2244(b)(3)’s pre-filing requirement, and this court likewise has no jurisdiction under § 2244(b)(3) to decide whether to authorize its filing in the district court. He wrote that even assuming arguendo that this court has discretion to deem Chades’s proposed habeas petition as an original habeas petition presented to each panel member as a “circuit judge,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a), and to then transfer it to the district court, he agrees with the majority that the panel should not exercise such discretion here. 4 CHADES V. HILL
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