William B. DONNELL, Petitioner, v. E. V. NASH, Warden, Missouri State Penitentiary, Respondent

United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit1963-10-22No. No. 17476

323 F.2d 850

Summary · law.co

Holding. The lower federal court's denial of a certificate of probable cause and refusal to entertain the habeas corpus petition was proper, and that denial is affirmed. Federal courts ordinarily should require state prisoners to exhaust state collateral remedies by presenting constitutional claims anew under the standards announced in Fay v. Noia and Townsend v. Sain before entertaining federal habeas corpus relief.

The Supreme Court established new constitutional standards in Fay v. Noia and Townsend v. Sain that fundamentally changed how courts must evaluate claims that a state conviction violates federal constitutional protections. Because state and federal courts had not previously applied these new standards, prior court rulings rejecting such claims cannot be treated as final determinations that bar future review. The court recognized that this created a special situation requiring appropriate deference to the state judicial system.

To respect federalism principles, federal courts should ordinarily require state prisoners to return to state court and present their constitutional claims anew under the new Noia and Townsend standards before entertaining federal habeas corpus petitions on those same grounds. Missouri's collateral attack procedures provide an adequate opportunity for state courts to reconsider such claims, making this requirement appropriate. A federal district court therefore properly refused to hear the petitioner's habeas petition without first allowing him to pursue relief through Missouri's state court process.

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Key issues

Application of new constitutional standards from Fay v. Noia and Townsend v. Sain to prior state court convictions
Whether prior state court denials remain binding when made before the new constitutional standards were announced
Proper exhaustion of state remedies and federal-state judicial deference in habeas corpus proceedings
Availability of adequate state collateral attack procedures under Missouri law

Procedural posture

A Missouri state prisoner sought federal habeas corpus relief and a certificate of probable cause after his prior state court collateral attack claims were denied before the Noia and Townsend decisions were announced.

Authorities cited

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Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

PER CURIAM.

Concepts and standards were announced in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837, and Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770, which neither the state courts nor the lower federal courts had previously been applying in dealing with collateral attacks on state convictions.

Disposition of claims of constitutional violation, which have the capacity to render a state conviction void, cannot now, of course, be properly effected, either by a state court or by a lower federal court, except upon the basis of these announced concepts and standards.

Further, dispositions heretofore made of such claims by the federal courts, in which these concepts and standards have not been applied, are not subject to the operation of the escape provision of 28 U.S.C.A. § 2244 (and habeas corpus principle generally) that a court need not entertain subsequent applications by a prisoner for a writ of habeas corpus upon the same grounds as have previously been presented to and determined by it.

Equally, on the inability of such previous dispositions by state courts to have any determinative significance, for want of application of the concepts and standards in the Noia and Townsend decisions,, it seems to us that the federal courts are-entitled and called upon to deal realistically with the special situation which has. now come to confront both court systems, in its relation to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254 (exhaustion of state remedies) and the object, of the statute to give the state courts “the opportunity to pass upon and correct errors of federal law in the state prisoner’s conviction” (372 U.S. at 438, 83 S. Ct. at 848, 9 L.Ed.2d 837).

In other words, we believe that,, as a matter of appropriate federal-state relationship and fitting judicial deference in this special situation, the federal courts ordinarily, before entertaining an application by a state prisoner for federal habeas corpus relief, should require him to again seek consideration and determination of his claims of constitutional violation under the state’s collateral-attack remedy, in order to give the state courts, the opportunity to examine and deal with such claims on the basis of the concepts, and standards of the Noia and Townsend decisions. Of course, there would be no. purpose or occasion for so requiring, where, from the face of the state’s collateral-attack remedy or from decisions imposing limitations upon it, it appears to be improbable that the state courts can or will engage in such a further consideration and determination.

We expressed the view in Mahurin v. Nash, 8 Cir., 321 F.2d 662, that it seemed probable to us that the courts of the State of Missouri would in such a situation, notwithstanding a prior denial by them of relief in habeas corpus, desire the opportunity to further examine and deal with the claims of federal constitutional violation made by a state prisoner, on the basis of Rule 27.26, Mo.Sup.Ct.Rules of Criminal Procedure, V.A.M.R. (taken from and in substance the same as the provisions for vacating sentence existing in 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255). We accordingly held in that case that the District Court was not required to examine or entertain the prisoner’s application in federal habeas corpus, until he had undertak en to assert his claims of constitutional violation by a current motion under Rule 27.26 in his sentencing court and through the Missouri Supreme Court.

This view and holding, to which we adhere, are controlling of the present case, which, too, is one for federal habeas corpus relief on the part of a Missouri state prisoner, with disposition of his collateral attack in the state courts having been made prior to the Noia and Townsend decisions. As in the Mahurin case, the attempt here to have us review the District Court’s denial of a certificate of probable cause and to have such a certificate issued by a judge of this Court is accordingly denied.

Application denied.