Rodney Washington v. Gary Boughton, 884 F.3d 692

Background

In 2000 Wisconsin filed a John Doe complaint accusing an unknown assailant ("John #5") of five sexual assaults, describing a DNA "matching" profile at specified genetic loci; an arrest warrant issued the same day.
In 2007 forensic testing matched Rodney Washington’s DNA to the John Doe profile; the State amended the complaint to name Washington and listed allele numbers.
Washington sought to proceed pro se at multiple pretrial points; the trial court denied the request on grounds including difficulty confronting the State’s DNA evidence and concerns about courtroom disruption; he was tried with counsel, convicted, and sentenced to 100 years.
On appeal and in postconviction proceedings Washington challenged (1) sufficiency of the John Doe complaint/arrest warrant to toll the statute of limitations, (2) ineffective assistance for counsel’s failure to seek dismissal on that ground, and (3) denial of his Faretta right to self‑representation; state courts rejected these claims.
Washington pursued federal habeas relief; the district court denied his petition. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial on the first two claims but reversed on the Faretta/self‑representation claim, ordering release unless the State retries within 90 days.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
1. Due process/Bouie challenge to state appellate court’s extension of Dabney/Davis to this complaint	Washington: appellate decision retroactively and unforeseeably extended state law, reviving an expired statute of limitations in violation of Bouie	State: procedural defenses; on merits, Dabney/Davis control and the John Doe instruments adequately described the defendant by DNA "match"	Held: No Bouie violation — reading complaint as a whole showed a sufficiently particular DNA "match" and the extension was an incremental development within Wisconsin precedent; claim denied on merits.
2. Ineffective assistance for failing to move to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction (statute‑of‑limitations)	Washington: counsel was deficient for not moving to dismiss based on allegedly insufficient John Doe identification	State: Dabney/Davis made such a motion meritless; counsel not ineffective for omitting baseless motions	Held: Denied — state court reasonably applied Strickland; federal courts defer to state‑law determination that the underlying claim lacked merit.
3. Right to self‑representation (Faretta) — competency and denial of pro se request	Washington: trial court improperly denied pro se request based on lack of legal knowledge and DNA complexity rather than mental incompetence; appellate affirmance unreasonably applied Faretta	State: Washington’s disruptive, irrational conduct and inability to handle DNA evidence justified the denial; no clearly established rule forbids that	Held: Reversed — courts unreasonably applied Faretta/Godinez/Edwards by using education/skill and post‑denial conduct to deny self‑representation; constitutional violation not harmless.
4. Procedural default/exhaustion as to due process claim	State: Washington failed to preserve federal due process theory in state court and failed to exhaust; procedural default bars habeas	Washington: merits should be reached or default excused; claim accrued at appellate decision	Held: Court declined to resolve procedural arguments and adjudicated the due process claim on the merits (denying it) under §2254(b)(2) discretion.

Key Cases Cited

Faretta v. California, [citation="422 U.S. 806"] (defendant has a constitutional right to represent himself; competence inquiry limited to mental functioning)
Bouie v. City of Columbia, [citation="378 U.S. 347"] (due process bars unforeseeable judicial enlargement of criminal statutes)
Rogers v. Tennessee, [citation="532 U.S. 451"] (discusses limits on retroactive judicial decisionmaking under Bouie)
Godinez v. Moran, [citation="509 U.S. 389"] (competency to waive counsel requires only competence to stand trial; ability to represent oneself is separate)
Indiana v. Edwards, [citation="554 U.S. 164"] (states may require counsel for some defendants competent to stand trial but lacking ability to conduct trial proceedings pro se)
Strickland v. Washington, [citation="466 U.S. 668"] (standard for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Estelle v. McGuire, [citation="502 U.S. 62"] (federal habeas courts may not reexamine state‑court interpretations of state law)
Cone v. Bell, [citation="556 U.S. 449"] (federal habeas de novo review when state courts did not reach a claim on the merits)