QUINTIN PHILLIPPE JONES, Petitioner - Appellant v. LORIE DAVIS, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS DIVISION, Respondent - Appellee
No. 16-70003
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
April 15, 2019
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DENNIS, and ELROD, Circuit Judges.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Quintin Phillippe Jones was sentenced to death by a Texas court. He now appeals the district court‘s denial of his federal application for post-conviction relief, arguing that evidence was erroneously admitted at sentencing in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights and that the district court improperly denied him further investigative funding. We granted a certificate of appealability, and now affirm the district court‘s judgment and denial of funding.
Jones beat his eighty-three-year-old great aunt, Berthena Bryant, to death with a baseball bat after she refused to continue lending him money.1 Fort Worth police arrested him the next day for outstanding traffic warrants and possession of a controlled substance. They interviewed him twice about Bryant‘s murder.2 The first time, Jones denied involvement. The second time, he waived his Miranda rights and confessed to the murder—explaining that he had an alter ego named James who lived in his head and who was responsible for killing Bryant.3
Based on a lead from Jones‘s sister, the police also investigated Jones‘s involvement in the murders of Marc Sanders and Clark Peoples.4 Nine days after Jones confessed to killing Bryant, a Texas Ranger and sheriff‘s deputy interrogated Jones about the Sanders and Peoples murders.5 Jones told them that he murdered Sanders and Peoples with his close friend Ricky “Red” Roosa. He described how Roosa was the primary decision-maker and directed Jones to take steps like restraining the victims and disposing of their bodies.6 Authorities only informed Jones of his Miranda rights after this statement was written down and he was about to sign; he proceeded to sign it.7 While Jones was only tried for Bryant‘s murder and this written statement was not introduced at the guilt phase of his trial, it was introduced in the punishment phase.
Jones‘s appointed post-conviction attorney failed to file his state application for habeas corpus. The CCA appointed Jack Strickland as substitute counsel and set a new deadline for Jones‘s application. Although Strickland filed Jones‘s application thirty days after the extended deadline had passed, the CCA found that Strickland‘s workload constituted good cause for the delay and accepted Jones‘s petition. Throughout the state habeas proceedings, Strickland failed to respond to letters Jones sent urging him to investigate or discuss certain issues; Jones wanted Strickland to raise ineffective assistance of counsel, while Strickland saw this as “casually impugn[ing] the “integrity [and] competence” of Jones‘s previous attorneys. Jones twice wrote to the state court asking it to contact Strickland and “have
Despite Jones‘s persistent efforts to have substitute or additional counsel appointed for his federal postconviction proceedings, the district court appointed Strickland in an order that also directed Jones to “timely file his federal petition for writ of habeas corpus” and required “[t]he petition [to] demonstrate that it is timely filed under
Strickland filed Jones‘s federal petition on September 14, 2006, exactly. The district court dismissed the petition as time-barred because Strickland had miscalculated the filing deadline. While Strickland thought the deadline fell one year after the state court‘s denial of Jones‘s habeas petition, the correct deadline was one year after the denial of Jones‘s petition for certiorari on direct appeal, with tolling for the pendency of the state habeas proceedings: April 18, 2006.13 And, although the federal filing deadline was tolled while Jones‘s state habeas petition was under consideration, it was not tolled for the 149-day period between when the Supreme Court denied certiorari on direct appeal and Strickland filed Jones‘s state petition. Jones‘s federal petition was precisely 149 days late.14
Jones filed an amended petition adding claims for relief, and sought additional funding for investigative services. The district court denied Jones‘s investigative funding request, then denied each of Jones‘s six claims for relief. It denied Jones a certificate of appealability on all claims. We granted Jones a certificate of appealability on his claim that the trial court violated his Fifth Amendment rights by admitting an unmirandized confession at the punishment phase,17 and instructed Jones to simultaneously brief his appeal from the district court‘s denial of investigative funding.18
We must now resolve three issues: whether Jones‘s petition is time-barred, whether Jones is entitled to relief on his Fifth Amendment claim, and whether Jones is entitled to investigative funding.
AEDPA prescribes a one-year statute of limitations for a person in state custody to bring a federal habeas claim, tolled while the state habeas petition is pending.19 Accounting for the period between denial of Jones‘s petition for certiorari on direct appeal and Jones‘s filing of his state habeas petition, Jones‘s federal application was 149 days late—absent the equitable tolling applied by the district court.
The Director argues that Jones‘s entire petition is time-barred and that the district court improperly applied equitable tolling. Jones argues that the Director waived this argument before the district court, and that in any event, the district court did not err in tolling the deadline for his petition.
A
In granting the certificate of appealability, we observed that the Director may have waived her limitations defense, but that we would not decide the issue without further review of the record.20 We now conclude that she did not. After we remanded the case for the district court to consider equitable tolling in light of Holland, both parties briefed the issue further, with the Director arguing that Holland did not affect the district court‘s decision to deny equitable tolling. The Director extensively argued that Jones was not entitled to equitable tolling under Holland because he had failed to exercise diligence and Strickland‘s error in calculating the deadline was not an extraordinary circumstance. Following this briefing, the district court once again dismissed Jones‘s petition as time-barred.
Jones then filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment under
Jones filed an amended habeas petition. In response, the Director fully briefed the limitations defense regarding Jones‘s new claims. But the Director did not specifically argue or brief the limitations defense regarding Jones‘s original claims. Instead, in a footnote, she stated:
It is still the Director‘s contention that the claims raised in this original petition (claims 1 and 5 above) are barred under AEDPA‘s statute of limitations. Because this issue has already been thoroughly litigated in this Court, however, the Director will not reiterate this argument. In the interests of brevity, the Director will address only the application of the statute of limitations to Jones‘s new claims (claims 2-4 above).
Jones contends that the Director‘s failure to fully brief the statute of limitations issue in response to claims 1 and 5 of Jones‘s amended petition—including the Miranda claim on which we granted a COA—resulted in waiver. He correctly points out that ordinarily, an affirmative defense not set forth in a responsive pleading is waived.21 But “[b]ecause Rule 8(c)‘s purpose is to give
B
This said, we will affirm the district court‘s decision to treat Jones‘s application as timely. The one-year statutory limitations period for a person in state custody to bring a federal habeas claim is subject to equitable tolling if a petition shows “(1) that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way and prevented timely filing.”25 The decision to grant equitable tolling is based in a flexible, case-by-case analysis, and so we review the district court‘s decision to apply equitable tolling for abuse of discretion.26 While we have recognized that equitable tolling should only be available in “rare and exceptional circumstances,”27 we have also observed that “‘the statute of limitations must not be applied too
The district court “[did] not reach [its conclusion that equitable tolling was warranted] lightly.” First, it concluded that Jones had diligently pursued his rights. He promptly wrote to the district court asking it not to appoint Strickland as his federal habeas attorney, filed pro se motions to remove Strickland and to have co-counsel appointed, and wrote to Strickland directly to attempt to convince him to step down. During the state proceedings, he pointed out to Strickland that Strickland had previously failed to timely file the state writ application.29 And after Strickland was appointed as Jones‘s federal counsel, Jones sent Strickland a letter specifically reminding him of what he believed to be a September deadline—because Strickland had told him that was the deadline—and asking him what steps he was going to take to file the petition. These reflected “multiple, timely steps toward ensuring competent habeas representation.” Further, the district court observed that its appointment order—explicitly addressing the timeliness requirement—“could have reasonably caused Jones to relax his vigilance regarding the exact filing deadline, as well as his obligation to make sure Strickland met it.”
We have scrutinized petitioners’ failure to inquire about the status of applications for post-conviction relief even where their legal representation was arguably inadequate.30 But this is not a case where the petitioner slept on
Second, the district court determined that extraordinary circumstances prevented Jones‘s timely filing: the existing tension between Jones and Strickland, compounded by the court‘s appointment order insisting on timeliness. It acknowledged that at base, the untimely filing was caused by Strickland‘s negligent miscalculation of the filing deadline—and that such a “garden variety” claim of excusable neglect ordinarily will not justify equitable tolling.32 But here, the problem went beyond mere negligence. Jones and Strickland were trapped in a “mutually undesired attorney-client relationship that had broken down.”33 In response to Jones‘s concerns about Strickland‘s representation, the district court entered an order affirmatively addressing potential timeliness issues by ordering Jones—and by extension Strickland, the attorney who had just been appointed to represent him—to timely file the petition. The district court therefore concluded that while Jones had not demonstrated that Strickland engaged in “extreme neglect” or that his limited
The Director argues that these were not extraordinary circumstances because the district court expressly determined that Strickland did not abandon Jones. We recently declined to express a view on the burgeoning circuit split over whether attorney wrongdoing must amount to effective abandonment for it to constitute extraordinary circumstances warranting equitable tolling.34 To be sure, we have observed that a “simple ‘miscalculation’ that leads a lawyer to miss a filing deadline” is insufficient to warrant equitable tolling where the attorney‘s conduct did not “cross the line between ‘garden variety’ neglect and attorney abandonment”35—but this case presents more than a simple miscalculation. The crux of the district court‘s decision to grant equitable tolling was that Jones “lodged multiple, timely requests to avoid counsel‘s appointment based, at least in part, on concerns about counsel‘s previous failure to meet a state deadline, and the Court nevertheless forced the continuation of a mutually undesired attorney-client relationship in an order that, while not misleading or preventing Jones from doing anything, probably caused Jones to relax his vigilance regarding the federal deadline.” The district court did not abuse its discretion, especially given the flexibility we must accord it in determining whether to equitably toll the limitations period.36
We turn next to Jones‘s Fifth Amendment claim. We review a district court‘s grant of summary judgment denying federal habeas relief de novo.37 Under AEDPA, we evaluate claims decided on the merits by the state court for whether they were “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” or whether they “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”38 A decision is “contrary to” such clearly established federal law if it either “applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth” in the Supreme Court‘s holdings or “confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme Court] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [Supreme Court] precedent.”39 A state court unreasonably applies such law when it “identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court‘s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner‘s case.”40 In reviewing state court decisions, we bear in mind that “[s]ection 2254(d)(1) provides a remedy for instances in which a state court unreasonably applies [the Supreme] Court‘s precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error.”41
A
First, Jones argues that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ harmlessness determination was contrary to clearly established federal law because Miranda violations should not be subject to harmless-error analysis. He relies heavily on Justice White‘s opinion—joined by Justices Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens—in Arizona v. Fulminante, which he characterizes as a plurality holding that Miranda violations are not subject to harmless error analysis.43 There are several reasons why the state court‘s consideration of harmless error was not contrary to clearly established federal law. Most plainly, Fulminante addressed coerced confessions, not confessions taken in violation of Miranda.44 And the Fulminante “plurality” Jones cites was in fact a dissent on the precise point at issue—Justice White explicitly acknowledged
B
Second, Jones argues that the Court of Criminal Appeals unreasonably applied Chapman in concluding that the admission of the confession was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.47 We disagree, mindful of the Chapman inquiry‘s fact-sensitive nature and the sizable deference we must accord a state court determination on the merits under AEDPA. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded on direct appeal that given the other evidence introduced at the punishment stage, Jones‘s confession to the Sanders and Peoples murders did not impact—beyond a reasonable doubt—the jury‘s answer to the special issues of whether Jones was likely to commit future acts of violence and whether there were sufficient mitigating circumstances.48 The jury was presented with extensive evidence that Jones murdered Peoples and Sanders.
The Court of Criminal Appeals also noted the extensive evidence of Jones‘s future dangerousness extending beyond the Sanders and Peoples murders: he brutally beat his aunt to death to steal money for drugs; had been convicted of several juvenile offenses, including for assaulting two teachers, possessing a handgun, and setting fire to another student‘s hair; and was a member of a gang.54 In sum, it found that the written statement “did not carry the weight a confession might normally bear in light of the volume and weight of the other evidence . . . on the future dangerousness issue.”55 While it concluded that the prosecution‘s reference to the written confession in its
As for the mitigation special issue, the court concluded that Jones‘s written confession to the Sanders and Peoples murders essentially emphasized that Jones was following Red‘s instructions—reinforcing “the basic defensive theory at the punishment stage that it was Red‘s bad influence that set appellant down the path toward his alter ego‘s murder of his aunt.”58 The confession “by no means belittled [Jones‘s] overall mitigation case“—which rested on evidence of Jones‘s dissociative mental disorder.59 These observations led the court to hold that “had the [written] statement not been erroneously admitted into evidence, there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury might have returned an affirmative answer to the mitigation special issue.”60
The CCA‘s decision on direct appeal, approved of in Jones‘s post-conviction proceedings, did not unreasonably apply Chapman. The court recognized and accounted for the significant impact that a defendant‘s confession has on a jury, and concluded that given the particularities of this
IV
Finally, we conclude that the district court did not improperly deny Jones investigative funding under
In Ayestas v. Davis, the Supreme Court rejected our prior “substantial need” standard for reviewing challenges to denials of
Jones sought investigative funding to develop a potential claim under Wiggins v. Smith66 that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to sufficiently investigate and present mitigation evidence about Jones‘s social history, including his mental health, abusive childhood, and history of substance addiction.67 The district court, writing before the Supreme Court decided Ayestas, offered several reasons for denying Jones
Although the district court denied funding before the Supreme Court‘s decision in Ayestas, the denial did not hinge on our now-rejected requirement that Jones show “substantial need” for the funding. Instead, it viewed Jones‘s request for additional funding as effectively seeking a full retrial of the issues already litigated in the state court. Ayestas did not disturb the long-settled principle that district courts have discretion to separate “fishing expedition[s]” from requests for funding to support plausible defenses.71 Because “the reasons the district court gave for its ruling remain sound after Ayestas,”72 we conclude that remand is unnecessary and affirm the denial of funding.
We affirm the judgment of the district court.