Terry CLIFTON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Wayne CARPENTER, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 13-5402.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued: Aug. 8, 2014. Decided and Filed: Dec. 24, 2014.
775 F.3d 760
GREGORY F. VAN TATENHOVE, District Judge.
A review of the record makes clear that these disputed moving-expense benefits were paid in various ways, including: direct payment to the service provider, advances to the employee, reimbursements to the employee, and allowances to the employee. A determination will need to be made on an expense by expense basis as to whether the benefit qualifies as “compensation” under the RRTA.
On remand, the district court should parse the disputed moving expenses to determine (i) whether each disputed moving expense qualifies as “compensation” as explicated in Part III of this opinion, and (ii) whether each disputed moving expense may be properly excluded as a traveling expense, or a bona fide and reasonable expense related to travel.
V.
For these reasons we REVERSE the district court and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Before: ROGERS and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges; VAN TATENHOVE, District Judge.*
GREGORY F. VAN TATENHOVE, District Judge.
Terry Clifton‘s habeas corpus petition was denied because he failed to file his appeal in the Davidson County Chancery Court within the sixty-day period allowed for filing such appeals. Clifton attempted to file during that timeframe, but the clerk returned it unfiled because of unpaid court costs from a previous matter. Tennessee Code § 41-21-812 prohibits court clerks from filing claims while inmates have court costs and fees outstanding. Consequently, the district court dismissed Clifton‘s habeas corpus claim on the basis that Clifton had procedurally defaulted.
Clifton now appeals this finding, arguing that he was deprived of a state-authorized parole revocation appeal due to his indigence and inability to pay court costs. The question before us is whether Tennessee may constitutionally require that “prior fees, taxes, costs and other expenses [be] paid in full” before permitting a prisoner to file a habeas corpus petition challenging the constitutionality of his probation revocation proceedings.
I
In 1983, Terry Clifton was convicted of grand larceny, found to be a habitual criminal, and sentenced to life in prison. Twenty-seven years later, in March of 2010, Clifton was paroled. After Clifton had been released, Tennessee‘s Appellate Court Cost center sent Clifton an invoice for $124.10 in outstanding court costs. Clifton attempted to make a payment on this debt and contacted the Center to establish a payment plan.
Clifton‘s parole was short-lived. Only a few months later, on July 23, 2010, the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole issued an arrest warrant based on allegations that Clifton had violated his conditions of parole by engaging in “intimidating and threatening behavior.” After holding a hearing, the parole board recommended that Clifton‘s parole be revoked. Clifton appealed the decision to the Parole Hearings Director but his appeal was denied.
In compliance with
The clerk‘s decision to return Clifton‘s petition and notice of appeal unfiled was in compliance with a Standing Order of the chancery court, a copy of which was enclosed with the letter, that directed the clerk “not to file another claim received by this office from an inmate until prior fees, taxes, costs and other expenses assessed to the inmate are paid in full.” [R.1, Chan-
(a) Except as provided by subsection (b), on notice of assessment of any fees, taxes, costs and expenses under this part, a clerk of a court may not accept for filing another claim by the same inmate until prior fees, taxes, costs and other expenses are paid in full.
(b) A court may allow an inmate who has not paid any costs or expenses assessed against the inmate to file a claim for injunctive relief seeking to enjoin an act or failure to act that creates a substantial threat of irreparable injury or serious physical harm to the inmate.
On October 28, 2011, Clifton filed pro se a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his constitutional rights to due process and equal protection were violated during his parole revocation proceeding.2 Clifton also filed a motion seeking to be excused from filing his petition for a writ of certiorari in the chancery court. The District Court for the Western District of Tennessee acknowledged Clifton‘s contention that he was unfairly prevented from filing his appeal to the Davidson County Chancery Court because of his failure to pay outstanding fees, but concluded that the claims were procedurally defaulted as Clifton had failed to file his appeal in the Chancery Court within the sixty-day period for filing such appeals. The court also concluded that Clifton had not established “cause” and “prejudice” to overcome the procedural default.
II
A
“Due to longstanding policies of comity and respect between state and federal courts, a habeas petitioner must give state courts the first opportunity to consider and rule upon the federal claims the prisoner wishes to use to attack his state court conviction.” Pudelski v. Wilson, 576 F.3d 595, 605 (6th Cir.2009) (citing Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971)). Consistent with these principles, a federal court will not consider a petition for habeas unless the petitioner has sufficiently exhausted his state court remedies.
This Court undertakes a four-part inquiry to determine whether a habeas petitioner procedurally defaulted on a claim. Such default occurs when:
(1) the petitioner fails to comply with a state procedural rule; (2) the state courts enforce the rule; (3) the state procedural rule is an adequate and independent state ground for denying review of a federal constitutional claim; and (4)
The district court‘s procedural default finding rested on the fact that Clifton “did not follow the [state] court rules in filing his appeal with the Davidson County Chancery Court.” [R. 38, Dismissal Order, PageID # 1704.] Based on this finding, the court concluded that he had not exhausted his remedies in the Tennessee state courts. In its procedural default analysis, despite noting the applicable standard, the district court did not actually consider whether the Tennessee statute was an “independent and adequate” state ground. Rather, the district court concluded that “[w]hether the state court properly refused his appeal for nonpayment of court costs constitute[d] a state law issue” and that such “[e]rror in the application of state law is not cognizable in federal habeas proceedings.” [R. 38, Dismissal Order, PageID # 1705 (citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991)).] After concluding that Clifton had procedurally defaulted his claim, the district court further found that Clifton had not shown “cause” and “actual prejudice” or “a fundamental miscarriage of justice,” and thereby concluded that he could not overcome the procedural default. [R. 38, Dismissal Order, PageID # 1704.]
B
First, Tennessee contends that Clifton may not challenge the constitutionality of
Whether a state procedural rule is “adequate and independent” generally requires “an examination of the legitimate state interests behind the procedural rule in light of the federal interest in considering federal claims.” Maupin v. Smith, 785 F.2d 135, 138 (6th Cir.1986) (citing Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 446-48, 85 S.Ct. 564, 13 L.Ed.2d 408 (1965)). A state law cannot, however, serve as an “adequate basis for the state court‘s decision under the adequate and independent state ground doctrine” where that basis violates the United States Constitution. Doan v. Brigano, 237 F.3d 722, 727-28 (6th Cir.2001), overruled on other grounds by Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003). In
A state court‘s decision on a question of state law is adequate to support its judgment only if the “state law basis for the decision is sufficient by itself to support the judgment, regardless of whether the federal law issue is affirmed or reversed.” Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction § 10.5.2, at 619 (2d ed.1994). In this case, however, whether Ohio Evid. R. 606(B) is sufficient to support the state court of appeals‘s judgment clearly depends upon whether the Rule conflicts with the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. The Supremacy Clause states that the “Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. If Ohio Evid. R. 606(B) is contrary to the U.S. Constitution, it may not serve as the basis for the state court of appeals‘s judgment. Thus, “[s]tate law obviously is not adequate to support the result when there is a claim that the state law itself violates the United States Constitution.” Chemerinsky, supra, § 10.5.2, at 619.
Doan, 237 F.3d at 727-28. This principle was reiterated recently when we recognized that a court‘s review “for constitutional infirmity is circumscribed by deference to ‘a State‘s application of its own firmly established, consistently followed, constitutionally proper procedural rules.‘” Sutton v. Carpenter, 745 F.3d 787, 790 (6th Cir.2014) (emphasis added) (citing Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 1917, 185 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2013)).
The Tennessee Prisoner Litigation Reform Act is codified at
Most relevant to this case, if an inmate has outstanding “fees, taxes, costs and expenses” then “a clerk of a court may not accept for filing another claim by the same inmate until prior fees, taxes, costs and other expenses are paid in full,” except an inmate is permitted “to file a claim for injunctive relief seeking to enjoin an act or failure to act that creates a substantial threat of irreparable injury or serious physical harm to the inmate.”
Tennessee is not alone in trying to reduce frivolous prisoner litigation and looks to other states for support. Both parties refer to a statute in Michigan which provides that “[a] prisoner who has failed to pay outstanding fees and costs ... shall not commence a new civil action or appeal until the outstanding fees and costs have been paid.”
Tennessee also relies heavily on a series of Louisiana Appellate Court decisions that consider a Louisiana statute which requires cases to be held in abeyance until fees are paid and to be dismissed if held in abeyance for more than three years. See Rhone v. Ward, 902 So.2d 1258 (La.Ct.App.2005), cert. granted, 920 So.2d 217 (La.2006); see also Rhone v. Ward, 31 So.3d 591 (La.Ct.App.2010), cert. denied, 34 So.3d 291 (La.2010). These cases are distinguishable. Not only is the statutory scheme different, but the Louisiana courts’ analysis concentrates primarily on whether the statutory framework is consistent with the protections guaranteed by the Louisiana Constitution, not the Federal Constitution.
There can be no doubt that reducing frivolous litigation is a legitimate state objective. Accepting, however, that the reduction of prisoner litigation is a legitimate aim does not justify all means of reducing such litigation. The means of achieving this goal must not unconstitutionally deprive an indigent defendant access to the courts. The Supreme Court has long held that procedures which limit an indigent defendant‘s access to the courts, where that limitation could result
A few years later in Burns v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 252, 79 S.Ct. 1164, 3 L.Ed.2d 1209 (1959), the Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant‘s access to the appellate courts could not be contingent on his ability to pay a $20.00 filing fee. In Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708, 709, 81 S.Ct. 895, 6 L.Ed.2d 39 (1961), the Supreme Court held that filing fees could not prevent indigent, convicted prisoners from filing habeas corpus petitions. Importantly, Smith extended indigents’ protections to collateral proceedings which attack the validity of detention as opposed to simply the correctness of the conviction. Id. In Lane v. Brown, 372 U.S. 477, 83 S.Ct. 768, 9 L.Ed.2d 892 (1963), the Court evaluated Indiana‘s procedure of providing indigent prisoners in post-conviction proceedings with trial transcripts. The Supreme Court held that the Indiana law, which only allowed indigent defendants to procure transcripts for coram nobis hearings through the Indiana Office of the Public Defender, was unconstitutional and, in so doing, reiterated that Griffin‘s protections apply in collateral proceedings. Id. at 484-85, 83 S.Ct. 768.
Access to the courts cannot be contingent on wealth. Griffin and its progeny clearly provide that indigent defendants, whose liberty is on the line, cannot receive less process because of their pauper status. Smith makes it clear that these protections even apply in collateral proceedings. Here, Clifton had a liberty interest at stake. See Alkire v. Irving, 330 F.3d 802, 819 (6th Cir.2003) (recognizing an arrestee‘s “Fourteenth Amendment right not to lose his liberty due to indigency“). If Clifton had had sufficient funds then the Chancery Court would have filed his notices of appeal. Had Clifton won his appeal then his parole would not have been revoked.
As it was applied,
[t]o hold otherwise would allow a state and its courts to evade the requirements of the United States Constitution any time they chose to apply a state procedural rule, regardless of whether that state rule complied with federal constitutional guarantees. The Supremacy Clause forbids a state from using a state rule to trump the fundamental requirements of the United States Constitution.
U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2 .
Doan, 237 F.3d at 728. Because
C
Tennessee argues that the petitioner cannot establish “prejudice” to excuse his procedural default because the state court would not have disturbed the board‘s decision to revoke parole. It is true that
III
As it was applied,