Background
Eugene Doerr was sentenced to death in Arizona for the murder of Karen Bohl. He filed a federal habeas petition claiming ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing and an Atkins claim regarding intellectual disability. The district court denied relief, finding the claims procedurally defaulted. While the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Shinn v. Ramirez, limiting federal courts’ ability to consider evidence not first presented to state courts. Doerr moved for a stay and abeyance under Rhines v. Weber to return to state court and file a second post-conviction petition to present the evidence.
The court’s reasoning
The panel held that the Rhines criteria applied to Doerr’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The court found it was not clear whether Arizona courts would deem the claim procedurally barred under Rule thirty-two point two, subsection a, paragraph three, given recent state supreme court decisions in State v. Traverso, State v. Diaz, and State v. Anderson. The court concluded that Doerr showed good cause due to his first counsel’s ignorance and inadvertence, that the claim was potentially meritorious, and that he was not intentionally dilatory. The panel corrected its prior opinion to remove the Atkins claim from the stay, noting that issue should be addressed by the district court first.
Principles of comity and federalism counsel against substituting our judgment for that of the state courts.
Taylor v. Maddox, 366 F.3d 992, 999 (2004)
The dissent
I disagree because, as explained in State v. Traverso, the narrow textual exception to Arizona’s procedural-default rule for an IAC claim implicating a right of sufficient constitutional magnitude does not apply here.
Danielle J. Forrest
What it means going forward
The case is remanded to the district court with instructions to stay and abey the federal habeas petition, allowing Doerr to present his sentencing-phase ineffective assistance claim to the Arizona courts in a second post-conviction petition.
Podcast (federal-narrative-summaries): Play in new window | Download