Background
Michael Ray Hogan, a death row inmate, filed multiple state postconviction relief petitions over decades. His first petition was filed in 1987, followed by subsequent petitions in 1990, 2004, and 2008. The Nevada Supreme Court repeatedly dismissed later petitions as successive and untimely. Hogan sought federal habeas relief, arguing that ineffective assistance of his first postconviction counsel constituted cause to excuse the procedural default of his trial counsel claims.
The court’s reasoning
The panel majority held that the failure of Hogan’s first state postconviction counsel to raise ineffective assistance of trial counsel claims constituted cause under Martinez v. Ryan. The court reasoned that because Nevada law barred successive petitions, the error by the first counsel precluded any future counsel from properly raising the claims. The majority concluded that the Nevada Supreme Court attributed the procedural default to errors in the initial-review collateral proceeding, satisfying the Martinez exception. The dissent argued that Martinez applies only when a petitioner fails to raise claims in the first petition but raises them in the second, and that extending it to third and fourth petitions contravenes Supreme Court precedent.
First, the panel majority correctly applied Martinez’s narrow exception to an exceedingly unusual record.
Statement by Judges Berzon and Bybee
The dissent
The panel’s divided decision in this case improperly expands a limited equitable exception to procedural default, contravening Supreme Court precedent and requiring district courts to engage in complex proceedings over stale, defaulted habeas claims.
Bress
What it means going forward
The decision allows federal habeas petitioners to invoke the Martinez exception to revive defaulted claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel even when those claims are raised in third or subsequent state postconviction petitions, provided the initial postconviction counsel was ineffective.
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