holding that district court correctly applied state law procedural bar to petitioner's jury challenge, despite state court's failure to indicate that its denial of petition rested on procedural grounds, where petitioner never raised facially sufficient jury challenge before any state court and state court’s denial of petition could not be construed as a decision on the merits
How later courts described this case
- holding that district court correctly applied state law procedural bar to petitioner's jury challenge, despite state court's failure to indicate that its denial of petition rested on procedural grounds, where petitioner never raised facially sufficient jury challenge before any state court and state court’s denial of petition could not be construed as a decision on the merits
- stating that any differences between the equal protection clause and the Sixth Amendment are “of no consequence” when a black appellant, who complained of peremptory strikes against black jurors, relies on the same facts for both his equal protection and Sixth Amendment claims, and the prosecution would rely on the same facts to defend each claim
- refusing to extend fair cross-section requirement to petit juries, but stating that Lockhart "did not foreclose the possibility that the sixth amendment offers some protection against the exclusion of blacks from petit juries by use of peremptory challenges"
- holding that a habeas petitioner who claims counsel should have followed a strategy that would have proven futile has not shown that, counsel’s performance was deficient
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
Although I agree that our circuit precedent permits the majority to entertain the merits of petitioner’s claims, I write to object to our decisional law that permits the majority to entertain a district court order that does not dispose of all of the petitioner’s claims. The district court never ruled on one of petitioner’s claims. Ante at 1142 n. 7. The trial court thus erroneously entered a “final judgment,” which, by definition, purported to terminate the litigation in full. In my view, Supreme Court precedent, see Andrews v. United States, 373 U.S. 334, 340 , 83 S.Ct. 1236, 1240 , 10 L.Ed.2d 383 (1963); Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 365 , 40 S.Ct. 347, 347 , 64 L.Ed. 616 (1920), renders a court of appeals powerless to review an order denying a writ of habeas corpus that does not dispose of all the claims that the petitioner presented. See Blake v. Kemp, 758 F.2d 523, 535-43 (11th Cir.) (Tjoflat, J., dissenting), ce rt. denied, — U.S.-, 106 S.Ct. 374 , 88 L.Ed.2d 367 (1985). Being bound, however, to follow our circuit precedent, I reach the merits of this appeal and concur in the majority’s disposition.