In their unanimous published opinion filed on Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit sympathized with delays faced by Alan Lane Hicks, a prisoner serving a life sentence without parole for his 1988 conviction on charges including first-degree murder. While acknowledging Hicks waited nearly 30 years to know whether his petition for post-conviction relief was approved, the panel said that because he was ultimately able to have his petition considered, he could not find relief through federal courts.
Hicks had filed a federal habeas petition in 2021 in the Southern District of West Virginia, "collaterally attacking the validity of his imprisonment" given the delays he had experienced, the panel said.
In the petition, he argued the state trial court had failed to instruct the jury on the use of self-defense, improperly explained the concept of "malice" and didn't give proper verdict forms to the jury, adding that he also had bad representation, the panel noted. Hicks also said his case included "a violation of the double jeopardy clause" and that he should have been granted a mistrial due to all the errors.
However, the West Virginia federal court said Hicks had to continue to battle his case out in state court, and the Fourth Circuit agreed.
"To obtain federal habeas relief, a state prisoner must satisfy the statutory requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254. One of those requirements is for the petitioner to have 'exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the state,'" wrote Judge Julius N. Richardson for the panel.
Hicks had argued he was allowed to side-step this requirement because there was "an absence of available state corrective process" and "circumstances exist that render such process ineffective to protect the rights of the applicant."
While the Fourth Circuit noted West Virginia's "past treatment of Hicks no doubt offends basic notions of how a state should treat its prisoners," it nonetheless had to side with the state due to the language of the law.
"Whether a state's post-conviction process is 'ineffective' is a forward-looking question," Judge Richardson wrote.
"The key feature of the statutory text at issue for our purposes is its tense," he added, noting the language in the statute at issue cast the process as present and forward-looking, without consideration for the past.
"Hicks is only excused from exhausting if it appears that West Virginia's post-conviction process is presently ineffective to protect his rights, regardless of whether they were ineffective before," Judge Richardson wrote.
Despite the decades of delays, the appointment of five ineffective lawyers and the fact that his case was twice assigned to judges who had prosecuted him before they joined the judiciary, justice long-delayed was nevertheless justice, the panel said.
Shortly after oral arguments in this case, which took place on March 19, the panel said "the state court finally resolved Hicks' nearly 30-year-old post-conviction petition 'on the merits' by 'summarily dismiss[ing]' the case … This determination was made by Judge Stowers, who — it apparently bears mentioning — did not previously prosecute Hicks."
Representatives for Hicks declined to comment, and representatives for the state did not immediately respond to requests for comments on Friday.
Hicks was represented by Lawson Sadler of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, Missouri; and Steven J. Alagna of the Appellate Clinic at the Washington University School of Law, with help from student advocates Andrew R. Hilty, Hannah F. Keidan and Shawn N. Podowski of the Appellate Clinic.
Jonathan Frame, Mt. Olive Correctional Complex Superintendent, was represented by Caleb Allen Seckman of the West Virginia Attorney General's Office, West Virginia Attorney General John B. McCuskey, and Solicitor General Michael R. Williams.
The case is Alan Lane Hicks v. Jonathan Frame, case number 23-6447, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
--Editing by Philip Shea.
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