Criminal Practice – Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder – Bar Federal Habeas Relief

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The ruling rested on state procedural grounds that are independent of federal law and adequate to bar federal habeas review.

We affirmed the district court’s denial of habeas relief.

Stephen Bryant was sentenced to death by a South Carolina state court. During post-conviction proceedings, a state trial court permitted Bryant to file a new application for relief asserting his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment because he has intellectual disabilities within the meaning of Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), and Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. 701 (2014). More than a year and a half later, Bryant sought to amend that application to add a claim that he also suffers from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and that “a natural extension of” Atkins and Hall means the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing people with FASD as well. The state post-conviction court denied Bryant’s request to add the FASD claim, concluding it was both impermissibly successive and filed too late.

We agreed with the magistrate judge that the state trial court’s refusal to permit Bryant to amend his second application to add an FASD claim rested on state procedural grounds that are both independent of federal law and adequate to preclude federal habeas review. We thus declined to consider the merits of Bryant’s FASD claim and affirm the district court’s denial of habeas relief. Among other things, we concluded that the grounds the state trial court gave for refusing to consider the merits of Bryant’s FASD claim were adequate to bar federal habeas relief.

Byant identified no South Carolina authority excusing the normal procedural rules for successive post-conviction relief applications that urge the court to recognize new legal rights or extend an already recognized right to a new context. And without any preexisting endorsement by South Carolina courts (or any other courts) for his approach, Bryant can hardly contend South Carolina’s normal statutory procedures imposed “novel and unforeseeable requirements” on him. We held the procedural grounds the state trial court identified were adequate to bar federal court consideration of the merits of Bryant’s FASD claim. We further held that the sole ground for Bryant’s appeal of the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus is procedurally defaulted, thus foreclosing federal review.

Affirmed.

Bryant v. Stirling (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 001-152-25, 16 pp.) (Toby Heytens, J.) Appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Beaufort (David C. Norton, J.) Argued: Laura K. McCready, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant; Melody Jane Brown, Office of the Attorney General of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. On Brief: John G. Baker, Federal Public Defender, Gretchen L. Swift, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Charlotte, North Carolina; E. Charles Grose, Jr., Grose Law Firm, LLC, Greenwood, South Carolina; Jonathan P. Sheldon, Sheldon & Flood, PLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellant; Alan Wilson, Attorney General, Donald J. Zelenka, Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees; John R. Mills, Nathalie Greenfield, Phillips Black, Inc., Oakland, California, for Amicus Curiae. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit