October 10, 2019 Florida Supreme Court opinion

Habeas Corpus

A short opinion from the Florida Supreme Court today. Mallet v. State comes to the court via the First District Court of Appeal, which affirmed Mallet’s conviction for possession of child pornography, then affirmed the denial of his motion for postconviction relief based on his allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Mallet attempted to invoke the supreme court’s discretionary jurisdiction by alleging that the First District’s decision in his postconviction appeal expressly conflicted with the opinion of another district court of appeal—but he failed to cite a conflict case. Instead, he broadly alleged that the case involved “federal issues,” citing O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838 (1999).

As the Florida Supreme Court explains, O’Sullivan held that “[b]efore a federal court may grant habeas relief to a state prisoner, the prisoner must exhaust his remedies in state court.”  526 U.S. at 842. Specifically, the U.S. Supreme Court held that when a party fails to seek review of a specific habeas claim before a state court of last resort with discretionary control over its docket, the issue is not exhausted at the state level, so the specific claim will not be considered by federal courts.

In O’Sullivan, the court of last resort was the Illinois Supreme Court, which has discretion to choose which cases it will decide. The Florida Supreme Court, by contrast, is a court of limited jurisdiction, meaning it can only review a case when jurisdiction is provided under Florida’s Constitution. Because Mallet failed to demonstrate that the Florida Supreme Court had jurisdiction under the state constitution, the court denied his petition for review.

The upshot—when seeking habeas relief in federal courts from the Florida state court system, O’Sullivan is not on point, because the Florida Supreme Court does not have discretion to hear all habeas petitions. Defense counsel should, however, make sure to exhaust review at the state level—meaning counsel should seek review in the Florida Supreme Court, but only when jurisdiction is proper under the state constitution.