Buchanan

MEMORANDUM **

This is an appeal from a denial of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254 , by a person in state custody. Petitioner, Clifford Phillip Buchanan, argues the district court erred in concluding that some of his claims were unexhausted; in misleading him into believing that the court was without discretion to stay the proceeding while he exhausted those claims in state court; and by not granting him an evidentiary hearing before dismissing on the merits his petition with regard to his exhausted ineffective assistance of counsel claims. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

Buchanan argues that the district court erred in finding unexhausted the claim that his trial counsel refused to file an appeal on his behalf after Buchanan directed counsel to do so. We need not decide whether Buchanan adequately exhausted his state court remedies as to this claim, in light of the fact that Buchanan abandoned his right to proceed in the district court on this and all other claims determined by the district court to be unexhausted.

Upon finding that his petition was mixed, the district court presented Buchanan with two options: to abandon the putatively unexhausted claims or…