Roger Douglas v. R.C. Johnson

BACKGROUND

On June 25, 2020, Roger Douglas (“Petitioner”), a state prisoner proceeding pro se, filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. See Dkt. 1 (“Petition”). Petitioner challenged his 2016 conviction and resulting sentence of 39 years to life in prison. See id. at 2. The Petition raised the following grounds for relief: (1) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; (2) ineffective assistance of habeas counsel; (3) the trial court erred by admitting two post-incident statements; and (4) the trial court erred in denying Petitioner’s motion under People v. Romero, 13 Cal. 4th 497 (1996). See Petition at 5-9. Petitioner acknowledged that Grounds One and Two were not presented to the California Supreme Court. See id. at 5-6. On July 6, 2020, the Court ordered Petitioner to show cause in writing why the Petition should not be dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust state remedies. See Dkt. 4 at 3. In the alternative, the Court directed Petitioner that he could request voluntarily dismissal of the unexhausted claims (Grounds One and Two), file a motion for a stay under Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005), or voluntarily dismiss the entire Petition…