by David Kim

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), may excuse defaulted trial ineffective assistance claims under Nevada’s timeliness and successive-petition rules despite intervening representation and delays between petitions. The Court explained that initial postconviction counsel’s ineffectiveness need not proximately cause the later default, although a logical connection remains necessary. Hogan v. Bean, 140 F.4th 1001 (9th Cir. 2025). The Court reversed the procedural-default ruling on two claims and remanded for further consideration while affirming the rejection of the remaining claims.

Background

In 1996, a Nevada jury convicted the petitioner, William Castillo, of first-degree murder and related offenses arising from the burglary of 86-year-old Isabelle Berndt’s home, her killing, and the burning of her residence. Castillo received a death sentence. His conviction became final on March 22, 1999, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari.

Castillo filed a pro se state postconviction relief (“PCR”) petition on April 2, 1999. The trial court appointed Christopher Oram to supplement it, but the state courts denied relief. While those proceedings remained pending, Castillo submitted his original federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on June 22, 2004. The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada appointed federal habeas counsel. State postconviction proceedings concluded on October 27, 2004.

Castillo voluntarily dismissed the federal proceedings in 2007 and obtained their reopening in May 2008. Counsel filed the first amended federal petition on December 15, 2008, and a second state petition in September 2009. Nevada courts dismissed the latter as untimely and successive. See Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 34.726, 34.810(2). After a federal stay pending those proceedings ended, counsel filed a second amended federal petition on May 19, 2014. The District Court dismissed most claims as untimely, procedurally defaulted, or both. It certified equitable tolling, procedural default under Martinez, a guilt-phase mental-state ineffective assistance claim, and an execution-method challenge for appeal. The parties agreed that only two Martinez claims survived the federal timeliness ruling, viz., Claim Eight (II)(A), regarding Berndt’s daughter’s testimony, and Claim Eleven, regarding the deadly weapon enhancement statute.

Analysis

The Court began its analysis by upholding the federal timeliness ruling because Castillo had not established grounds for equitable tolling sufficient to make his amended petitions timely. Two claims remained for consideration under Martinez: Claim Eight (II)(A) and Claim Eleven. The Court then considered whether Martinez could excuse those claims’ procedural defaults under Nevada law.

Procedural Default and
Initial Review

The Court then addressed the state procedural default of the two remaining Martinez claims. Failure to comply with state procedural requirements ordinarily prevents federal habeas consideration of the affected claims. Shinn v. Ramirez, 596 U.S. 366 (2022). Federal review remains available upon a showing of cause and actual prejudice, or where withholding review would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991).

Cause generally requires an impediment external to the defense. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478 (1986). Because lawyers act as their clients’ agents, attorney mistakes ordinarily are attributable to the prisoner. Coleman. Constitutionally ineffective representation can establish cause when a constitutional right to counsel exists. However, state PCR proceedings carry no such right, so attorney error there generally cannot establish cause even when egregious. Coleman; see Davila v. Davis, 582 U.S. 521 (2017).

The Court stated that Martinez recognizes a limited exception at the initial collateral stage. State law must require trial ineffective assistance claims to be raised in initial-review collateral proceedings. The relevant proceeding must have been the initial stage for reviewing the particular trial-counsel claim. The prisoner must also establish that the claim is substantial and that counsel at that stage was absent or ineffective. Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013).

The Court explained why that initial stage matters. When collateral proceedings provide the first opportunity to assert a trial-counsel claim, deficient representation can prevent the claim from receiving any state-court review. Martinez. A claim against initial PCR counsel is “akin to a claim of ineffective direct-appeal counsel” in that setting, the Court stated. Hogan. The exception addresses that lost opportunity without recognizing a constitutional right to state PCR counsel.

Application of Hogan to
Nevada’s Procedural Bars

The Court next examined the District Court’s reasons for refusing to apply Martinez. The District Court distinguished Nevada’s timeliness bar from the successive-petition restriction involved in Martinez. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 34.726. It also concluded that Oram’s alleged ineffectiveness could not account for the years following the end of his representation in 2004 before the second state petition.

The Court determined that Hogan controlled both questions. Hogan presented trial ineffective assistance claims in a third state PCR petition, which Nevada courts rejected as untimely and successive. The federal District Court then declined to excuse the default because Martinez involved a different procedural bar and because subsequent representation defeated the asserted connection to initial counsel’s ineffectiveness. The Ninth Circuit had rejected those grounds in Hogan.

Martinez may excuse defaults under state filing deadlines as well as successive-petition restrictions, the Court reaffirmed. Hogan explained that Martinez “did not limit the types of procedural default” that ineffective initial-review counsel could excuse. An untimely trial-counsel claim and an impermissible successive claim can produce the same result, i.e., no state court will consider the claim, the Court reasoned. It explained that the exception preserves review of meritorious trial-error claims in either the state or federal system. Hogan.

The Court also explained that the inquiry concerns “good cause” and “[a] legally sufficient reason” for granting a request and that “proximate causation” is not the test. Hogan. A connection to the default remains necessary. The Court stated that “some logical connection” can be established where initial PCR counsel “impeded or obstructed” compliance with state procedures.

Applying Hogan, the Court found the required logical connection between Oram’s alleged ineffectiveness and Castillo’s procedural default. Nevada’s successive-petition bar would have prevented review even if later counsel had raised the omitted trial-counsel claims in the second PCR petition. See Hogan. Consequently, the end of Oram’s representation and the intervening delay did not defeat that connection, according to the Court.

Nevada’s Statutory
Right to Counsel

The Court then rejected the State’s argument that Nevada’s appointment of counsel in initial capital PCR proceedings made Martinez inapplicable. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 34.820(1)(a). The State maintained that a prisoner could obtain state review by asserting initial counsel’s ineffectiveness as cause within a reasonable time. The Court distinguished the State’s supporting decisions because they preceded Martinez. See Hathaway v. State, 71 P.3d 503 (Nev. 2003); Crump v. Warden, Nev. State Prison, 934 P.2d 247 (Nev. 1997).

The Court explained that Martinez does not exclude states providing a statutory right to initial collateral counsel. It further noted that Hogan cited Nevada Supreme Court decisions stating that Martinez had left that court’s prior rulings unchanged. Those rulings recognized no constitutional right to postconviction counsel and stated that counsel’s performance “does not constitute good cause to excuse … procedural bars.” Hogan (quoting Brown v. McDaniel, 331 P.3d 867 (Nev. 2014)).

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed the procedural-default ruling affecting Claim Eight (II)(A) and Claim Eleven and remanded for further evaluation consistent with its opinion and Hogan. The remand did not resolve those claims’ merits or disturb the federal timeliness ruling. The Court affirmed on all other claims and declined to certify the relation-back and cumulative-error issues. See: Castillo v. Bean, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 30229 (9th Cir. 2026).

Editor’s Note: Castillo involves a state prisoner’s federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The successive-petition restriction at issue was Nevada’s rule for state postconviction petitions, Nev. Rev. Stat. § 34.810(2). The separate restrictions on second or successive federal applications under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) were not at issue. Castillo also illustrates that overcoming state procedural default does not cure federal untimeliness. The Court’s Martinez ruling could benefit only the two Martinez claims that survived the federal timeliness ruling. Those claims were remanded for further consideration.

Federal prisoners face a different framework. Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003), permits an ineffective-assistance claim to be raised for the first time under § 2255 despite its omission from direct appeal. Section 2255(f)’s filing deadline still applies. A motion classified as second or successive requires Court of Appeals authorization under § 2255(h), based on qualifying newly discovered evidence or a previously unavailable new constitutional rule made retroactive to collateral review by the Supreme Court. Counsel’s ordinary failure to include a claim in the initial motion does not, by itself, satisfy either ground. Thus, federal prisoners should present available claims and their supporting facts in the initial motion within the applicable filing period.

For a fuller discussion of these requirements, see this issue’s Cover Story, particularly its discussion of the Second, Third, and Eighth Barriers. State prisoners should see CLN’s October 2026 Cover Story on § 2254 relief.  

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