United States Ninth Circuit

The district court properly denied a habeas corpus petition challenging petitioner's conviction and capital sentence for murder, where: 1) the denial of petitioner's change of venue motion was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; 2) the state court's decision that the prosecutor's race-neutral explanations for exercising peremptory challenges against two Hispanic potential jurors was not contrary or an unreasonable application of Batson; 3) petitioner's due process claim based on a belated request for access to the sanitized crime scene fails; 4) the state court's denial of petitioner's request for jury instructions on voluntary intoxication instruction and second degree murder was consistent with Supreme Court precedent; 5) the state court's rejection of petitioner's claim that the trial court erroneously applied a causal nexus test to evidence that petitioner's dysfunctional childhood could not be considered as an independent mitigating factor was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; and 6) the state court's denial of relief on petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/17/2014
• Published 03/17/2014

Judges

• RAWLINSON

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel