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John Henry Farr v. Robert Borg, Warden
Citations: 37 F.3d 1504; 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 36427; 1994 WL 561855Docket: 93-56506
Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; October 12, 1994; Federal Appellate Court
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's rulings on various claims made by John Henry Farr in his appeal against the Warden Robert Borg and others. 1. The court upheld the admission of Farr's prior unidentified felonies as evidence, stating that such state evidentiary rulings are not subject to federal habeas corpus review unless they violate constitutional rights. The trial court minimized potential prejudice by instructing the jury to consider the felonies solely for credibility assessments and prohibited the prosecutor from disclosing the nature of those offenses. 2. The court found no merit in Farr's claim that the presence of the prosecutor during his motion for new counsel hearing rendered his trial fundamentally unfair. The transcript indicated that the prosecutor was excluded from the proceedings, and Farr did not provide sufficient evidence to suggest the transcript was altered. 3. Farr's claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel was rejected. The court noted that to succeed, Farr must demonstrate that his counsel's performance was unreasonably deficient and that this deficiency likely affected the trial's outcome. The court concluded that Farr's allegations of trial counsel errors either were not errors or did not affect the trial's result. 4. The claim regarding ineffective assistance of appellate counsel was also denied. The court maintained that the standards for trial and appellate counsel are identical. Farr argued that his appellate counsel should have claimed ineffective assistance of trial counsel regarding certain physical evidence. However, the court ruled that this argument would unlikely have changed the outcome of the appeal. The case was affirmed without oral argument, as it met the criteria for submission under relevant procedural rules. The disposition is not for publication and cannot be cited except under specific legal doctrines.