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Rea v. Gower
Citations: 47 F. Supp. 3d 1026; 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132887; 2014 WL 4702291Docket: Caase No. CV 12-2241-ODW (JPR)
Court: District Court, C.D. California; September 19, 2014; Federal District Court
The Court has accepted the findings and recommendations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Otis D. Wright, II, regarding the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus filed by Paul Jimmy Rea against Warden Stu Sherman. Following a review of the Petition and the Magistrate Judge's Report, the Court noted that no objections were filed by the Petitioner despite being granted an extension. Consequently, the Court denied the Petition and the request for an evidentiary hearing, ordering the dismissal of the action with prejudice. The proceedings began with Rea filing his Petition on March 16, 2012, raising three claims. The Court initially issued an Order to Show Cause regarding one unexhausted claim. After Rea requested to dismiss this claim and stay the case for exhaustion, the Court granted the motion. The stay was lifted on October 7, 2013, after which the Respondent filed an Answer, and Rea subsequently submitted a Reply. Rea's claims included the trial court's admission of hearsay evidence violating the Confrontation Clause and the admission of contaminated DNA evidence, both allegedly depriving him of due process. He was convicted on October 8, 2009, of multiple offenses, including first-degree murder, and sentenced to 50 years to life plus additional time. His appeals and subsequent attempts to exhaust an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim in state courts were denied, with the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court affirming the original judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court also denied certiorari. Rea did not raise the two exhausted claims in his state habeas petitions. The factual summary from the California Court of Appeal opinion is presumed correct under 28 U.S.C. 2254(e)(1), and the Court accepts it as an accurate representation of the trial evidence since the Petitioner does not contest the evidence's sufficiency. On March 3, 2007, Vitorio Pratti and his girlfriend Nancy Sanchez were at their friend Armida Parra's home, where Parra's boyfriend, Ricardo Tapia, and her five-year-old son were also present. After ordering food, Sanchez awoke to eat while Pratti sat nearby. Petitioner, a friend of Pratti and fellow gang member, arrived but did not engage with Pratti. Petitioner entered the kitchen, conversing with Parra, who was upset about the food order. When Tapia and Parra went outside, Sanchez, still in the living room, heard gunshots—one followed by a pause and then three more. Parra, returning inside, also heard shots and saw Petitioner at the back door holding a gun. Tapia, having heard shots as well, encountered Petitioner at the door, who appeared confused and subsequently ran away. Sanchez found Pratti lying injured in the kitchen, and despite several failed calls to 911, he was driven to the hospital where he died from four gunshot wounds. A .380 caliber pistol was discovered in Pratti's pocket during the drive. Sanchez provided inconsistent statements to police regarding the shooting, initially claiming ignorance of the shooter and later acknowledging Petitioner’s presence. She admitted at trial that fear of Petitioner influenced her initial accounts and revealed that Pratti had been frightened of Petitioner, carrying a gun that night due to a belief that Petitioner was after him. Sanchez was present during discussions where the Petitioner expressed suspicions about his girlfriend cheating. Parra and Tapia, both with outstanding warrants, requested Sanchez not to inform police about their presence during Pratti's shooting, and they only spoke to authorities months later while in custody. Tapia confessed to using methamphetamine, including on the night of the shooting, while Parra denied such use. Following the shooting, law enforcement discovered a bloodstained baseball cap and shell casings at Parra’s residence. The day after the incident, deputies Urrutia and Lampkin, aware that the Petitioner was wanted for murder, spotted a vehicle matching his description. Upon attempting to stop the car, the Petitioner fled, leading to a high-speed chase that violated traffic laws. During the pursuit, Deputy Urrutia crashed into another police vehicle, resulting in injuries that required medical attention, leading to his suspension for unsafe driving. Shortly after, the Petitioner crashed his vehicle into a riverbed and fled on foot but was later found hiding. During the chase, a .25 caliber handgun was discovered, which matched the bullets found in Pratti's body. While incarcerated, the Petitioner made threatening comments to Oscar, Sanchez’s brother, regarding his sister and displayed hostility after learning Oscar had not communicated with her. In his defense, Petitioner’s girlfriend, Leah Garcia, testified that they spent the night before the shooting at Parra’s house and noted no tension between Petitioner and Pratti. Their relationship had been strained, culminating in an argument the day of the shooting. Petitioner contacted Garcia around 10:00 p.m., but she disconnected the call. He later visited her home multiple times, staying from the early morning hours into the afternoon; Garcia did not perceive any strange behavior from him. Under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d), a writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted for claims previously adjudicated in state court unless the adjudication was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of federal law as established by the Supreme Court, or was based on an unreasonable factual determination. The federal law applicable is defined by Supreme Court holdings at the time of the relevant state-court decision. A state-court ruling is 'contrary to' federal law if it applies conflicting rules or reaches a different outcome on similar facts. However, a state court need not reference Supreme Court cases if its reasoning and result are not in conflict. Decisions not 'contrary' to federal law may still be overturned if they represent an unreasonable application of that law or are based on unreasonable factual findings. To establish an 'unreasonable application,' the petitioner must demonstrate that the state court's ruling was objectively unreasonable, meaning it lacked justification to the extent that it was indefensible under existing law. Petitioner raised two claims on direct appeal, which were rejected by the court of appeal. The California Supreme Court denied further review without comment, leading to a judicial review based on the court of appeal's prior decision. For the first claim regarding hearsay, Petitioner argued that the admission of the victim's statements violated the Confrontation Clause and compromised his right to a fair trial. Nancy Sanchez testified about the victim carrying a gun due to fear of Petitioner, which the defense contended was hearsay. The prosecutor argued that the victim's statements regarding his state of mind were relevant, asserting that they illustrated a concern for his safety due to the Petitioner’s conduct, and were not offered for their truth but to explain the victim's actions, specifically his decision to carry a gun. The defense contended that this was hearsay and questioned its relevance to the case. The court agreed that the statements could explain the victim's conduct on the night of the incident, despite the defense's objections. Sanchez testified that the victim felt unsafe around the Petitioner, a statement that was contested by the defense. On appeal, the court found that admitting these statements was an abuse of discretion, rendering them inadmissible hearsay when offered to prove the Petitioner’s conduct. However, the court deemed the error harmless, as evidence overwhelmingly indicated that the Petitioner shot the victim. Witnesses consistently testified that the Petitioner was seen with a gun immediately after shots were fired, and the murder weapon was found along the Petitioner’s escape route. The court noted that the credibility of witnesses, while challenged by the Petitioner, remained intact due to the consistency of their testimonies. Even without considering additional DNA evidence, the court concluded it was improbable that a different trial outcome would have occurred had the hearsay statements been excluded. Ultimately, the court found the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and rejected the Petitioner’s claim that the admission of the statements denied him a fair trial. The court of appeal upheld the trial court’s admission of hearsay statements, ruling that it did not violate the Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment confrontation rights. Citing *Crawford v. Washington*, the court clarified that the Sixth Amendment restricts the admission of out-of-court testimonial statements unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a chance to cross-examine them. Testimonial statements are defined as formal statements made with the intent to establish facts for potential criminal proceedings, whereas informal statements in unstructured settings typically do not qualify as testimonial. Pratti’s statements to his girlfriend about the Petitioner were deemed non-testimonial, lacking the formality required for Confrontation Clause implications. The court found no evidence suggesting that Pratti’s statements were made under circumstances that would give an objective witness reason to believe they would be used at trial. Furthermore, the court acknowledged that a Confrontation Clause violation is subject to harmless error analysis, meaning relief under habeas corpus is warranted only if the error significantly affected the jury's verdict. Although the Respondent argued that the Petitioner had procedurally defaulted the claim by not raising it at trial, the court chose to address it on the merits instead. It determined that the admission of the hearsay statements did not violate the Confrontation Clause and that the court of appeal’s conclusion regarding their nontestimonial nature was reasonable. Petitioner failed to present evidence supporting the assertion that Pratti's statements were made under conditions indicative of future trial use, as they were made privately to his fiancée before any crime occurred. Additionally, the overwhelming evidence of the Petitioner’s guilt, including witness testimony of his presence near the shooting, diminished any potential impact of the hearsay statements on the jury's decision. Parra and Tapia, witnesses present outside the home during the shooting incident involving the victim Pratti, testified that upon entering the house after hearing gunshots, they saw the Petitioner holding a small gun. Tapia noted that the Petitioner fled the scene following the shooting. A deputy sheriff confirmed that the next day, Petitioner evaded a traffic stop and fled from a vehicle he was driving. Shortly thereafter, a small gun was discovered along the route Petitioner took while escaping. A firearm-identification specialist linked the bullets fired at Pratti and the recovered cartridge cases to the gun found by police. Consequently, the court of appeal found no objective unreasonableness in denying Petitioner’s claim that the trial court breached the Confrontation Clause by allowing Pratti’s hearsay statements. Regarding Petitioner’s second claim about the admission of DNA evidence, the trial court's refusal to exclude this evidence was contested on grounds of due process. The Supreme Court has not established a clear legal standard for DNA evidence admission. Evidence presented at a pre-trial hearing indicated that while Petitioner was a possible contributor to DNA samples from a gun and a magazine clip, contamination occurred during testing. The prosecution expert testified that despite the contamination, Petitioner’s DNA could not be excluded from the mixture, with probabilities indicating he was among the possible contributors. Petitioner argued that this contamination rendered the results unreliable and that the jury might struggle to comprehend the complexities of the evidence during cross-examination. The trial court initially rejected his request to exclude the DNA evidence under Evidence Code section 801, allowing for potential future arguments under section 352. During the trial, the prosecution expert elaborated on the contamination but maintained that Petitioner could still be a contributor to the DNA mixture, presenting statistical probabilities regarding the likelihood of his inclusion. The expert's analysis of the DNA swab from the magazine cartridge indicated that statistical support was weaker compared to the pistol swab, estimating that one in ten individuals could not be excluded from the DNA mixture, including the petitioner. The appellate court upheld the trial court's decision to admit the expert's testimony, stating it was not speculative and provided a clear explanation of the testing process, including relevant probabilities of the petitioner's DNA contribution. Concerns regarding contamination and the limited probative nature of the results affected the weight of the evidence but not its admissibility. The petitioner argued that the testimony should have been excluded due to potential prejudice and confusion; however, the prosecution's expert testimony was concise, and the defense's expert also had limited testimony. The expert acknowledged contamination but maintained the results were valid without claiming a definitive DNA match, only suggesting a probability of the petitioner's involvement. The appellate court found no due process violation, asserting that challenges based on state law interpretations were not grounds for federal habeas review. The court concluded that the trial court acted within its discretion regarding evidence admission, and the DNA evidence did not compromise the fairness of the trial, being deemed probative and reliable. Thomas Fedor, a forensic serologist, provided testimony regarding DNA analysis from a handgun and magazine clip linked to the Petitioner. Despite contamination in the extraction blanks, Fedor stated that Petitioner was “not excluded” from the DNA mixture, with a statistical likelihood of one in one thousand for the gun and one in ten for the magazine clip. This testimony suggested a higher probability of Petitioner being the gunman, which did not violate his due process rights, as established in *Boyde v. Brown*. Even if the DNA evidence were improperly admitted, the overwhelming evidence of Petitioner’s guilt would render such an error insignificant, per *Brecht*. Petitioner countered with expert testimony asserting that the contamination levels were extremely high and that Fedor’s methods were not widely accepted in scientific communities. The jury was instructed to weigh the conflicting expert opinions and was presumed to have followed this directive. Given that the gun was found along Petitioner’s escape route, the DNA evidence was considered cumulative. Consequently, Petitioner is not entitled to habeas relief. Petitioner’s request for an evidentiary hearing was denied, as the issues could be resolved through the existing state-court record under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). The recommendation concludes with a request for the District Judge to approve the report, deny the evidentiary hearing, and dismiss the petition with prejudice. The warden of the facility housing the Petitioner was substituted as the sole respondent under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d). The Court has renumbered the claims in Petitioner’s case due to the denial of a motion to amend ground two in the Petition, utilizing its Case Management/Electronic Case Filing system for reference, as the original pages are not numbered sequentially. The ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim was addressed in the Court's Order to Show Cause and the motion to amend. The Court did not specifically evaluate the due process claim regarding DNA evidence, concluding that Petitioner failed to demonstrate anything in the record that would counter the presumption of a merits denial. This aligns with the precedent set in Johnson v. Williams, which extends the presumption of merit to situations where not all claims are expressly addressed by the state court. Subsequently, the prosecutor withdrew Sanchez's testimony about Pratti carrying a gun, which was not disclosed to the defense during pretrial discovery. Defense counsel chose to keep the testimony for cross-examination. While Petitioner cited Davis v. Washington, arguing that out-of-court statements might fall under the Confrontation Clause, the Court noted that Davis applies in a different context involving emergency situations, which does not pertain to Pratti's statements to Sanchez. Petitioner also highlighted inconsistencies in witness testimonies but the Court emphasized that conflicting evidence must be resolved in favor of the prosecution according to Jackson v. Virginia, reaffirming that witness credibility is typically not subject to review. The Court referenced McDaniel v. Brown, noting that the Supreme Court had declined to address a due process challenge regarding unreliable DNA testimony due to forfeiture, and although it acknowledged the importance of presenting DNA evidence fairly, such remarks do not constitute established precedent under AEDPA as they are considered dicta. Additionally, the defense expert indicated issues with sample contamination, which the appellate court recognized.