Case ID: f-appx_579/html/0611-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Richard Lawrence STEWART, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Ralph M. DIAZ, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
    No. 13-15499.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted June 13, 2014.
    
    Filed June 18, 2014.
    Solomon Robert Wollaek, Attorney Ad-visor, Attorney at Law, Pleasant Hill, CA, for Petitioner-Appellant.
    Jill M. Thayer, Esquire, Deputy Attorney General, Office of the California Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for Respondent-Appellee.
    Before: O’SCANNLAIN, SACK , and BEA, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable Robert D. Sack, Senior Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Richard Stewart pled guilty to petty theft for stealing two watches, each worth $29.99. Because of his extensive criminal history, a California court sentenced him to a prison term of twenty-five-years-to-life. Applying Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11, 123 S.Ct. 1179, 155 L.Ed.2d 108 (2003), the California Court of Appeal ruled that Stewart’s punishment was not “grossly disproportionate” under the Eighth Amendment because his criminal history included repeated, serious offenses.

The district court denied Stewart’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus under the deferential standard established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). On appeal, Stewart argues that the California Court of Appeal unreasonably applied “clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” Id.

Stewart’s criminal history includes very serious violent crimes: forcible oral copulation in concert and assault with a deadly weapon. That fact easily distinguishes this case from cases in which the defendant had committed only nonviolent crimes. Cf. Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 280, 303, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983) (ruling that a life sentence without the possibility of parole was “significantly disproportionate” to “minor criminal conduct” when the defendant had no history of committing violent crimes); Ramirez v. Castro, 365 F.3d 755, 768 (9th Cir.2004) (granting habeas relief when a defendant had committed only nonviolent offenses).

Stewart argues that he cannot be sentenced so harshly for such a “trivial” crime regardless of his criminal history. In the context of AEDPA, such argument is foreclosed by Lockyer v. Andrade, in which the Supreme Court held that a state court did not unreasonably apply clearly established federal law by affirming two consecutive twenty-five-year sentences for stealing $153.54 worth of videotapes. 538 U.S. 63, 66, 77, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003).

Stewart also argues that it was unreasonable for the California Court of Appeal to consider crimes that he committed as a minor. He relies on Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 82, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), which prohibits life-without-parole sentences for non-homicide crimes committed by minors, and Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 577, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), which prohibits executions for crimes committed by minors. It was reasonable for the California Court of Appeal to conclude that those cases do not prohibit the consideration of crimes committed as a minor in imposing a sentence of imprisonment for less than the life of the defendant.

We cannot conclude that the California Court of Appeal unreasonably applied clearly established federal law.

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.