Case ID: f-appx_601/html/0559-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Leonardo LEPE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. David B. LONG, Respondent-Appellee.
    No. 12-57219.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted April 7, 2015.
    Filed May 1, 2015.
    Russell S. Babcock, Law Office of Russell Babcock, Imperial, CA, for Petitioner-Appellant.
    Leonardo Lepe, San Diego, CA, pro se, Appellant.
    Jaime Luis Fuster, Deputy Attorney General, AGCA-Office of the California Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for Respondent-Appellee.
    Before: REINHARDT, McKEOWN, and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
   MEMORANDUM

California state prisoner Leonardo Lepe appeals from the district court’s judgment denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2258. We review de novo the district court’s decision to deny a habeas petition, see Rhoades v. Henry, 598 F.3d 495, 500 (9th Cir.2010), and we affirm.

Lepe claims that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to establish the jury’s findings of premeditation and deliberation that supported his first-degree murder conviction. CaLPenal Code §§ 187(a), 189. The state court’s decision rejecting this claim on the merits is entitled to deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. -See Johnson v. Williams, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1088, 1096, 185 L.Ed.2d 105 (2013). The California Court of Appeal concluded that “there was sufficient evidence' to convince a rational trial of fact, beyond a reasonable doubt, that [Lepe] committed willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder.” That decision was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established law as determined by the United States Supreme Court, and was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the state court record. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (“[T]he relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
     
      
      . Lepe also argues that the certificate of ap-pealability should be expanded to include whether there was sufficient evidence to convict Lepe of murder in any degree. We decline to expand the certificate of appealability, although we note that the answer is inherent in the above decision. See 9th Cir. R. 22-1 (e); Hiivala v. Wood, 195 F.3d 1098, 1104-05 (9th Cir.1999) (per curiam).