Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-05623/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-05623-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 28:2254 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (State)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

TIMOTHY WYRICK,

Petitioner,

 vs.

A.C. NEWLAND, Warden,

Respondent. 

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No C 03-5623 JSW

ORDER DENYING PETITION

FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS

CORPUS

INTRODUCTION

Petitioner, a California prisoner, filed this motion for a writ of habeas

corpus under 18 U.S.C. § 2254 on December 16, 2003. This Court issued an

order to show cause and Respondent filed an answer. Petitioner filed a traverse. 

Petitioner subsequently filed a motion seeking to hold the petition in abeyance,

pending his exhaustion of additional claims in state court which was denied by

this Court on November 22, 2006. Petitioner claims that the trial court violated

his due process rights by admitting evidence of his prior sex offenses. Petitioner

also challenges the constitutionality of the trial court’s use of CALJIC 2.50.01

regarding the admission of his prior sex offenses. Respondent argues that

Petitioner’s claims were procedurally defaulted in state court by the existence of

an adequate and independent state ground for their denial. This order considers 

Petitioner’s claims on the merits and denies the petition for a writ of habeas

corpus.

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 The facts in this section are derived from the Court of Appeal of the State of

California, First Appellate District, affirming the judgment of the Superior Court. See

People v. Wyrick, No. A095870, slip op. at 1-6 (Cal. Ct App., Mar. 14, 2003).

2

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

An Alameda County jury convicted Petitioner in Superior Court of rape,

forcible penetration by foreign object for purposes of sexual arousal, gratification

or abuse, and first degree robbery. The court sentenced him to imprisonment for

65 years-to-life. On March 14, 2003, the California Court of Appeal affirmed his

conviction, rejecting Petitioner’s sole contention that the 2000 version of

CALJIC 2.50.01 prejudiced his trial. Petitioner did not file a petition for review

with regard to that decision. Instead, Petitioner filed a writ of habeas corpus in

California Supreme Court on November 12, 2003. Petitioner’s writ raised the

CALJIC 2.50.01 claim and a new claim that the trial court violated his due

process rights by admitting evidence of his prior sex offenses. The California

Supreme Court denied both claims with citations to In re Dixon, 41 Cal.2d 756

(1953) and In re Waltreus, 62 Cal.2d 218 (1965). Petitioner filed the instant

petition on December 16, 2003.

During the pendency of this case, Petitioner filed further state collateral

challenges raising additional claims. On November 22, 2006, this Court denied

Petitioner’s motion to hold his initial petition in abeyance pending the exhaustion

of these additional claims.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The facts underlying the charged offenses are summarized as follows:1

On Saturday, May 13, 2000, X.K. encountered Petitioner sitting

between a house and its shrubbery while seeking directions to a job fair

near San Pablo Avenue and Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. X.K.

approached Petitioner for directions, but hesitated and attempted to leave

when she discovered Petitioner had opened his pants zipper and exposed

his penis. Petitioner persistently offered to take X.K. to the address she

sought. Despite her misgivings, X.K. accepted Petitioner’s aid.

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Evidence Code section 1108 provides in pertinent part as follows: “(a) In a

criminal action in which the defendant is accused of a sexual offense, evidence of the

defendant’s commission of another sexual offense or offenses is not made inadmissible

by Section 1101, if the evidence is not inadmissible pursuant to Section 352.

“(b) In an action in which evidence is to be offered under this section, the people

shall disclose the evidence to the defendant, including statements of witnesses or a

summary of the substance of any testimony that is expected to be offered in compliance

with the provisions of Section 1054.7 of the Penal Code.”

3

 This fact is derived from the trial record. See Ex. B-6 at 1155; see also Ex. B7 at 1406, 1434.

3

Instead, Petitioner lead X.K. to a secluded, deserted, and partially

enclosed area near a railroad track. Sensing danger, X.K. tried to escape,

but Petitioner grabbed her and demanded all her money. Before she was

able to comply, Petitioner forced her to the ground on her back and pulled

her pants and underpants off. When X.K. tried to scream, Petitioner used

one had to cover her mouth while slapping and punching her forehead and

face with his other hand. Petitioner sat on her, forced her legs apart, and

put his finger inside her vagina. Then he unzipped his pants and forcibly

raped her. Once he had finished, Petitioner took X.K.’s money and left.

The pastor of a nearby church, Rev. Jacqulin Jackson, called 911

after finding X.K. distraught and badly bruised. X.K. was taken to a

hospital and examined by a sexual assault response team, which also

saved her clothing in sealed evidence envelopes and turned them over to

the police. The medical evidence supported X.K.’s description of the

assault, digital penetration, and rape. Aside from the externally apparent

bruising, there was trauma, tearing, and blood in her vagina, and semen in

her panties. Subsequent DNA testing of that semen exactly matched a

sample of Petitioner’s taken in 1998, and that only one in an estimated

380 billion African-Americans would have that same genetic profile.

[emphasis original].

Mar. 14, 2003 Slip Op. at 1-3. 

I. Prior Sexual Offense Evidence

The trial court admitted evidence of three of Petitioner’s prior

sexual assaults pursuant to California Evidence Code section 1108.2

 The

evidence for each offense came in via the victims’ testimony at trial.3

 The

earliest occurred on April 5, 1981, near 39th Avenue and East 14th Street

in Oakland, California. Petitioner grabbed his 16 year old victim, D.W.,

from behind as she was walking home from a bus stop. Petitioner pulled

her to the ground, began tearing her clothes off, and told her it would be

“easy” if she did not fight or scream. D.W. nevertheless did both,

awakening her family who chased Petitioner away. Petitioner was later

apprehended nearby.

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On May 7, 1996, after J.S. refused Petitioner’s sexual proposition,

he grabbed her by the shirt and dragged her across San Pablo Avenue in

Berkeley toward a parking lot. A nearby police officer heard her screams

for help, observed Petitioner pulling J.S. across the street, and saw him

start punching her and tearing off her shirt. When the officer drove up,

Petitioner fled. After responding, officers sealed off the immediate area

and found petitioner hiding in nearby bushes. One week prior to trial,

Petitioner tried to persuade J.S. not to testify against him and to lie on his

behalf. Though she felt threatened, J.S. refused.

The third incident took place in March, 1999. P.B. testified that

Petitioner came to the door of her home on Allston Way in Berkeley and

claimed to know her. On this basis, P.B. eventually let him in. When she

turned her back to him, Petitioner tackled her, causing her to hit her head

against a wall. He then held P.B.’s throat so she could not scream and

pinned her to the ground. After he had “humped himself” against her leg

“like a dog” for a few minutes, he suddenly released her and ran away. 

P.B. identified Petitioner in a police lineup the same day. 

Id. at 3-4.

B. CALJIC 2.50.01

The trial court instructed the jury with the 2000 revision of

CALJIC 2.50.01: 

“Evidence has been introduced for the purpose of showing that the

defendant engaged in a sexual offense on one or more occasions other

than that currently charged in the Amended Information . . . 

“If you find that the defendant committed a prior sexual offense,

you may, but are not required to, infer that the defendant had a disposition

to commit sexual offenses. If you find that the defendant had this

disposition, you may, but are not required to, infer that he was likely to

commit and did commit the crimes of which he is accused in Counts Two

and Three of the Amended Information.

“However, if you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the

defendant committed a prior sexual offense or offenses, that is not

sufficient by itself to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed

the charged crimes. The weight and significance of the evidence, if any,

are for you to decide.

“Unless you are otherwise instructed, you must not consider this

evidence for any other purpose.”

Id. at 5-6.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court may entertain a petition for a writ of habeas corpus “in behalf of

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a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground

that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the

United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a).

The petition may not be granted with respect to any claim that was

adjudicated on the merits in state court, however, unless the state court’s

adjudication of the claim: “(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or

involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision

that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the

evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” Id. § 2254(d).

Where, however, the state court has rejected a claim on procedural grounds,

rather than on the merits, section 2254(d) does not always apply. If a federal court

concludes that an asserted procedural bar was not an independent and adequate

ground for the state court decision, the federal court must consider the claim on the

merits; if the state courts never reached the merits of the claim, there is no state

court decision to which to defer and the federal court must review the claim de

novo. Pirtle v. Morgan, 313 F.3d 1160, 1167-68 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that

deferential AEDPA standard of review does not apply in this context), cert.

denied, 123 S. Ct. 2286 (2003); see also Nulph v. Cook, 333 F.3d 1052, 1056-57

(9th Cir. 2003). 

DISCUSSION

I. Procedural Default

The procedural default doctrine forecloses federal review of a state

prisoner’s federal habeas claims if those claims rest on a state law ground that is

independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment. See

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729-30 (1991). To find a procedural default,

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the state must show that its high court explicitly invoked a state procedural bar as a

basis for its decision independent of the merits, see id. at 735; McKenna v.

McDaniel, 65 F.3d 1483, 1488 (9th Cir. 1995), and that the state procedural bar

cited was sufficiently clear, well-established and consistently applied at the time of

the petitioner’s purported default. See Calderon v. United States Dist. Court

(Bean), 96 F.3d 1126, 1129 (9th Cir. 1996). See id. 

In federal habeas proceedings, procedural default is an affirmative defense,

and the state bears the burden of proof. Bennett v. Mueller, 322 F.3d, 573, 585

(2003) (citing Gray v. Netherland, 518 U.S. 152, 165 (1996)). “Once the state has

adequately pled the existence of an independent and adequate state procedural

ground . . . the burden to place that defense in issue shifts to the petitioner. The

petitioner may satisfy this burden by asserting specific factual allegations that

demonstrate the inadequacy of the state procedure.” Id. at 586. The California

Supreme Court cited Waltreus and Dixon in denying Petitioner’s writ of habeas

corpus. 

A. Procedural Default Based on Waltreus

The Waltreus rule provides that “‘any issue that was actually raised and

rejected on appeal cannot be renewed in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.’”

Forrest v. Vasquez, 75 F.3d 562, 563 (9th Cir. 1996) (quoting In re Harris, 5 Cal.

4th 813, 829 (1993)) (emphasis in original). A Waltreus citation does not bar

federal review, however. See Calderon, 96 F.3d at 1131. In Y1st v. Nunnemaker,

501 U.S. 797, 805 (1991), the United States Supreme Court concluded that a

Waltreus denial on state habeas has no bearing on a petitioner’s ability to raise a

claim in federal court. See Forrest, 75 F.3d at 564. Rather, the federal courts must

“look through” a Waltreus citation to the last reasoned state court decision. See Id.

Petitioner raised the CALJIC 2.50.01 claim in his direct appeal to the

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California Court of Appeal, which rejected it. He did not file a petition for review,

but later raised the claim again in his habeas corpus petition to the California

Supreme Court, which also rejected it, citing Waltreus and Dixon in an otherwise

unreasoned opinion. The CALJIC 2.50.01 claim was the only claim to appear

before both the California Court of Appeal on appeal and the Supreme Court in a

habeas petition. Since Dixon bars the bringing of new claims in a state habeas

petition and Waltreus bars the relitigation of claims on state habeas review that

were already raised on appeal, this Court concludes that the California Supreme

Court applied the Waltreus bar to Petitioner’s CALJIC 2.50.01 claim. See Dixon,

41 Cal.2d at 759. A denial based on Waltreus does not bar federal review, so this

Court will “look through” the Supreme Court’s denial of the claim to review the

decision of the Court of Appeal and address the merits of Petitioner’s CALJIC

2.50.01 claim.

B. Procedural Default Based on Dixon

1. Legal Standard

The Dixon rule provides that habeas corpus “cannot serve as a substitute for

an appeal, and, in the absence of special circumstances constituting an excuse for

failure to employ that remedy, the writ will not lie where the claimed errors could

have been, but were not, raised upon a timely appeal from a judgment of

conviction.” Dixon, 41 Cal.2d at 759. The Ninth Circuit has reserved the question

whether Dixon currently is an independent and adequate state procedural bar to

federal habeas review. Park v. California, 202 F.3d 1146, 1152-53 (9th Cir.

2000). 

The Dixon rule may be independent of federal law sufficient to bar habeas

corpus review when the default occurs after In re Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th 770 (1998). 

See Bennett v. Mueller, 322 F.3d 573, 582-83 (9th Cir. 2003); Park, 202 F.3d at

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1152 at 1153. Preceding Robbins, the California Supreme Court conceded that it

necessarily addressed federal law in applying the Dixon rule wherever the claim

alleged federal constitutional error. In re Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th 770 (1998). After

Robbins, the California Supreme Court ostensibly has adopted “a stance from

which it . . . decline[s] to consider federal law when deciding whether claims are

procedurally defaulted.” Park, 202 F.3d at 1152 (citing In re Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th

at 811-12). While the Ninth Circuit has declined to rule on the independence of

the Dixon rule after Robbins, the Court has treated Robbins deferentially with

respect to the independence of other California procedural bars. See Bennett, 322

F.3d at 582.

The Dixon rule was not adequate to bar habeas review before or shortly

after the California Supreme Court decided In re Harris, 5 Cal. 4th 813, 828 n.7

(1993). See Fields v. Calderon, 125 F.3d 757, 765 (9th Cir. 1997) (refusing to

honor Dixon rule where default occurred before Harris); see also Odle v.

Calderon, 884 F. Supp. 1404, 1413 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (Dixon procedural rule has

not been uniformly and regularly applied by California Supreme Court); Karis v.

Vasquez, 828 F. Supp. 1404 1467-68 (E.D. Cal. 1993) (Dixon rule merely

discretionary policy and therefore not adequate). After Harris, procedural defaults

based on Dixon may be adequate to bar federal review. See Siripongs v. Calderon,

35 F.3d 1308, 1318 (9th Cir. 1994). However, the mere fact that the California

Supreme Court stated in In re Robbins, 18 Cal. 4th 770 (1998), that it would

thenceforth consistently apply a new procedural rule is not sufficient to establish

that the rule in fact has been consistently applied since Robbins. See Bennett, 322

F.3d at 583. 

A rule is sufficiently clear if it puts a petitioner on notice that he must raise

all claims or risk default. Bargas v. Burns, 179 F.3d 1207, 1212 (9th Cir. 1999). 

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In evaluating whether a procedural bar is well-established and consistently applied,

the federal court must look at the actual practice of state courts, and not just at the

rule as stated in the state court decisions. Powell v. Lambert, 357 F.3d 871, 879

(9th Cir. 2004). 

At root, this inquiry serves the fairness considerations raised in Bennett: “It

is the state, not the petitioner, often appearing pro se, who has in its hands the

records and authorities to prove whether its courts have regularly and consistently

applied the procedural bar.” 322 F.3d at 585 (citations omitted).

2. Analysis

Petitioner did not bring his due process challenge to the admission of his

prior sexual offenses in his appeal to the California Court of Appeal. He raised it

for the first time in his habeas corpus petition to the California Supreme Court,

which denied it, citing Dixon in an otherwise unreasoned opinion. Accordingly,

this Court concludes that the California Supreme Court applied the Dixon bar to

Petitioner’s due process challenge to the admission of prior sexual offense

evidence.

After Robbins, the question of whether the Dixon bar constitutes a bar to

federal review is unsettled. See id. at 583. Nevertheless, it is unnecessary to

resolve this question in this case since the state has failed to meet its burden of

proof in establishing the procedural bar in this case. The state offers Bennett for

the proposition that the Ninth Circuit has wholly embraced the Dixon bar. 

However, Bennett involved California’s untimeliness bar and not the Dixon bar. 

Id. at 583-84. Further, the Bennett court rejected the adequacy of the untimeliness

bar in that case. Id. at 584. The state offers no further proof of the Dixon bar’s

independence from federal law or that its application is well-established and has

been consistently applied by the California courts. Accordingly, the state fails to

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 In the Court of Appeal, Petitioner asked, “what happens if the jury finds

beyond a reasonable doubt – rather than by a preponderance of the evidence – that the

defendant committed the prior sex offenses? The answer is obvious: in those

circumstances, the prior crime evidence is sufficient by itself to prove beyond a

reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the charged crimes.” Wyrick, slip op. at

6.

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meet its burden of proof under Bennett of the adequacy of the procedural bar

precluding federal review. This Court will therefore consider Petitioner’s prior

sexual offense evidentiary claim on the merits. 

II. CALJIC 2.50.01

This Court will review the California Court of Appeal’s decision, which is

the highest state court to issue a reasoned opinion, under AEDPA’s deferential

standard. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); See Pirtle, 313 F.3d at 1168. The California

Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s use of the 2000 version of CALJIC

2.50.01 under state constitutional law. The question here is whether the trial

court’s use of that version of CALJIC 2.50.01 violates federal constitutional law.

In the petition, Petitioner does not specify how the trial court’s use of the

2000 version of CALJIC 2.50.01 violated his federal due process rights. In the

Court of Appeal he argued under a state law theory that the 2000 version contains

a “negative pregnant” that permits conviction solely by inferring the commission

of prior sex offenses.4

 The Court of Appeal rejected that argument citing People v.

Reliford, 29 Cal. 4th 1007, 1015 (Cal. 2003) (rejecting that the 1999 version of

CALJIC 2.50.01 – identical in all relevant respects to the 2000 version – “implies

by way of a negative pregnant that prior sex offenses proved beyond a reasonable

doubt are indeed sufficient to prove the present offense beyond a reasonable

doubt”). Because it is not clear how Petitioner contends the instruction violated

his constitutional rights, this Court will liberally construe his claim and consider it

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in light of the recent decision of the Ninth Circuit in Gibson v. Ortiz, 387 F.3d 812

(9th Cir. 2004). See Zichko v Idaho, 247 F.3d 1015, 1020 (9th Cir. 2001). In

Gibson, the Ninth Circuit found that the pre-1999 version of CALJIC 2.50.01,

coupled with CALJIC 2.50.1, unconstitutionally lowered the burden of proof in

sexual offense cases. Gibson, 387 F.3d at 821-23. For the reasons below, this

Court finds no constitutional infirmity in the 2000 version of CALJIC 2.50.01 and

accompanying version of CALJIC 2.50.1 issued to the jury in this case.

A. Legal Standard

To obtain federal collateral relief for errors in the jury charge, a petitioner

must show that the ailing instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the

resulting conviction violates due process. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 72

(1991). Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 147 (1973); see also Donnelly v.

DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643 (1974) (“‘[I]t must be established not merely

that the instruction is undesirable, erroneous or even “universally condemned,” but

that it violated some [constitutional right].’”). 

Due process protects the accused against conviction except upon proof

beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with

which he or she is charged. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970). 

Accordingly, the state may not benefit from a jury charge that relieves the burden

of persuasion beyond a reasonable doubt from any essential element of a crime. 

See Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391, 400-03 (1991); Carella v. California, 491 U.S.

263, 265-66 (1989); Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 313 (1985); Sandstrom v.

Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 520-24 (1979). The explicit “misdescription” [sic] of the

burden of proof “vitiates all the jury’s findings” and produces a structural defect to

which “harmless error” analysis does not apply. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S.

275, 281 (1993) (emphasis in original); see also Gibson, 387 F.3d at 825-826

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(failure to properly instruct the jury on the necessity of proof beyond a reasonable

doubt “can never be harmless error”). 

When confronted with an ambiguous instruction, the inquiry is whether

there is a “reasonable likelihood” that the jury has applied it in an unconstitutional

manner. See Estelle, 502 U.S. at 72 n.4; Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380

(1990). Such an unconstitutional application must also have a substantial and

injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict, see Brecht v.

Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993), to warrant relief in habeas proceedings. 

See Calderon v. Coleman, 525 U.S. 141, 146-47 (1998).

The Ninth Circuit found the 1996 version of CALJIC 2.50.01 to be facially

erroneous as to the burden of proof in Gibson, 387 F.3d at 821-22. That version

read,

If you find that the defendant committed a prior sexual offense, you may,

but are not required to, infer that the defendant had a disposition to commit

the same or similar type sexual offenses. If you find that the defendant had

this disposition, you may, but are not required to, infer that he was likely to

commit and did commit the crime or crimes of which he is accused . 

Id. at 822. The trial court immediately followed with CALJIC 2.50.1:

Within the meaning of the preceding instructions the prosecution has the

burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that a defendant

committed sexual offenses and/or domestic violence other than those for

which he is on trial. 

Id. The Gibson court found that the trial court’s use of this version of CALJIC

2.50.01, combined with CALJIC 2.50.1, violated due process by allowing the “jury

to find the [petitioner] committed the uncharged sexual offenses by a

preponderance of the evidence and thus infer that he had committed the charged

acts based upon facts found not beyond a reasonable doubt, but by a

preponderance of the evidence.” Id. at 821-23. The Gibson court specified that it

found no errors in the remainder of CALJIC 2.50.01. See id.

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B. Analysis

The version of CALJIC 2.50.01 at issue in this case is neither facially

erroneous nor ambiguous with regard to the standard of proof, as with the earlier

version found unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit in Gibson. The Gibson court

found that the 1996 version of CALJIC 2.50.01 coupled with 2.50.1 violated due

process by allowing jurors to infer guilt based on evidence of prior sex offenses

proved not beyond a reasonable doubt, but by the lower “preponderance of the

evidence” standard. Id. at 821-23. Here, however, the 2000 version of CALJIC

2.50.01 explicitly prohibits that finding by jurors: “. . . if you find by a

preponderance of the evidence that the defendant committed a prior sexual offense

. . . that is not sufficient by itself to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he

committed the charged crimes.” The version of CALJIC 2.50.01 used at

Petitioner’s trial stands for the correct proposition that the evidence of his prior

offenses established by a “preponderance of the evidence” would have been an

insufficient basis to prove the instant crime “beyond a reasonable doubt” and thus

to find Petitioner guilty. The instruction did not in any other way address the

burden of proof.

Even if the instruction here were ambiguous, there is no “reasonable

likelihood” that the jury applied it in an unconstitutional manner. See Estelle v.

McGuire, 502 U.S. at 72 & n.4; Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380 (1990);

see, e.g., Ficklin v. Hatcher, 177 F.3d 1147, 1150-51 (9th Cir. 1999) (“harmless

error” when certain that jury did not rely on constitutionally infirm instruction).

The trial court gave to the jury several other jury instructions that would have

alleviated the prejudice caused to petitioner by any ambiguity in the 2000 version

of CALJIC 2.50.01 and 2.50.1. The trial court admonished the jury that “each fact

. . . to establish the defendant’s guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

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Ex. A-3 at 793. The trial court further emphasized that the “the burden is on the

People to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is the person who

committed the crimes with which he is charged.” Id. at 814; see also Id. at 813. 

The court carefully defined “reasonable doubt” as “not a mere possible doubt . . .

[but] that state of the case which . . . leaves the minds of the jurors in that

condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction of the truth of the

charge.” Id. at 813. By contrast, the court defined “preponderance of the

evidence” as “evidence that has more convincing force than that opposed to it.” 

Id. at 821. In this context, there was no likelihood that the jury would have

convicted Petitioner by applying the wrong burden of proof. 

Assuming the jury did improperly apply the version of the instruction here

due to ambiguity, it would not be a structural error as in Gibson, in which the court

refused to extend harmless error analysis to facially invalid jury instructions. 387

F.3d at 825. Instead, the inquiry would be whether the error had a substantial and

injurious effect on the guilty verdict and whether the verdict would stand absent

the erroneously admitted evidence. See Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638

(1993) (citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65 (1946)). 

However, the errant application of a lower standard of proof to the prior sexual

offense evidence would not have had such an effect. Petitioner faced

overwhelmingly inculpatory evidence at trial that established his guilt beyond a

reasonable doubt: witness testimony, the results of a post-incident medical

examination of his victim, and a precise DNA match – only one in 380 billion

African-Americans could have the same genetic profile – between semen found on

her person and a sample taken from Petitioner in 1998. The jury could have

reasonably determined Petitioner’s guilt on this basis alone. Accordingly, this

Court finds no due process violation and rejects this claim on the merits.

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III. Admission of Prior Sexual Offense Evidence

Petitioner also claims that evidence of prior sexual offenses admitted under

California Evidence Code section 1108 violated his due process rights. Since no

state court reached the merits of this claim, this Court will consider it de novo. See

Pirtle, 313 F.3d at 1167-68; See also Nulph, 333 F.3d at 1056-57. 

A. Legal Standard

An error in the admission of evidence is only subject to habeas review if it

is of such magnitude that it precludes the fundamentally fair trial guaranteed by

due process. See Henry v. Kernan, 197 F.3d 1021, 1031 (9thCir. 1999); Colley v.

Sumner, 784 F.2d 984, 990 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 839 (1986). The

inquiry is whether the admission of evidence was arbitrary or so prejudicial that it

rendered the trial fundamentally unfair. See Walters v. Maass, 45 F.3d 1355, 1357

(9th Cir. 1995); Colley, 784 F.2d at 990. The admission of evidence is only so

unfair that it threatens to violate due process if there are no permissible inferences

that the jury may draw from it and it is of an inflammatory nature. Jammal v. Van

de Kamp, 926 F.2d 918, 919 (9th Cir. 1991). 

The United States Supreme Court has left open the question of whether

admission of propensity evidence violates due process. Estelle v. 502 U.S. at 75

n.5; see also Alberni v. McDaniel, 458 F.3d 860, 866-67 (9th Cir. 2006) (state

court’s denial of due process claim concerning admission of petitioner’s propensity

for violence was not objectively unreasonable); see also id. at 874-75 (McKeown,

J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (agreeing that there is no clearly

established Supreme Court precedent that admission of propensity evidence

violates due process, but concluding that Supreme Court’s reservation of the issue

does not automatically foreclose petitioner’s claim). 

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The Ninth Circuit also has not rendered a binding decision on the

constitutionality of California Evidence Code section 1108. It has, however,

upheld the use of sexual propensity evidence under the analogous Federal Rule of

Evidence 413. See U.S. v. Sioux, 362 F.3d 1241, 1244 (9th Cir. 2004); see also

U.S. v. LeMay, 260 F.3d 1018, 1022 (9th Cir. 2001). Rule 413(a) provides that in

criminal sexual assault cases, “evidence of the defendant’s commission of another

sexual offense or offenses of sexual assault is admissible, and may be considered

for its bearing on any matter to which it is relevant.” This rule supersedes the

prohibition against propensity evidence embodied in Rule 404(b) and does not

violate due process so long as the prejudice-balancing protections of Rule 403

remain in place. Sioux, 362 F.3d at 1244; LeMay, 260 F.3d at 1022. Rule 403

directs judges to exclude any evidence offered under 413 that is more prejudicial

than probative, and “ensure[s] that potentially devastating evidence of little

probative value will not reach the jury, [such that] the right to a fair trial remains

adequately safeguarded.” Id. at 1027. 

In LeMay, the 24 year old defendant was convicted of child molestation. 

260 F.3d at 1022. Twelve years earlier, as a juvenile, the defendant had been 

convicted of rape, and the prosecution introduced his prior victims’ testimony at

trial to establish his propensity for criminal sexual behavior under Rule 414. Id.

Rule 414 is analogous in every respect to Rule 413 except that it applies

specifically to child sexual abuse cases. In considering LeMay’s due process

claim on direct appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that admission of prior sex offense

propensity evidence under Rule 414 did not violate due process so long as the trial

court properly considered the evidence’s prejudicial effect in light of its probative

value under Rule 403. See Id. at 1026. The Ninth Circuit went on to hold that the

trial court properly admitted the prior victim’s testimony despite its highly

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prejudicial nature. Id. at 1030.

B. Analysis

The trial court’s admission of Petitioner’s prior sex offenses as propensity

evidence does not violate due process. The reasoning of LeMay is equally

applicable here because the California rules governing admission of prior sex

offenses parallel the federal rules. Evidence admitted under Federal Rule 413 is

limited by its evaluation for relevance Rule 403. Similarly, evidence admitted

under California Evidence Code section 1108 is limited by an analogous relevance

evaluation under section 352. Just like Federal Rule 403, section 352 authorizes

the trial judge to exclude evidence whose prejudicial effect outweighs its probative

value. As such, the protections of Federal Rule 403 and section 352 equally ensure

the due process right to a fair trial and no due process violation has occurred on

this basis. See LeMay, 260 F.3d at 1026 (obligating the trial court to balance

probative value against prejudicial effect under Rule 403 before admitting sexual

propensity evidence).

Furthermore, the trial court did not violate due process in admitting the

evidence of Petitioner’s prior sex offenses after finding that its probative value

outweighed its prejudicial effect under section 352. The prosecution sought to

introduce evidence of eight prior offenses. Ex. B-3 at 92-102, 112. The trial court

recognized the prejudicial nature of this evidence – prior victim testimony, as in

LeMay – and evaluated it under section 352. Id. at 104, 111. In doing so, the court

weighed several factors against the prior offense evidence’s obvious probative

value: the inflammatory nature of the evidence, the probability that the jury would

confuse the prior offenses with the instant alleged offense, whether the prior

offenses were too far in the past, and whether the introduction of the evidence

would consume too much time at trial. Id. at 105-11. In particular, the trial court

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was concerned that the evidence of prior offenses would cumulatively outweigh

the evidence of the instant offense. Id. at 112. After weighing these factors, the

court allowed the admission of only three of the eight prior offenses proposed by

the prosecution. Id. at 13. The trial court’s careful weighing of the probative

value of evidence of Petitioner’s prior sex offenses against its prejudicial effect

served to protect Petitioner’s due process rights. See LeMay, 260 F.3d at 1030.

Finally, even if the trial court did erroneously admit evidence of Petitioner’s

prior sex offenses, it would not have had a substantial and injurious effect on the

guilty verdict. See Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638 (1993) (citing

Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65 (1946)). As discussed in section

II above, Petitioner faced overwhelming inculpatory evidence altogether apart

from the evidence of prior sexual offenses. Accordingly, this Court finds no

violation of due process and rejects this claim.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is

DENIED. The Clerk shall enter judgment in favor of Respondent and close the

file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: March 9, 2007

_____________________

JEFFREY S. WHITE

United States District Judge

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