Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-14-56946/USCOURTS-ca9-14-56946-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAVID A. RADEMAKER,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

DANIEL PARAMO, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 14-56946

D.C. No.

2:08-cv-08486-VAP-CW

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Virginia A. Phillips, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 10, 2016*

Pasadena, California

Filed August 30, 2016

Before: Richard R. Clifton, Consuelo M. Callahan,

and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Callahan

* The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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2 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

SUMMARY**

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of David

Rademaker’s habeas corpus petition challenging his

California state conviction for first-degree murder with a

special circumstance for committing the murder during the

commission of a kidnapping.

The jury found the special circumstance based on an

erroneous jury instruction regarding the element of

asportation. The panel held that the California Court of

Appeal’s determination that the instructional error was

harmless beyond a reasonable doubt was not an objectively

unreasonable application of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S.

18 (1967).

COUNSEL

Tracy J. Dressner, La Crescenta, California, for PetitionerAppellant.

Allison H. Chung, Deputy Attorney General; Stephanie C.

Brenan, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Lance E.

Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Gerald A.

Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Kamala D. Harris,

Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, Los

Angeles, California, for Respondent-Appellee.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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RADEMAKER V. PARAMO 3

OPINION

CALLAHAN, Circuit Judge:

Kimberly Pandelios disappeared on February 27, 1992. 

In March 1993, hikers discovered some of her remains in the

Angeles National Forest but her disappearance remained a

mystery until 2004, when evidence surfaced linking David

Rademaker to her death. At Rademaker’s trial, the evidence

established that Rademaker lured Pandelios to a secluded

location on the Angeles Crest Highway for a photo shoot,

then abducted and drowned her in a nearby creek. A jury

convicted Rademaker of first-degree murder. Based on an

erroneous jury instruction regarding the element of

asportation, the jury also found true the special circumstance

that Rademaker committed the murder during the commission

of a kidnapping. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the

conviction on direct appeal. People v. Rademaker, No.

B190134, 2007 WL 1982272 (Cal. Ct. App. July 10, 2007),

modified on denial of reh’g (July 27, 2007). Applying

Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967), the court

found the instructional error “harmless beyond a reasonable

doubt” under state law. On habeas review and subject to the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA),

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), we must decide whether the state court’s

harmless-error determination was objectively unreasonable. 

We hold that it was not.

I. Background

A.

Pandelios, an aspiring model, was 21 years old when she

answered a modeling recruitment advertisement placed by

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4 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

someone purporting to be a magazine photographer. The

photographer turned out to be Rademaker, who was 28 years

old, and the photo shoot a ruse to demand sex.

1 Pandelios

agreed to meet Rademaker on February 27, 1992. That day,

she was seen wearing a blue suit, white blouse, and high

heels.

About 1 p.m., Pandelios drove her car to meet Rademaker

at a location on the Angeles Crest Highway, near the Angeles

National Forest. When the two met, Rademaker made a

sexual overture, which Pandelios rebuffed. After

overpowering and anally penetrating her, he pushed her head

into a creek and drowned her.

Later that evening, a Los Angeles deputy sheriff spotted

Pandelios’s car parked on the shoulder of the Angeles Crest

Highway, just north of the Monte Cristo campground. The

car appeared to be vacant and in good condition. Some time

later, Rademaker returned to the car with C.H., a 14-year-old

girl with whom he had developed a sexual relationship.

Unaware of the murder, C.H. watched as Rademaker squirted

charcoal lighter fluid inside the car and lit it on fire. The

blaze eventually caught the attention of a second deputy

sheriff, who noticed that the fire emanated from the front

passenger side rather than from the engine compartment,

indicating an intent to destroy evidence or to commit suicide.

1 According to testimony from Richard Albertini, whom Rademaker

befriended in the mid-1980s, Rademaker was involved in a prostitution

outcall business. He would place advertisements in LA Express with

pictures of nearly nude girls along with a phone number. After a potential

customer left a message at the phone number in the ad, Rademaker would

vet the customer and then return the call using a router so his phone call

could not be traced. Rademaker would then arrange a meeting between

the prostitute and the customer.

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RADEMAKER V. PARAMO 5

In the days that followed, police recovered an empty

charcoal lighter fluid container, a plastic lighter and a

handcuff key—all observed in the vicinity of Pandelios’s car. 

A month later, hikers found Pandelios’s appointment book at

the bottom of a bridge, next to a nearby creek.

It took a year for anyone to discover Pandelios’s remains,

however. In March 1993, hikers discovered her skull and

pelvic bone in an isolated, wooded area near the Monte Cristo

campground. The area, known as the “cement slab,” included

a creek or stream bed. A bra similar to Pandelios’s was found

in the vicinity of the skull, as well as pantyhose. Both bra

straps had been severed by a sharp object like a knife, razor

or scissors, enabling the bra to be removed if the victim’s

hands were bound or handcuffed. The pantyhose had also

been severed by a sharp object.

In March 1993, a forensic anthropologic recovery team

investigated the location where the skull had been recovered

and found Pandelios’s fractured mandible2as well as a pair of

handcuffs, hair, fabric, and Pandelios’s ring and earrings. 

Two years later, a leg bone was found in the creek near the

“cement slab.”

Pandelios’s case went cold. In January 2004, just after

Rademaker was released from prison for unrelated crimes, the

cold case unit coincidentally began looking into Pandelios’s

disappearance. Police learned that during the course of a

sexual relationship with M.K., another 14-year-old girl,

2 According to the stipulated findings of a dental expert, blows from a

small, hard round object could have caused the fracturing of the front part

of the jaw and the fracturing and chipping of several teeth. The expert

also found that these injuries likely occurred around the time of death.

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6 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

Rademaker drove M.K. to the Angeles Forest and confessed

to sodomizing and murdering “a blonde model that he met

through a personal ad.”3 Rademaker told M.K. that the

murder was featured on Unsolved Mysteries but that the show

got it wrong because it reported that the suspects were

tattooed bikers.

Police also contacted C.H., whose name appeared in

Pandelios’s case file and was described as a girlfriend of

Rademaker at the time Pandelios disappeared. C.H.

cooperated with law enforcement to elicit a confession from

Rademaker. During recorded conversations, Rademaker

admitted that he had set fire to the car while C.H. was

present. Police arrested Rademaker during the course of this

surveillance.

B.

Rademaker was indicted for Pandelios’s murder. The

prosecution alleged that the murder took place during the

commission of a kidnapping, a special circumstance charged

under California Penal Code § 190.2(a)(17)(B) and requiring

proof of asportation—i.e., the “carrying away of the victim.” 

Laurel v. Superior Court of Los Angeles Cty., 255 Cal. App.

2d 292, 298 (1967); see Cal. Penal Code § 207(a) (“Every

person who forcibly . . . steals or takes, or holds, detains, or

arrests any person in this state, and carries the person . . . into

another part of the same county, is guilty of kidnapping.”). 

At the time, California Jury Instruction–Criminal No. 9.50

3 Although it was alleged that the murder was committed while

Rademaker engaged in unlawful sodomy, the jury found this special

circumstance not true. Rademaker, 2007 WL 1982272, at *1 n.2;see Cal.

Penal Code § 190.2(a)(17)(D).

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RADEMAKER V. PARAMO 7

defined asportation as the movement of a victim “for a

substantial distance, that is, a distance more than slight or

trivial.” Rademaker, 2007 WL 1982272, at *5 (quoting

CALJIC 9.50 (6th ed. 1996)). The definition was based on

state supreme court precedent. People v. Caudillo, 21 Cal. 3d

562, 572 (1978) (citing People v. Stanworth, 11 Cal. 3d 588,

601 (1974)).

The California Supreme Court enlarged the definition of

asportation in 1999, overrulingCaudillo. People v. Martinez,

20 Cal. 4th 225, 237–38 & n.6 (1999). In Martinez, the court

adopted a totality of the circumstances standard, holding that

factors other than actual distance may be relevant to

asportation. Id. California Jury Instruction–Criminal No.

9.50 was thus revised to conform to Martinez. The new

version stated in pertinent part:

A movement that is only for a slight or trivial

distance is not substantial in character. In

determining whether a distance that is more

than slight or trivial is substantial in character,

you should consider the totality of the

circumstances attending the movement,

including but not limited to, the actual

distance moved, or whether the movement

increased the risk of harm above that which

existed prior to the movement, or decreased

the likelihood of detection, or increased both

the danger inherent in a victim’s foreseeable

attempt to escape and the attacker’s enhanced

opportunity to commit additional crimes.

CALJIC No. 9.50 (1999 rev.). The comment to the revision

admonished: “This 1999 revision cannot be applied

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8 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

retroactively.” Id. (citing Martinez); see Martinez, 20 Cal.

4th at 240–41.

At the close of evidence, the trial judge sua sponte

charged the jury using the revised instruction even though the

instruction was not in effect at the time of the murder. In

2006, a jury found Rademaker guilty of murder. Cal. Penal

Code § 187(a). As to the special circumstance, the jury

applied the court’s instruction and found that the evidence

proved kidnapping beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial

court sentenced Rademaker to life without the possibility of

parole based on this finding.

Rademaker appealed, principally contending that he was

prejudiced by the trial judge’s use of the 1999 instruction. 

The California Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed his

conviction in a reasoned (unpublished) decision. Rademaker,

2007 WL 1982272. The court held that the trial court’s

instruction was erroneous as a matter of state law, then

applied the Supreme Court’s harmless-error rule established

in Chapman. Id. at *4–8 & n.6. The court determined:

Although the precise spot of her murder was

not pinpointed, it was reasonable for the jury

to infer that [Rademaker]’s intent was to kill

Pandelios far from prying eyes and that

having selected the spot that suited his

nefarious purpose, [Rademaker] did not intend

to drag the body for any great distance. 

Accordingly, the jury was entitled to find

[Rademaker] murdered Pandelios at some

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RADEMAKER V. PARAMO 9

spot not far from the cement slab, which was

at least a mile from where [he] abducted her.

Id. at *8.

Rademaker appealed the decision to the California

Supreme Court, but the court denied review of his claims on

October 17, 2007. On habeas review, the district court denied

relief under AEDPA. This timely appeal followed.

II. Standard of Review

Rademaker filed his petition for habeas corpus after April

24, 1996, therefore AEDPA applies to his claim of

instructional error. Mann v. Ryan, — F.3d —, 2016 WL

3854234, at *6 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc). Where a claim is

adjudicated on the merits in state court, we review that claim

to determine whether its adjudication 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) was “based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented

in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Davis v.

Ayala, 135 S. Ct. 2187, 2198 (2015). “We review the last

reasoned state court decision according to this deferential

standard.” Mann, 2016 WL 3854234, at *6. We review de

novo the district court’s application of AEDPA to that

decision. Id.

Under AEDPA’s “contrary to” clause, we examine

whether “the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to

that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or

if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme]

Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.” 

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10 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

Mann, 2016 WL 3854234, at *7 (alterations in original)

(quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412–13 (2000)). 

Under the “unreasonable application” clause, “[we] must

determine what arguments or theories supported or . . . could

have supported[] the state court’s decision; and then [we]

must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could

disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent

with the holding in a prior decision of [the Supreme] Court.” 

Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 102 (2011). The inquiry

requires us to determine whether a petitioner has shown that

the state court applied a clearly established Supreme Court

holding “in an ‘objectivelyunreasonable’ manner”—i.e., “the

state court’s decision to reject his claim ‘was so lacking in

justification that there was an error well understood and

comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for

fairminded disagreement.’” Ayala, 135 S. Ct. at 2198–99

(quoting Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 18 (2003) (per

curiam); Richter, 562 U.S. at 103).

III. Analysis

There is no dispute that the trial court erred in using the

expanded, non-retroactive asportation instruction. The error,

Rademaker contends, violated his federal constitutional

rights. We need not resolve that contention. Because the

California Court of Appeal applied Chapman, we may

assume that it found the trial court’s error to be a federal

constitutional error. See Martinez, 20 Cal. 4th at

238–41(holding that retroactive application of the revised

kidnapping instruction was barred by the federal Due Process

Clause); see also Ayala, 135 S. Ct. at 2195, 2197 (making a

similar assumption when the state court applied Chapman

without deciding whether an error violated the federal

Constitution). Thus, the only question raised by this appeal

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RADEMAKER V. PARAMO 11

is whether the California Court of Appeal reasonably

concluded that the error was “harmless beyond a reasonable

doubt.” Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24.

“When a Chapman decision is reviewed under AEDPA,

‘a federal court may not award habeas relief under § 2254

unless the harmlessness determination itself was

unreasonable.’” Ayala, 135 S. Ct. at 2199 (quoting Fry v.

Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 119 (2007)). As the California Court of

Appeal found, the trial court’s use of the expanded definition

of asportation was an error of state law. Assuming that the

error is also a federal constitutional error, however, the error

did not prejudice Rademaker since the jury would have

properly convicted him of kidnapping—under either

definition of asportation—if it found the victim was moved

a “substantial distance” of at least 200 feet. Rademaker, 2007

WL 1982272, at *7. Critically, the circumstantial evidence

cited by the court showed that Rademaker moved Pandelios

roughly one to one and one-half miles. Id. at *7–8.

4 The

evidence included testimonyabout Rademaker’sregular visits

to the Angeles National Forest in his SUV; the timing and

location of Pandelios’s disappearance, which occurred on the

very day she was scheduled to meet Rademaker for a photo

shoot in the vicinity of the forest; and the discovery of

Pandelios’s car parked about a mile or a mile and a half from

the handcuffs, Pandelios’s remains and her personal effects. 

Id. In light of this evidence, it was not objectively

unreasonable for the state appellate court to conclude that the

4 The California Court of Appeal observed that “[Rademaker] did not

challenge the evidence of the distances involved, nor did he contest that

the actual distance the victim was moved was substantial in character.” 

Id. at *5. At trial, however, Rademaker contested that Pandelios was

moved against her will.

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12 RADEMAKER V. PARAMO

evidence supported the jury’s finding that Rademaker carried

Pandelios a “substantial distance.” The conclusion gave

effect to the proper instruction, thus rendering the charging

error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Because “a

fairminded jurist could agree” with the state court’s Chapman

determination, Rademaker “necessarily cannot satisfy” the

requirement under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637

(1993), of showing that he was “actually prejudiced” by the

trial court’s error. Ayala, 135 S. Ct. at 2199.

IV. Conclusion

The state court’s harmless-error determination was not an

objectively unreasonable application of Chapman. We

therefore AFFIRM the district court’s denial of habeas relief.

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