Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-03021/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-03021-1/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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Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JUAN GOMEZ,

Petitioner,

v.

SCOTT FRAUENHEIM,

Respondent.

Case No. 18-cv-03021-EMC 

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR 

WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

I. INTRODUCTION

Juan Gomez filed this action for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to 

challenge his conviction and sentence from Santa Clara County Superior Court. Respondent has 

filed an answer to the petition, and Mr. Gomez has filed a traverse. For the reasons discussed 

below, the petition is denied. 

II. BACKGROUND

A. The Crime

The California Court of Appeal described the evidence presented at trial:

During a one-day trial, the victim, then 11 years old, testified that 

defendant is her younger half-sister's father. He moved in with her 

and her mother when the victim was six or seven years old. She 

testified that once, when she was sick and her mother was out 

buying soup, defendant asked if he could lick her vagina. She said 

yes and he did so, but he quickly stopped when her mother returned. 

Defendant told the victim not to tell her mother about the incident. 

On another occasion, when the victim was about eight years old, she 

laid down on the living room floor, pulled down her pants, and the 

defendant licked her vagina. He stopped when a friend of the 

victim's knocked on the door. Afterwards, he took the victim to 

ballet class. The victim recalled a third occasion when the 

defendant licked her vagina after she had gone swimming. The 

victim also testified that defendant once put his penis in her vagina; 

she told him “not all the way in ‘cause it hurts.” He then rubbed his 

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penis on the outside of her vagina and white stuff came out of it.

Defendant also showed the victim pornography on the television.

On cross-examination, the victim said that she was angry with 

defendant when she first disclosed the abuse to a counselor. She 

also admitted to sometimes exaggerating and agreed with defense 

counsel's statement that “maybe not everything that you're saying 

happened [actually] happened.”

Alejandro Ortiz, a sexual assaults detective with the San Jose Police 

Department, testified that he interviewed defendant following his 

arrest. Detective Ortiz testified that defendant admitted to touching 

the victim's vagina with his finger and said that “he would tickle her 

[vagina] with his tongue.” Defendant specifically admitted to 

touching the victim's vagina on a day when she was home sick, 

although he did not say what part of his body he used to touch her 

on that occasion. Defendant also admitted to exposing his penis to 

the victim and ejaculating “in front of her or near her.” Defendant 

denied putting his penis inside the victim. On cross-examination, 

defense counsel asked: “[defendant] admitted that he orally 

copulated [the victim] one time; correct?” Detective Ortiz 

responded: “I believe so, yes.”

People v. Gomez, No. H043446, 2017 WL 3769628, at *1 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 31, 2017)

(alterations in original). 

B. Procedural History

Following a jury trial in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Mr. Gomez was convicted of 

one count of intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years of age or younger (see Cal. Penal Code 

§ 288.7(a)), and three counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years of age 

or younger (see Cal. Penal Code § 288.7(b)). On April 1, 2016, Mr. Gomez was sentenced to 70 

years to life in prison. See Docket No. 15-3 at 167-68. The sentence was comprised of a term of 

25 years to life for the intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years of age or younger (Count 1), 

plus three consecutive terms of 15 years to life for the three counts of oral copulation or sexual 

penetration with a child 10 years of age or younger (Counts 2, 3, and 4). See id. at 168.

Mr. Gomez appealed. The California Court of Appeal affirmed his conviction in a 

reasoned decision. See Gomez, 2017 WL 3769628, at *5. The California Supreme Court 

summarily denied Mr. Gomez’s petition for review. Docket No. 15-15 at 2. He apparently did not 

file any petitions for writ of habeas corpus in the state courts.

Mr. Gomez then filed this action to obtain a federal writ of habeas corpus. His federal 

petition raises the lone claim that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by

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incorrectly conceding Gomez’s guilt on Counts 2, 3, and 4 during closing argument.

III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this action for a writ of habeas corpus under 

28 U.S.C. § 2254. 28 U.S.C. § 1331. This action is in the proper venue because the petition 

concerns the conviction and sentence of a person convicted in Santa Clara County, California, 

which is within this judicial district. 28 U.S.C. §§ 84, 2241(d).

IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court may entertain a petition for writ of habeas corpus “in behalf of 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 Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) amended § 2254 

to impose new restrictions on federal habeas review. A petition may not be granted with respect to 

any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court 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.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

“Under the ‘contrary to’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if 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] Court has on a set of materially 

indistinguishable facts.” Williams (Terry) v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000).

“Under the ‘unreasonable application’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if 

the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court’s 

decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Id. at 413. 

“[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its 

independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law 

erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Id. at 411. “A 

federal habeas court making the ‘unreasonable application’ inquiry should ask whether the state 

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court’s application of clearly established federal law was ‘objectively unreasonable.’” Id. at 409.

The state-court decision to which § 2254(d) applies is the “last reasoned decision” of the 

state court. See Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803-04 (1991). When confronted with an 

unexplained decision from the last state court to have been presented with the issue, “the federal 

court should ‘look through’ the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that 

does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted 

the same reasoning.” Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). The presumption that a 

later summary denial rests on the same reasoning as the earlier reasoned decision is a rebuttable 

presumption and can be overcome by strong evidence. Kernan v. Hinojosa, 136 S. Ct. 1603, 

1605-06 (2016). 

V. DISCUSSION

A. Ineffective-Assistance-Of-Counsel Claim

Mr. Gomez contends that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance because, during her 

closing argument, she conceded that he was guilty of three counts of oral copulation. He contends 

that counsel misstated the evidence to his detriment because Detective Ortiz’s testimony showed 

that Mr. Gomez admitted only one count of oral copulation. 

1. Background

During closing argument, defense counsel argued:

First of all, I want to say I know that you greatly dislike – and that’s 

probably putting it mildly – Mr. Gomez. And that’s okay because of 

the admissions that you heard that came from him and the conduct 

that he did. [¶] So the question is why are we here. Well, he is 

charged with four counts. And he admitted to three. He admitted 

three counts. He did not admit Count 1. And that was the sexual 

penetration. [¶] And why does it matter? It matters because he did 

not do Count 1.

RT 121-22 (emphasis added).

Later in the closing argument, defense counsel focused on the victim’s confused testimony 

that suggested that Mr. Gomez placed his penis on the victim’s vagina in three of the four 

incidents. Defense counsel argued:

That did not happen. What happened was he touched her twice. 

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Wrong. And he orally copulated her. Wrong. And he’s guilty of 

that. [¶] So I – we are asking you to find him guilty of the counts 

for which he is, which are Counts 2, 3, and 4 and not Count 1. [¶] 

And we know that Leslie, at times, can exaggerate. But is the core 

of her testimony that something bad happened to her true? Yes. 

And we know that. The question is what happened? [¶] And so we 

are asking you – and you heard the admissions – to find him guilty 

of Counts 2, 3 and 4, but not of Count 1.

RT 123.

Mr. Gomez argued on appeal that counsel’s erroneous statement that Mr. Gomez admitted 

the three acts charged in Counts 2, 3, and 4 was constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. 

The California Court of Appeal first described the two-prong test (deficient performance 

and prejudice) for ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims set out in Strickland v. Washington, 

466 U.S. 668 (1984), and then applied that standard to reject Mr. Gomez’s claim on the ground 

that there was no prejudice:

We need not decide whether trial counsel's performance was 

deficient because defendant has not shown a reasonable probability 

of a more favorable verdict had trial counsel not conceded guilt on 

the oral copulation counts.

The defense did not call any witnesses or offer any evidence. Thus, 

the only viable defense strategy was to challenge the victim's 

credibility. The guilty verdict on count 4, charging sexual 

intercourse, demonstrates the jury credited the victim's testimony 

despite defendant's denial of that charge, as testified to by Detective 

Ortiz. Logic dictates that the jury likewise would have credited the 

victim's testimony as to the oral copulations had defense counsel not 

stated that defendant admitted those charges. We do not find 

persuasive defendant's theory that jurors voted to convict him, not 

because they were persuaded by the victim's testimony, but because 

they believed defense counsel had attempted to mislead them into 

believing defendant admitted to more counts than he did.

For the foregoing reasons, defendant's ineffective assistance of 

counsel claim fails.

Gomez, 2017 WL 3769628, at *3.

As the last reasoned decision from a state court, the California Court of Appeal’s decision 

is the decision to which § 2254(d) is applied. See Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192. Mr. Gomez is 

entitled to habeas relief only if the California Court of Appeal’s decision was contrary to, or an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law from the U.S. Supreme Court, or was 

based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. 

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2. Analysis of Federal Constitutional Claim

The Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel guarantees not only assistance, but effective 

assistance, of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). The benchmark for 

judging any claim of ineffectiveness is whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper 

functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied upon as having produced a just 

result. Id. In order to prevail on a Sixth Amendment ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, a 

petitioner must establish two things. First, he must demonstrate that counsel’s performance was 

deficient and fell below an “objective standard of reasonableness” under prevailing professional 

norms. Id at 687-88. “[S]trategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts 

relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less 

than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional 

judgments support the limitations on investigation.” Id. at 690-91. Second, he must establish that 

he was prejudiced by counsel’s deficient performance, i.e., that “there is a reasonable probability 

that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been 

different.” Id. at 694. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence 

in the outcome. Id. 

A “doubly” deferential judicial review is appropriate in analyzing ineffective-assistanceof-counsel claims under § 2254. See Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 202 (2011). The 

“question is not whether counsel’s actions were reasonable. The question is whether there is any 

reasonable argument that counsel satisfied Strickland’s deferential standard.” Harrington v. 

Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 105 (2011).

The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of Mr. Gomez’s claim was not contrary to, or 

an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. The state appellate court correctly 

identified the Strickland test as the test applicable to the ineffective-assistance claim and 

reasonably applied it to determine that no prejudice was shown from counsel’s erroneous 

concession of guilt on three counts.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the prosecution in a child-molestation case is to convince 

the jury that the events happened at all, i.e., to convince the jury that the child did not fabricate the 

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accusations and that the defendant is the sort of person who would sexually abuse a child. That 

hurdle was overcome in this case because Mr. Gomez’s statement to the police detective

confirmed many of the victim’s statements and showed that he was the sort of person who would 

sexually abuse a child. Mr. Gomez admitted to the detective that he had licked the victim’s vagina 

once (RT 97, 100), that he had touched the victim’s vagina with his finger for sexual gratification 

(RT 96), that he had exposed himself to the victim (RT 98), and that he had ejaculated close to the 

victim’s vagina (RT 98). (The interview had been transcribed and the detective had that transcript 

available at trial, RT 88, thus reducing any ability to argue the detective’s memory was faulty.)

Even though Mr. Gomez had admitted to the police only one incident of oral copulation

(RT 97, 100), it was not unreasonable for the California Court of Appeal to conclude that defense 

counsel’s mistaken statement that Mr. Gomez had admitted all three incidents of oral copulation 

did not result in any prejudice to Mr. Gomez. The evidence against Mr. Gomez was strong, with 

the victim identifying three separate incidents of oral copulation: Mr. Gomez had licked her 

vagina on one occasion when she was home sick (RT 57-60, 84), on another occasion before her 

friend came to the door (RT 61-62, 85), and on a third occasion after she and Mr. Gomez had been 

at a swimming pool (RT 66-68, 85). It was not necessary for the jury to have corroboration in the 

form of an admission from Mr. Gomez for each of the events to find him guilty of all three acts. 

Contrary to Mr. Gomez’s argument, the victim’s credibility was not greatly undermined. 

Although the victim said on cross-examination that she sometimes did not tell the truth, she was 

rehabilitated on redirect examination when she confirmed that these three specific incidents had, in 

fact, occurred (RT 84-85). The 11-year-old victim’s credibility was enhanced by the unusual fact 

that she tried to take responsibility for the events by stating that she had asked Mr. Gomez to 

perform the sex acts on her (RT 63-64, 73). Overall, the victim’s credibility was not eviscerated 

and instead was only slightly tarnished by her acknowledgement that she sometimes exaggerated 

things. The trial had only two witnesses (i.e., the victim and the detective); the victim’s testimony 

about Mr. Gomez’s sexual activity was at least partially corroborated by Mr. Gomez’s statements 

to the detective; and the jury found Mr. Gomez guilty of Count 1 (intercourse with a child 10 years

or age or under), even though Mr. Gomez had denied engaging in intercourse with the victim. 

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Given these facts, it was not unreasonable for the California Court of Appeal to conclude that 

there was not a “reasonable probability that,” but for counsel’s erroneous statement that Mr. 

Gomez admitted guilt on Counts 2, 3, and 4 (i.e., the three counts of oral copulation), “the result of 

the proceeding would have been different,” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. 

The court may look to the jury’s conduct along with counsel’s deficient performance in 

determining whether there was a reasonable probability of a different outcome. Cf. Jennings v. 

Woodford, 290 F.3d 1006, 1019 (9th Cir. 2002) (Strickland prejudice prong satisfied because, 

given the “overwhelming evidence” that defendant was the killer, the fact that jury deliberated for 

two days before finding defendant guilty of first-degree murder supported conclusion that jury 

would have found reasonable doubt on mental state if defense counsel had investigated and 

presented evidence about defendant’s mental health problems and drug abuse). Here, the length of 

the jury deliberations does not carry much weight in favor of, or against, a finding of prejudice 

because both the trial and deliberations were short. From start to finish, the trial took less than a 

day and the deliberations took less than two hours. See CT 147-49 (opening statements started at 

9:22 a.m.; deliberations began at about 2:55 p.m.; verdict reached at 4:23 p.m.). The short 

deliberations show at least that the jury did not struggle with the case.

Mr. Gomez argues that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S. 

Ct. 1500 (2018), supports his claim. In McCoy, the Supreme Court held that a defendant has a 

Sixth Amendment right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting the defendant’s guilt “even 

when counsel’s experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best 

chance to avoid the death penalty. . . . [I]t is the defendant’s prerogative, not counsel’s, to decide 

on the objective of his defense: to admit guilt in the hope of gaining mercy at the sentencing stage, 

or to maintain his innocence, leaving it to the State to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

138 S. Ct. at 1505. When, contrary to the defendant’s express wish to maintain his innocence, 

counsel has admitted the defendant’s guilt, the Strickland two-prong test does not apply; the error 

is structural and reversal is required without any need to show actual prejudice. Id. at 1510-11.

Even assuming that Mr. Gomez directed trial counsel not to concede guilt, McCoy does not 

help Mr. Gomez because McCoy had not yet been decided when the California Court of Appeal 

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considered Mr. Gomez’s claim.1“[Section] 2254(d)(1) requires federal courts to ‘focu[s] on what 

a state court knew and did,’ and to measure state-court decisions ‘against this Court’s precedents 

as of ‘the time the state court renders its decision.’” Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 38 (2011) 

(second alteration in original). It cannot be said that the California Court of Appeal’s decision was 

contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, the McCoy holding that did not yet exist. 

Id.; see Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 126 (2008) (when Supreme Court “cases give no clear 

answer to the question presented, let alone one in [the petitioner’s] favor, ‘it cannot be said that the 

state court unreasonabl[y] appli[ed] clearly established Federal law.’ Under the explicit terms of § 

2254(d)(1), therefore, relief is unauthorized.”) (last two alteration sin original) (citation omitted).

Cf. Barbee v. Davis, 728 F. App’x 259, 267 n.6 (5th Cir. 2018) (pre-McCoy case declining to wait 

for Supreme Court decision in McCoy because the Supreme Court’s anticipated decision in McCoy

“is not likely to shed light” as to whether the state habeas court’s resolution of the ineffectiveassistance claim was unreasonable in light of clearly established law at the time the state habeas 

court decided the case). At the time Mr. Gomez’s case was decided by the California Court of 

Appeal, the law was that the Strickland two-prong test applied to a claim that counsel had 

conceded guilt without the assent of the client. See Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175, 178 (2004) 

(defense counsel’s failure to obtain defendant’s express consent to a strategy of conceding guilt at 

the guilt phase of a capital trial did not automatically render counsel’s performance deficient); id.

at 179 (state court erred in applying a presumption of deficient performance and a presumption of 

prejudice to counsel’s concession of guilt). Thus, it was consistent with Supreme Court precedent 

then in place for the California Court of Appeal to consider whether Strickland’s prejudice prong 

was satisfied rather than to treat counsel’s concession of guilt as a structural error requiring 

automatic reversal.

The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of Mr. Gomez’s ineffective-assistance-ofcounsel claim was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal 

 

1 The opinion in McCoy was issued on May 14, 2018. The California Court of Appeal rejected 

Mr. Gomez’s appeal on August 31, 2017, and the California Supreme Court denied review on 

November 15, 2017. 

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law as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court. He therefore is not entitled to the writ.

B. No Certificate of Appealability

A certificate of appealability will not issue. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c). This is not a case in 

which “reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims 

debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Accordingly, a certificate of 

appealability is DENIED. 

VI. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for writ of habeas corpus is DENIED on the merits. 

Petitioner’s motion for appointment of counsel, filed five months after his traverse was 

filed, is DENIED. Docket No. 21. There is no reason to appoint counsel in this case that is being 

closed today.

The Clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 18, 2019

______________________________________

EDWARD M. CHEN

United States District Judge

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