Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_13-cv-02957/USCOURTS-casd-3_13-cv-02957-3/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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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

GEORGE PAUL HICKER, 

Petitioner,

v. 

SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERIOR 

COURT, 

Respondent.

 Case No.: 13CV2957-WQH(JMA) 

REPORT & RECOMMENDATION 

I. INTRODUCTION 

Petitioner George Paul Hicker (“Petitioner”) has filed a Petition for Writ of 

Habeas Corpus (“the Petition”) under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, challenging his 

conviction in San Diego Superior Court, case number CN251716. (Doc. No. 1.; 

Pet. at 1:18-22.) Petitioner contends that his Sixth Amendment right to 

confrontation was violated. (Id. at 6:17- 7:8.) 

On February 20, 2009, a San Diego Superior Court jury found Petitioner 

guilty of violating Vehicle Code § 23152(b), driving with a blood alcohol level in 

excess of .08, with a prior Vehicle Code § 23152(b) conviction. (Pet. at 2:34-27.) 

Thereafter, Petitioner was sentenced to five years of summary probation, 96 

hours jail with credit for 24 hours, 5 days weekend work release, an 18-month 

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alcohol program, a Mothers Against Drunk Driving panel class, a fine of 

$2,408.00, and other terms as set forth in the Misdemeanor – Traffic Judgment 

Minutes. (Resp. Lodgment 1.) 

Petitioner challenges his conviction in this Court with the instant habeas 

corpus action, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner claims the trial court 

violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation when it admitted a blood 

alcohol report into evidence and permitted testimony by a blood sample analyst 

who did not perform the blood tests in question. (Pet. at 16:25-18:3.) Petitioner 

maintains he would not have been convicted of violating Vehicle Code § 

23152(b) if his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause objections to the 

evidence about his blood alcohol level had been sustained by the trial court 

judge. (Id. at 4:2-15.) 

Respondent Superior Court for the State of California, County of San Diego 

(“Respondent”) timely filed an Answer to the Petition asserting that the Appellate 

Division of the San Diego County Superior Court did not contradict or 

unreasonably apply United States Supreme Court precedent. (Doc. No. 19; Ans. 

at 2:20-3:4.) Alternatively, Respondent contends that any Sixth Amendment 

violation was harmless error. (Id. at 3:5-11.) Petitioner timely filed a Traverse to 

his Petition. (Doc. No. 30.) The Court has reviewed the parties’ papers, as well 

as the record, and for the following reasons, RECOMMENDS United States 

Judge William Q. Hayes adopt the finding that Petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right 

to confrontation was not violated. The Court further RECOMMENDS that the 

Petition be denied with prejudice. 

II. BACKGROUND FACTS 

On August 28, 2008, at 10:48 p.m., Petitioner was arrested for driving 

under the influence. (Ans. at 4:16-17.) Petitioner chose to provide a blood test to 

measure his blood alcohol content. (Id. at 4:17.) After Petitioner’s arrest, a 

sample of his blood was taken and tested by the San Diego County Sheriff’s 

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Crime Laboratory. (Pet. at 9:6-7.) The District Attorney’s office filed a complaint 

against Petitioner on January 23, 2009, charging him with three counts: Count 

One - driving under the influence of alcohol, a violation of Vehicle Code § 

23152(a); Count Two - driving with a measurable blood alcohol level above .08, a 

violation of Vehicle Code § 23152(b); and Count Three - driving with an open 

container, a violation of Vehicle Code § 23222(a). (Ans. at 2:11-15.) Petitioner 

pled not guilty to the charges. (Pet. at 9:11.) Count Three was dismissed at trial 

on the People’s motion. (Ans. at 2:18-19.) After a jury trial (discussed below), 

Petitioner was acquitted of the charge of driving under the influence of alcohol 

and convicted of the charge of driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent 

or greater. (Pet. at 9:11-13.) 

The two week jury trial began February 9, 2009 in the San Diego Superior 

Court. (Id. at 9:14-16.) The prosecution called witness Jorge Peña (“Peña”), an 

analyst employed by the San Diego Crime Laboratory where Petitioner’s blood 

sample was analyzed for blood content. Peña did not perform the analysis of 

Petitioner’s blood. Rather, the analysis was performed by another lab technician, 

Raegan Carter (“Carter”). (Id. at 9:19-21.) Peña was not present during the 

analysis of Petitioner’s blood sample, nor did he supervise Carter. (Id. at 9:21-

22.) After the analysis was completed and reported by Carter, Peña reviewed 

her report. (Id. at 9:24-10:1.) 

During direct examination of Peña, the prosecutor asked about the analysis 

of Petitioner’s blood performed by Carter. (Id. at 10:4-5.) Petitioner objected to 

Peña’s testimony about the blood alcohol work performed by Carter on the 

grounds the testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. The 

objection was overruled. (Id. at 10:6-9.) The trial court granted the request by 

Petitioner’s counsel that his Sixth Amendment objection continue throughout the 

prosecutor’s line of questioning. The prosecutor then asked Peña if he had an 

opinion about the accuracy of the blood alcohol results based upon the work 

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performed by Carter. Again, Petitioner objected based on the Sixth Amendment. 

The objection was overruled. (Id. at 10:15-19.) Peña provided his opinion that 

the blood alcohol results were accurate and testified the blood alcohol level was 

.142. (Ans. at 5:6-17.) The blood alcohol report was then introduced into 

evidence. (Pet. at 10:21-22.) A jury subsequently convicted Petitioner for 

violation of Vehicle Code § 23152(b). (Ans. at 2:21-24.) 

III. PROCEDURAL HISTORY 

Petitioner appealed his conviction to the Appellate Division of the San 

Diego Superior Court (“Appellate Division”). The Appellate Division affirmed 

Petitioner’s conviction, finding it was consistent with recent California Supreme 

Court decisions, including primarily People v. Lopez, 55 Cal.4th 569 (2012), 

dealing with the right to confrontation. (Resp. Lodgment 23 at 20:25–21:1.)

After the Appellate Division affirmed his conviction, Petitioner filed in the 

Appellate Division an application for certification for transfer to the California 

Court of Appeal. The application was denied on March 25, 2013. (Pet. at 4:16-

18.) Petitioner then filed a petition for transfer in the California Court of Appeal, 

Fourth Appellate District, Division One. The Court of Appeal denied the petition 

on April 16, 2013. (Id. at 4:18-21; Resp. Lodgment 3.) Next, Petitioner filed a 

Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court on July 11, 

2013. (Pet. at 4:22-24.) The petition was denied on October 7, 2013. (Resp. 

Lodgment 4.) Finally, Petitioner filed the instant Petition on December 5, 2013. 

(Doc. No. 1.)1 

IV. DISCUSSION 

Petitioner raises only one claim in the Petition. He argues he was denied 

his right to confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment when Carter’s 

                                                                

1 The Court previously ruled Petitioner satisfied the exhaustion requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 

2254 because he is procedurally barred from filing a direct appeal or habeas petition for review 

with the California Supreme Court. (Doc. No. 10.) 

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blood alcohol test was admitted into evidence, despite the fact that Carter was 

not available for cross-examination. He also contends his right of confrontation 

was violated when Peña was permitted to testify about the contents of the blood 

alcohol analysis. (Pet. at 6:17-28.) Respondent counters that the Appellate 

Division’s denial of Petitioner’s claim was neither contrary to, nor an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. (Ans. at 2:20-3:4.) 

In the alternative, Respondent argues that any violation of Petitioner’s Sixth 

Amendment rights was harmless. (Ans. at 3:5-11.) 

A. Standard of Review 

This Petition is governed by the provisions of the Antiterrorism and 

Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“ADEPA”). See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 

320 (1997). Under AEDPA, a habeas petition will not be granted with respect to 

any claim adjudicated on the merits by the state court unless that adjudication: 

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable 

application of, clearly established federal law; or (2) resulted in a decision that 

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

presented at the state court proceeding. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Early v. Packer, 

537 U.S. 3, 8 (2002). In deciding a state prisoner’s habeas petition, a federal 

court is not called upon to decide whether it agrees with the state court’s 

determination; rather, the court applies an extraordinarily deferential standard of 

review, inquiring only whether the state court’s decision was objectively 

unreasonable. See Yarborough v. Gentry, 540 U.S. 1, 4 (2003); Medina v. 

Hornung, 386 F.3d 872, 877 (9th Cir. 2004). 

A federal habeas court may grant relief under the “contrary to” clause if the 

state court applied a rule different from the governing law set forth in Supreme 

Court cases, or if it decided a case differently than the Supreme Court on a set of 

materially indistinguishable facts. See Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 694 (2002). 

The court may grant relief under the “unreasonable application” clause if the 

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state court correctly identified the governing legal principle from Supreme Court 

decisions, but unreasonably applied those decisions to the facts of a particular 

case. Id. Additionally, the “unreasonable application” clause requires that the 

state court decision be more than incorrect or erroneous; to warrant habeas 

relief, the state court’s application of clearly established federal law must be 

“objectively unreasonable.” See Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003). 

Where there is no reasoned decision from the state’s highest court, the 

Court “looks through” to the underlying appellate court decision and presumes it 

provides the basis for the higher court’s denial of a claim or claims. See Ylst v. 

Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 805-06 (1991). If the dispositive state court order 

does not “furnish a basis for its reasoning,” federal habeas courts must conduct 

an independent review of the record to determine whether the state court’s 

decision is contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established 

Supreme Court law. See Delgado v. Lewis, 223 F.3d 976, 982 (9th Cir. 2000) 

(overruled on other grounds by Andrade, 538 U.S. at 75-76); accord Himes v. 

Thompson, 336 F.3d 848, 853 (9th Cir. 2003). However, a state court need not 

cite Supreme Court precedent when resolving a habeas corpus claim. See 

Early, 537 U.S. at 8. “[S]o long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the 

state-court decision contradicts [Supreme Court precedent,]” id., the state court 

decision will not be “contrary to” clearly established federal law. Id. Clearly 

established federal law, for purposes of § 2254(d), means “the governing 

principle or principles set forth by the Supreme Court at the time the state court 

renders its decision.” Andrade, 538 U.S. at 72. 

B. Analysis 

Petitioner contends that the laboratory report contained testimonial hearsay 

and, therefore, his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the trial court 

admitted the report into evidence and permitted Jorge Peña to testify about the 

results contained therein. (Trav. at 1:18-24.) 

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The Confrontation Clause grants the right to a defendant in a criminal 

prosecution “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. 

Amend. VI. In Crawford v. Washington, the United States Supreme Court held 

that “[t]estimonial statements of witnesses absent from trial have been 

admitted...only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant 

has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine.” 541 U.S. 36, 59 (2004). Although 

Crawford did not provide a comprehensive definition of “testimonial statements,” 

the Court identified three “core class[es]”: (1) ex parte in-court testimony or its 

functional equivalent, such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony 

that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements 

that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially; (2) 

extrajudicial statements contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as 

affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions; and (3) statements made 

under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to 

believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Id. at 51-52. 

In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court applied its 

analysis in Crawford to a defendant in Massachusetts charged with cocaine 

trafficking. 557 U.S. 305, 308 (2009). During trial, the prosecution entered into 

evidence three “certificates of analysis,” without calling the witnesses who 

prepared the certificates. Id. The certificates reflected the results of a prior 

forensic laboratory analysis and stated the weight of the bags seized by the 

police and identified the substance contained in the bags as cocaine. Id. In a 

five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court held that the trial court’s admission of 

the certificates violated the defendant’s right to confront the authors of the 

certificates, finding that the certificates were “quite plainly affidavits” and 

therefore, a “solemn declaration or affirmation for the purpose of establishing or 

proving some fact.” Id. at 310 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51). The court 

reasoned that at the time of trial, the defendant was incapable of testing the 

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laboratory analysts’ “honesty, proficiency, and methodology,” which are ordinarily 

ripe grounds for cross-examination. Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 321. 

In Bullcoming v. New Mexico, the Supreme Court encountered a factual 

scenario similar to that of Melendez-Diaz. In Bullcoming, the defendant was 

charged with driving while intoxicated and a forensic analyst’s laboratory report 

certifying that the defendant’s blood-alcohol concentration was above the legal 

threshold was admitted into evidence. Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. __, 

__, 131 S. Ct. 2705, 2707 (2011). However, unlike Melendez-Diaz, the 

prosecution in Bullcoming called a forensic expert, Razatos, to testify regarding 

the analyst’s original laboratory report. Id. Razatos was familiar with the 

equipment used to test the defendant’s blood, but had not “participated in nor 

observed the test” on the defendant’s blood sample. Id. The Court noted that the 

certificate completed and signed by the analyst who authored the report 

specifically affirmed the following: 

‘[t]he seal of th[e] sample was received intact and broken in the laboratory,’ 

that ‘the statements in [the analyst's block of the report] are correct,’ and 

that [the analyst] had ‘followed the procedures set out on the reverse of 

th[e] report.’ Those ‘procedures’ instructed analysts, inter alia, to ‘retai[n] 

the sample container and the raw data from the analysis,’ and to ‘not[e] any 

circumstance or condition which might affect the integrity of the sample or 

otherwise affect the validity of the analysis.’ 

Id. at 2710-11 (internal citations omitted). 

The majority held that the analyst’s signed certificate was testimonial, 

finding that the Confrontation Clause did not allow the admission of the blood 

alcohol report through Razatos’s “surrogate testimony” because he could not 

convey what the author of the report knew about the particular test and the 

testing process employed. Id. at 2715. Consequently, when the State chose to 

introduce the analyst’s certification, “[the analyst] became a witness Bullcoming 

had the right to confront.” Id. at 2716. In facts nearly identical to the present 

action, the California Supreme Court analyzed the scope of the United States 

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Supreme Court’s holdings in Crawford, Melendez-Diaz, and Bullcoming. In 

People v. Lopez, the defendant was convicted of vehicular manslaughter while 

intoxicated after a trial in which the prosecution submitted into evidence a 

laboratory report demonstrating that the defendant’s blood alcohol content was 

above the legal limit. 286 P.3d 469, 471 (2012). At trial, the analyst who 

performed the laboratory testing was unavailable,2 so the prosecution called 

criminalist John Willey to testify in the analyst’s stead. Id. at 472. Willey testified 

he had reviewed the original analyst’s report and that the results of the report 

showed the defendant’s blood sample was 0.09 percent. Id. The analyst’s report 

consisted of a “chain of custody log sheet,” printouts of the gas chromatography’s 

machine calibrations on the day of the test, printouts of the numerical results of 

the laboratory analyses, and several pages of “quality control runs before and 

after the subject samples.” Id. at 478. 

The court held that the chromatography calibration documents, the 

numerical results, and the quality control documents did not violate the 

defendant’s right to confrontation because they were “machine-generated” 

statements and a machine could not be cross-examined. Id. Nevertheless, the 

court indicated that the submission of the “chain of custody log sheet” into 

evidence presented a more difficult question because that document included 

handwritten notations linking the defendant’s name to the blood sample 

containing 0.09 percent alcohol. Id. The court concluded, however, that the 

notation was not testimonial because the analyst who prepared the report had 

not “signed, certified, or swor[n]” to the contents of the report. Id. at 479. The 

notations connecting the defendant to the elevated blood sample were an 

                                                                

2 In a strange coincidence, the unavailable analyst in Lopez was the prosecution’s expert 

witness in the present case: Jorge Peña. 

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“informal record of data for internal purposes” and, therefore, the report lacked 

the requisite “formality or solemnity.” Id. 

Petitioner contends the admission of Carter’s report into evidence violated 

his right of confrontation. (Trav. at 3:4-6.) Petitioner argues that the report 

contained testimonial hearsay because it included (1) a certification by Carter 

signed under penalty of perjury, (2) a handwritten log sheet showing that the 

result of Petitioner’s blood test analyzed by Carter was a 0.142 percent blood 

alcohol content, and (3) gas chromatograms and a calibration log containing 

Carter’s signature. (Trav. at 8:8-14; Resp. Lodgment 10.) The Appellate Division 

unanimously rejected this claim, finding that Carter’s report was identical to the 

report found to be non-testimonial in Lopez. (Resp. Lodgment 23 at 8:25-27, 

20:27-28.) 

The report at hand is similar to the report in Lopez. First, pages 2-6 of 

Carter’s report consist almost entirely of computer printouts. It is not settled 

under Supreme Court law that machine-generated printouts of gas 

chromatography results or calibration logs violate a defendant’s right to 

confrontation. See Bullcoming, 564 U.S. at p. __, 131 S.Ct. at p. 2722 (“[W]e do 

not decide whether...a State could introduce...raw data generated by a machine 

in conjunction with the testimony of an expert witness.”); State v. Buckland, 96 

A.3d 1163, 1169 (Conn. 2014) (“We also note that the United States Supreme 

Court has not addressed the issue of whether the introduction of raw data 

generated by a machine falls within the confines of Crawford or MelendezDiaz.”). In fact, multiple federal circuit courts have concluded that machinegenerated raw data does not implicate the Sixth Amendment. See United States 

v. Moon, 512 F.3d 359, 362 (7th Cir. 2008) (“the instruments’ readouts are not 

‘statements’, so it does not matter whether they are ‘testimonial.’”); United States 

v. Washington, 498 F.3d 225, (4th Cir. 2007) (“we reject the characterization of 

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the raw data generated by the lab’s machines as statements of the lab 

technicians who operated the machines.”). 

Second, page 7 of Carter’s report is the same type of log sheet containing 

handwritten notations as was present in Lopez. Within one of the rows on the log 

sheet, Petitioner’s name is handwritten along with the result “0.14” in a column 

labelled “Report ETOH grams %.”3 (Resp. Lodgment 10 at 7.) In the same row 

the initials “RC” are signed in the column “Ana[lyzed] By:.” (Resp. Lodgment 10 

at 7). Faced with an identical log sheet with similar notations prepared by the 

same crime laboratory, the court in Lopez stated this document was not 

testimonial hearsay because the log sheet showed “only numbers, abbreviations, 

and one-word entries under specified headings” and was “nothing more than an 

informal record of data for internal purposes, as indicated by the small printed 

statement near the top of the chart: ‘FOR LAB USE ONLY.’” Lopez, 286 P.3d at 

479. 

However, Petitioner’s claim is distinguishable from Lopez in an important 

respect: the analyst’s report in Lopez did not contain certifications, whereas the 

first page of the report at issue here provided: 

I, Raegan Carter, certify under penalty of perjury...that the attached blood 

or urine analysis was performed during the regular course of my duties and 

is a true and correct copy thereof. I further certify that I am classified by the 

State Department of health as a Forensic Alcohol Supervisor or Forensic 

Alcohol Analyst or Forensic Alcohol Analyst Trainee for the San Diego 

Sheriff’s Department Crime Laboratory, that I am qualified to perform these 

analyses pursuant to Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations, and 

that the equipment used in determining the results was in proper working 

order at the time this analysis was performed.4

                                                                

3 ETOH is an abbreviation for Ethanol. 

4 The Court notes that there is some dispute between the parties regarding whether this 

header page was actually admitted into evidence. (Compare Ans. at 15:27-28 with, Pet. Trav. 

at 10:10-16.) Even assuming the certificate was entered into evidence, this Court does not 

find a Confrontation Clause violation under clearly established Supreme Court precedent.

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(Resp. Lodgment 10 at 1); see also Lopez, 286 P.3d at 479 (“neither [analyst 

preparing the report] signed, certified, or swore to the truth of the contents of 

page one of the report.”). 

 Unlike the notations in Lopez, these certifications gave the report a 

sufficient level of formality to render Carter’s notations within the report 

testimonial under Supreme Court precedent. See Bullcoming, 564 U.S. at __, 

131 S.Ct. at 2717 (“Thus, although the...report was not notarized, the formalities 

attending the report were more than adequate to qualify [the analyst’s] assertions 

as testimonial.”). Respondent relies on United States v. Johnson, 688 F.3d 494 

(8th Cir. 2012) for the proposition that reports containing header pages that 

merely certify a report as a “true copy of the original,” but do not certify the truth 

of the report’s contents are non-testimonial. However, the certifications here are 

distinguishable from those in Johnson because Carter not only certified that her 

report was a “true and correct copy,” but also that she followed proper 

procedures in testing Petitioner’s blood and that her equipment was in “proper 

working order” at the time of the analysis. Like the certifications in Bullcoming, 

Carter’s certificate attested to the veracity of the report’s contents and such 

statements accompanying forensic reports are “solemn declaration[s] or 

affirmation[s] made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.” 

Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 310 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51)); see also 

State v. Sorensen, 814 N.W.2d 371 (Neb. 2012) (nurse’s certificate stating that 

the defendant’s blood was drawn in a “medically accepted manner” utilized to 

prove that defendant was driving under the influence was “clearly testimonial”).

Nevertheless, although Carter’s report was testimonial, the United States 

Supreme Court has made clear that the Confrontation Clause does not mandate 

“that anyone whose testimony may be relevant in establishing the chain of 

                                                                

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custody, authenticity of the sample, or accuracy of the testing device, must 

appear in person as part of the prosecution’s case.” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 

311, n.1. It is only where the witness giving the “surrogate testimony” is not an 

“adequate substitute” for the author of the testimonial report that a defendant’s 

right to confrontation is violated. Bullcoming, 564 U.S. at __, 131 S.Ct. at 2708. 

However, Bullcoming did not address “what degree of involvement is sufficient” 

because Razatos had “no involvement whatsoever.” Id. at 2722. In fact, in her 

concurrence, Justice Sotomayor emphasized the “limited reach” of the majority’s 

holding, commenting that Bullcoming was “not a case in which the person 

testifying is a supervisor, reviewer, or someone else with a personal, albeit 

limited, connection to the scientific test at issue.” Id. at 2719, 2722. Thus, 

although Peña’s involvement in the production of Carter’s report amounted only 

to a technical review, in the absence of clearly established federal law, this Court 

cannot conclude that the admission of Carter’s report violated Petitioner’s Sixth 

Amendment rights. 

Courts have found a “technical reviewer” who peer reviews a colleague’s 

work and independently verifies its accuracy is sufficient to satisfy the demands 

of the Confrontation Clause, even where the reviewer neither observed nor 

performed the forensic testing at issue. See Galloway v. State, 122 So. 3d 614 

(Miss. 2013) (no Confrontation Clause violation where technical reviewer 

assigned to the case testified in the place of the analyst who conducted the 

actual DNA test because the testifying analyst was familiar with each step of 

testing process); Miller v. State, 144 So. 3d 199 (Miss. Ct. App. 2014) (no 

Confrontation Clause violation where technical reviewer assigned to the case 

testified in the place of the analyst who conducted the actual drug test because 

the testifying analyst reviewed the report for errors, verified proper procedures 

were followed, and signed the report); Jenkins v. State, 102 So.3d 1063 (Miss. 

2012) (no Confrontation Clause violation where technical reviewer assigned to 

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the case testified in the place of analyst who conducted the drug test because 

the testifying analyst performed procedural checks by reviewing the data and 

signed the report); Grim v. State, 102 So.3d 1073 (Miss. 2012) (same). 

In Marshall v. People, the defendant was charged with driving under the 

influence after lab urinalysis revealed that she had methamphetamine in her 

system when she caused a car accident. 309 P.3d 943 (Colo. 2013). At trial, the 

state introduced the lab report into evidence and called Burbach, the supervisor 

of the toxicology lab, to testify regarding the defendant’s level of intoxication, 

despite the fact that Burbach had not actually performed the testing. Id. at 944. 

The court found that Burbach’s testimony was distinguishable from the expert in 

Bullcoming because Burbach “synthesized the tests performed by two different 

analysts...reviewed the data generated by the scientific instruments to ensure 

that the controls show the instruments were working properly” and she “reviewed 

the analysts’ notes to conclude that they followed lab protocol throughout the 

testing process.” Id. at 947. After her review, Burbach certified the test results 

and sent the results back to the police department. Id. The court concluded that 

Burbach’s independent scientific review and conclusions regarding the data 

satisfied the Confrontation Clause. Id. 

Here, Peña’s testimony regarding Carter’s report did not clearly violate 

Petitioner’s right of confrontation. Akin to the expert in Marshall, Peña also 

conducted a technical review of Carter’s report in order to verify its accuracy. 

Peña’s signature appears under the line “Technically and Administratively 

Reviewed By” on page 2 of the report and again on page 7 next to the line 

“Reviewed By.” (Resp. Lodgment 10 at 2, 7.) While on the stand, Peña 

established that he had a thorough understanding of the laboratory’s procedures 

for testing blood samples for alcohol content. (Resp. Lodgment 19 at 23:16-

24:20.) He testified that one of his responsibilities was to “go through all that 

information and verify that all that information is correct.” (Id. at 35:8-11.) Peña 

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stated that in his review of Carter’s notes he looked at every document prepared 

in the course of testing Petitioner’s blood sample. (Id. at 35:16-28.) Based on his 

review of the documents, Peña testified that he was able to determine that Carter 

tested Petitioner’s sample accurately and in his opinion, the test results showing 

Petitioner’s blood alcohol content to be 0.142 percent were also accurate. (Id. at 

42:9-16.) 

 It is true that unlike the expert in Marshall, Peña did not sign the report’s 

certification; however, Peña stated that only after his signature was affixed to the 

report showing that it was properly reviewed was the report returned to Carter for 

“processing.” (Id. at 35:24-26.) In other words, without Peña’s technical review of 

the report, Carter would not have been able to sign the certification on page 1. 

Given Peña’s technical review of Carter’s work, his supervisory role in the lab, 

and his familiarity with the blood testing procedures, this Court is satisfied that 

admission of Carter’s report when supported by Peña’s testimony did not run 

afoul of the Confrontation Clause. See Davis v. Frauenheim, No. CV 12-3573-

JLS, 2015 WL 9243921, at *13 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 20, 2015) (“In short, there simply 

is no clearly established Supreme Court law that a criminalist’s testimony about 

DNA findings from a forensic test completed by another criminalist violates the 

Confrontation Clause where, as here, the testifying witness reviewed the work 

and was subject to cross-examination.”). 

V. CONCLUSION 

The Court submits this Report and Recommendation to United States 

District Judge William Q. Hayes under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Local Civil Rule 

72.1(d)(4) of the United States District Court for the Southern District of 

California. For the reasons outlined above, IT IS HEREBY RECOMMENDED

that the Court issue an order: (1) approving and adopting this Report and 

Recommendation, and (2) DENYING the Petition for the Writ of Habeas Corpus. 

/ / 

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 IT IS ORDERED that no later than March 21, 2016, any party to this action 

file written objections with the Court and serve a copy on all parties. The 

document should be captioned “Objections to Report and Recommendation.” 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that any reply to the objections shall be filed 

with the Court and served on all parties no later than March 28, 2016. The 

parties are advised that failure to file objections within the specified time may 

waive the right to raise those objections on appeal of the Court’s order. Martinez 

v. YIst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991). 

Dated: March 4, 2016 

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