Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-09-99023/USCOURTS-ca9-09-99023-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CONRAD ZAPIEN,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

MICHAEL MARTEL,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 09-99023

D.C. No. 

2:94-cv-01455-

WDK

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

William D. Keller, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 11, 2014—San Francisco, California

Filed November 9, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski, Johnnie B. Rawlinson and

Mary H. Murguia, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Kozinski

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2 ZAPIEN V. MARTEL

SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of California

state prisoner Conrad Zapien’s habeas corpus petition

challenging his first degree murder conviction and death

sentence.

The panel rejected Zapien’s argument that the California

Supreme Court unreasonably rejected his claim that he was

denied due process when a prosecution investigator, who

found a sealed envelope containing an audio tape explaining

defense strategy, destroyed the tape.

The panel held that the California Supreme Court did not

unreasonably reject Zapien’s arguments that his rights under

the Confrontation Clause were violated by (1) the trial court’s

admission of statements that Zapien’s sister made at a

preliminary hearing and (2) the introduction of multi-level

hearsay testimony.

The panel held that the California Supreme Court did not

unreasonably reject Zapien’s claims of ineffective assistance

of counsel at the guilt phase.

The panel held that the California Supreme Court did not

unreasonably reject Zapien’s claims of ineffective assistance

of counsel at the sentencing phase.

* 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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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 3

The panel held that the California Supreme Court did not

unreasonably reject Zapien’s claim that his right to an

impartial jury was violated when the trial court failed to

dismiss a juror who admitted to hearing a news report that

suggested Zapien would hurt his guards if he were given the

death penalty. 

COUNSEL

Tracy J. Dressner (argued), La Crescenta, California, Jay L.

Lichtman (argued), Los Angeles, California for Appellant.

Joseph P. Lee (argued), Deputy Attorney General, Kamala D.

Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant

Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Special Assistant

Attorney General, A. Scott Hayward, Deputy Attorney

General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of

California, Los Angeles, California for Appellee. 

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge:

Conrad Zapien was convicted of first degree murder and

sentenced to death by the state of California. He challenges

both his conviction and sentence. 

Background

In 1987, Zapien was found guilty of killing Ruby

Gonzalez in her home by shooting her four times and

stabbing her five times. Zapien was a heroin addict,

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4 ZAPIEN V. MARTEL

desperate for money, and Ruby was the mistress of his

sister’s husband. The prosecution’s case at trial was that

Zapien intended to rob Ruby’s home after being told by his

sister that there was money and jewelry inside. The

prosecution theorized that Ruby surprised and confronted

Zapien, who killed her and fled town the next day. Zapien

spent the months after Ruby’s death living under pseudonyms

in various Christian homes, before eventually being found

and arrested in Arizona.

Before Zapien’s trial began, prosecutor Gary Van Camp

and his investigator Harry Heidt found a sealed envelope

bearing the name of Zapien’s trial counsel. The envelope

contained an audio tape explaining the defense’s strengths

and weaknesses. Heidt later claimed that Van Camp told him

to listen to the tape, but he destroyed it instead. Heidt

eventually revealed the incident and Zapien’s counsel moved

to have all charges dismissed. The trial court denied the

motion, finding that Heidt had not listened to the tape.

The jury convicted Zapien of first degree murder and

found a “special circumstance” which made Zapien death

eligible—that the killing was committed during the course of

a burglary and an attempted robbery. The jury sentenced

Zapien to death.

Zapien appealed his conviction and sentence to the

California Supreme Court, which denied his appeal in a

lengthy reasoned opinion in 1993. See People v. Zapien, 846

P.2d 704 (Cal. 1993) (in bank). In 1996, Zapien filed a

federal habeas petition that was stayed pending exhaustion of

state remedies. Zapien then filed a state habeas petition in the

California Supreme Court. In 1998, the California Supreme

Court denied all but four of Zapien’s claims on timeliness

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 5

grounds and, in the alternative, summarily denied all of his

claims on the merits. Zapien then returned to federal court. 

Although he was granted an evidentiary hearing on some of

his ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the district court

ultimately denied them all.

Discussion

1. The Tape

Zapien argues he was denied due process when Heidt

destroyed the defense strategy tape. The California Supreme

Court concluded that, though Heidt “clearly acted wrongly in

disposing of the envelope and its contents, . . . this improper

act did not deprive [Zapien] of due process of law or

otherwise deny [him] a fair trial” because there was no

“‘conscious effort to suppress exculpatory evidence.’” 

Zapien, 846 P.2d at 723 (quoting California v. Trombetta,

467 U.S. 479, 488 (1984)). Zapien argues that this was an

unreasonable application of Trombetta and Arizona v.

Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988). 

However, both Youngblood and Trombetta dealt with the

destruction of potentially exculpatoryevidence—not, as here,

the destruction of attorney-client work product. See

Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57–58; Trombetta, 467 U.S. at

486–87. Zapien asserts the novel theory that destroying the

tape constituted the destruction of exculpatory evidence

because, had the tape been recovered, it could have been

tested. Such testing apparently would have revealed that the

tape had been listened to and thus that misconduct had

occurred. Revealing the alleged misconduct would have been

“exculpatory,” according to Zapien, because it would have

required the case be dismissed. 

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Zapien’s tortuous chain of reasoning is not supported, let

alone “clearlyestablished,” byYoungblood, Trombetta or any

other Supreme Court case. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) (a

writ of habeas corpus may not be granted unless the state

court reached 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”). 

Zapien provides no authority for the proposition that a due

process violation can be premised on the destruction of

information already known to the defense.1

Zapien next argues that it was unreasonable for the

California Supreme Court to adopt the Superior Court’s

factual finding that Heidt didn’t listen to the tape. Because

Zapien is unable to explain how listening to a defense

strategy tape constitutes a due process violation, he likely

wouldn’t have a viable claim even if the state court’s factual

determination had been unreasonable. See Wilson v.

Corcoran, 562 U.S. 1, 5–6 (2010) (holding that a state court’s

unreasonable factual determination is only relevant in a

federal habeas proceeding to the extent it results in a decision

that violates federal law). In any event, our review of a state

appellate court’s affirmance of a state trial court’s credibility

determination “is doubly deferential.” Briggs v. Grounds,

682 F.3d 1165, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012). “[U]nless the state

appellate court was objectively unreasonable in concluding

that a trial court’s credibility determination was supported by

1 Zapien’s claim is more readily cognizable as a violation of his right

to counsel under the Sixth Amendment, see United States v. Danielson,

325 F.3d 1054, 1070–71 (9th Cir. 2003), though, again, such a claim has

not been clearly established by the Supreme Court. In any event, Zapien

failed to bring this claim, either before us or in any prior state or federal

proceeding. 

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 7

[the record], we must uphold it.” Id. Here, even if

“[r]easonable minds reviewing the record might disagree” as

to the truthfulness of Heidt’s testimony, “that does not suffice

to supersede the trial court’s credibility determination.” Rice

v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 341–42 (2006).

2. Confrontation Clause 

Zapien next argues that his rights under the Confrontation

Clause were violated when the trial court admitted various

statements that his sister Inez—who refused to testify at

trial—made at a preliminary hearing.

2 Under the thengoverning standards of Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980),

abrogated by Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004),

the “adequate opportunity to cross-examine [a] witness” at a

preliminary hearing typically provides “sufficient indicia of

reliability” for statements from that hearing to be introduced

at trial if the witness is unavailable. Id. at 73 (alteration

omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless,

Zapien argues that the state court unreasonably applied

Roberts because the government knew Inez had told lies

during other parts of her preliminary hearing testimony

(though not in the portions read to the jury). Even assuming

Inez had in fact lied, Zapien fails to show that the California

Supreme Court’s decision was an unreasonable application of

Roberts. Preliminary hearing testimony falls within the

2 The trial court also allowed into evidence certain statements made by

Inez during a police interview. The California Supreme Court found that

Zapien was procedurally barred from raising the argument that admission

ofthese interrogation statements violated his confrontation rights, because

he did not contemporaneously object to their admission at trial. That

dismissal on a procedural ground constitutes an independent and adequate

basis for dismissing the claim, which we are barred from reviewing. See

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). 

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heartland of those statements deemed reliable under

Roberts, see 448 U.S. at 73 (noting that “guarantees of

trustworthiness” are found “in the accouterments of the

preliminary hearing itself”), and Zapien can point to no case

in which admitting preliminary hearing testimony has been

held to violate the Confrontation Clause solely because other

testimony by the absent witness is untrue.

Zapien claims that his confrontation rights were also

violated by the introduction at trial of multi-level hearsay

testimony by Mariella Perez, a friend of Inez’s daughter

Juanita. Perez testified that Juanita told her that Inez’s other

daughter, “Little Inez,” had told Juanita that Zapien arrived

at Inez’s house on the morning of the murder with blood on

his shirt. An investigator also played a recording of Perez

stating that Juanita told her that Little Inez saw Inez give

Zapien her car keys. Both Juanita and Little Inez testified at

trial: Little Inez denied seeing Zapien that day or talking to

Juanita, and Juanita likewise denied the conversation. The

California Supreme Court reasonably—indeed correctly—

applied the holding in California v. Green that “the

Confrontation Clause is not violated by admitting a

declarant’s out-of-court statements, as long as the declarant

is testifying as a witness and subject to full and effective

cross-examination.” 399 U.S. 149, 158 (1970). Zapien

argues here, as he did before the California Supreme Court,

that Green is inapplicable in the context of multiple hearsay. 

But he cites no authority for that proposition, and the

California Supreme Court reasonably rejected what it

considered to be an “arbitrary rule based solely upon the

number of levels of hearsay.” Zapien, 846 P.2d at 717. 

Zapien also argues that the admission of Perez’s

statements was such an egregious violation of California

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 9

evidentiary law that it constituted a due process violation. It

is not at all clear that there was a violation of California law,

let alone one so fundamentally unfair that it amounted to a

due process violation. In any event, we’ve held that, “[u]nder

AEDPA, even clearly erroneous admissions of evidence that

render a trial fundamentally unfair may not permit the grant

of federal habeas corpus relief if not forbidden by clearly

established [Supreme Court precedent].” Holley v.

Yarborough, 568 F.3d 1091, 1101 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal

quotation marks omitted). Because there is no Supreme

Court case establishing the fundamental unfairness of

admitting multiple hearsay testimony, Holley prohibits us

from finding in Zapien’s favor on this due process claim.

3. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel at the Guilt

Phase

Zapien brings several ineffective assistance of counsel

claims, all of which were summarily denied by the California

Supreme Court.3 When confronted with a state court’s

summary denial, we “must determine what arguments or

theories . . . could have supported . . . the state court’s

decision; and then . . . 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

3 Zapien’s ineffective assistance claims were first presented to the state

courts in a habeas petition over three years after the denial of Zapien’s

direct appeal. In addition to summarily denying these claims on the

merits, the California Supreme Court dismissed them on timeliness

grounds. They should therefore be procedurally defaulted. However, the

state does not raise procedural default before us, nor did it do so before the

district court. Although we may raise the issue of procedural default sua

sponte under exceptional circumstances, seeDay v. McDonough, 547 U.S.

198, 209 (2006), we decline to do so here. 

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Supreme] Court.” Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786

(2011). Our review of Zapien’s ineffective assistance claims

is doubly deferential: “We take a highly deferential look at

counsel’s performance through the deferential lens of

§ 2254(d).” Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1403

(2011) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Zapien first argues that his trial counsel was ineffective

for not vigorously impeaching the testimony of Ruby’s

daughter Marci. Thirteen-year-old Marci was an eyewitness

to the murder and testified that during the attack she heard her

mother say, “Chato, leave me alone. I will give you the

money and the jewelry.” “Chato” was Zapien’s brother—

who resembled Zapien—and was in prison at the time of the

killing. Marci’s testimony was harmful to Zapien both

because it showed that he looked like the assailant and

because it suggested he entered the home with an intent to

commit a robbery, the “special circumstance” that made

Zapien death eligible. Zapien argues that his trial counsel

should have impeached Marci with statements she made

during Zapien’s preliminary hearing—and statements made

to neighbors and the police—where she either failed to

mention “the money and the jewelry” or implied that Ruby

was offering the intruder “the money and the jewelry” rather

than responding to a demand. Zapien also argues that trial

counsel should have attempted to undermine Marci’s account

with testimony by a child memory expert, who would

apparently have explained that, since Marci had just awoken

from a violent dream, her memories of the attack may have

been faulty.

However, a fairminded jurist could conclude that counsel

made a strategic decision in how he approached Marci’s

impeachment. Even if counsel had tried to impeach Marci in

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 11

the manner Zapien now suggests, a jury would likely still

have found her testimony credible. Marci’s physical

description of the attacker wearing a plaid shirt and a vest

was corroborated by the discovery of an abandoned plaid

shirt and vest covered in Ruby’s blood. Marci was by all

accounts highly sympathetic on the stand. And her memory

of the event was vivid and prolonged—involving not merely

witnessing the attack, but also hitting the assailant with a

broom and trying to protect her sisters. Aggressively

attempting to impeach Marci’s testimony may therefore have

alienated the jury, without doing much to undermine her

credibility. Zapien’s trial counsel took a different tack. He

stressed that Marci’s testimony, even if true, failed to

establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Zapien was the

assailant. Under the circumstances, we cannot conclude that

all fairminded jurists would say such a strategy rendered

counsel’s assistance ineffective. See Harrington, 131 S. Ct.

at 786; Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 681, 688

(1984).

Zapien next claims that trial counsel should have

introduced the testimony of Ruby’s two other children, Joni

and Jessica, who also witnessed the murder. Joni told the

police that the attacker was wearing a dark ski mask, and both

Joni and Jessica said they heard a car speeding away after the

attack. Zapien claims that the ski mask testimony would have

undermined Marci’s account that Ruby thought the assailant

was Chato, and the car sound would have undermined

Mariella Perez’s story that Zapien needed a car from Inez

after the murder.

However, at the time of the murder, Joni and Jessica were

eight and six respectively, much younger than the thirteenyear-old Marci. Not only was Marci’s storymore precise and

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fleshed out than those of her sisters, it was also corroborated

by the discovery of the plaid shirt and vest. Because of their

youth, Joni and Jessica may have been unpredictable on the

stand, and putting them through the ordeal of testifying could

have alienated the jury. There was only a small, perhaps

infinitesimal, possibility that a jurywould have believed them

rather than Marci. On balance, the risks associated with

calling them to testify outweighed the potential benefits. 

Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude that counsel wasn’t

ineffective in failing to call Joni and Jessica as witnesses. 

Zapien next argues that counsel should have moved to

exclude the testimony of Lena Chacon and Michael Jimenez,

two witnesses Zapien met at a Christian home shortly after

the murder. Chacon testified at trial that Zapien told her that

he shot someone during the robbery of a store and was using

a pseudonym because he was wanted for murder in

California. Jimenez testified that Zapien had told him about

two separate shootings—one in which he shot someone, who

Jimenez thought was a woman, and another during the

robbery of a store. Zapien argues that trial counsel was

ineffective for failing to move in limine to exclude Chacon’s

and Jimenez’s testimony as irrelevant to Ruby’s murder. 

However, a review of the record reveals little basis upon

which such a motion could plausibly have been successful. 

While both witnesses made vague and confusing statements

during the preliminary hearing, their testimony clearly had

the potential of being highly probative. Competent counsel

could reasonablyhave concluded that moving to exclude their

testimony on the grounds Zapien now suggests would have

seemed frivolous. 

Zapien also criticizes counsel for eliciting testimony from

Chacon at trial regarding the apparent store-robbery killing. 

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 13

But, review of the cross-examination transcript reveals that

counsel acted reasonably. Chacon mentioned on the stand

that Zapien had admitted shooting someone, but didn’t

specify who the victim was. At that point, counsel made the

strategic decision to ask about the possibility of a second

shooting in order to create doubt as to whether Zapien was

referring to Ruby’s killing. Under our doubly deferential

review, we cannot say the California Supreme Court erred in

concluding that counsel’s representation was competent.

Finally, Zapien argues that counsel was ineffective for

failing to introduce evidence suggesting that Zapien had a

broken hand at the time of the murder and was therefore

likely incapable of killing Ruby. Zapien argued in his state

habeas petition that trial counsel should have introduced

testimony by Dr. James Day, a radiologist who allegedly

treated Zapien for a hand injury twelve days before Ruby’s

murder. According to Zapien, Day’s testimony would have

shown that Zapien was injured, had a cumbersome cast

placed on his right hand and was likely physically incapable

of making the deep stab wounds found on Ruby’s body. The

problem, however, is that there was almost nothing to

indicate to counsel at the time of trial that this defense was

available. No witness, including the many that saw Zapien

around the time of the killing, observed a cast or knew about

his alleged injury. While counsel was allegedly in possession

of medical records showing that Zapien was treated for a

fracture, a fairminded jurist could conclude that failure to

pursue this scintilla of evidence did not amount to ineffective

assistance. A fairminded jurist could also conclude that this

single piece of medical evidence would not have created a

reasonable likelihood of a different outcome at trial, given the

considerable other evidence of Zapien’s guilt and the fact that

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the hand injury (as Zapien concedes) would not have made

the attack impossible.

4. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel at the Sentencing

Phase

Zapien argues that counsel was ineffective for failing to

introduce various pieces of mitigating evidence at the

sentencing phase. Zapien first claims that counsel should

have introduced further evidence regarding his traumatic

upbringing. But mitigating evidence of drug dependency and

an abusive family background “can be a two-edged sword

that [a jury] might find to show future dangerousness” or use

to conclude that a defendant is “simply beyond

rehabilitation.” Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. at 1410 (internal

quotation marks omitted) (quoting Atkins v. Virginia, 536

U.S. 304, 321 (2002)). How a jury reacts to such evidence

depends on the particular characteristics of individual

jurors—a matter that trial counsel is in a far better position to

assess than a reviewing court. Zapien does not assert that

counsel failed to make a reasonable investigative effort into

mitigating evidence. See, e.g., Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S.

510, 522 (2003). Counsel sought out—and introduced—a

considerable amount of mitigating evidence, but made the

strategic decision not to fully reveal the horrific details of

Zapien’s life. Given that “strategic choices made after

thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible

options are virtually unchallengeable,” Strickland, 466 U.S.

at 690, the California Supreme Court was not unreasonable in

denying this claim. 

Zapien also argues that trial counsel should have

introduced evidence of Zapien’s psychiatric and neurological

problems. However, it is not clear that Zapien actually

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 15

suffers from any such problems. All that was presented for

state habeas review was evidence that Zapien’s family

members suffered from mental illness, and that he was

exposed to various things—like drugs, pesticides and blows

to the head—that could have led to him developing a brain

injury. The closest thing to an actual diagnosis of a mental

disorder is a doctor’s testimony during Zapien’s federal

evidentiary hearing that he may have suffered from PTSD. 

However, that evidence was never presented in Zapien’s state

petition, and we are not permitted to consider it here. 

Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. at 1398, 1401. And, even if it were

before us, there is no indication that counsel knew or should

have known that Zapien suffered from such a disorder.

Failure to introduce evidence of PTSD, therefore, clearly

didn’t amount to attorney ineffectiveness.

Zapien next argues that counsel was ineffective for failing

to properly prepare two experts at sentencing. Both experts

gave generic testimony—one about the socioeconomic profile

of Zapien’s neighborhood and the other about the effects of

heroin abuse—but neither expert met with Zapien or tailored

his testimony to Zapien’s particular circumstances. Zapien

can point to no case holding that failure to have an expert

meet with a defendant constitutes ineffectiveness. And, in

any event, a fairminded jurist could conclude that somewhat

better prepared experts wouldn’t have had a “reasonable

probability” of affecting the sentencing outcome. Strickland,

466 U.S. at 695.

Finally, Zapien argues that counsel was ineffective

because he didn’t adequately rebut the prosecution’s use of

Zapien’s prior manslaughter conviction as an aggravating

factor. According to Zapien, counsel failed to explain to the

jury that the victim in that crime had attacked and raped

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16 ZAPIEN V. MARTEL

Zapien’s girlfriend a few days before the killing. Instead,

trial counsel sought to obscure the particular facts of Zapien’s

prior crime and emphasize the lower degree of culpability

required for a manslaughter conviction. A fairminded jurist

could conclude that this was a reasonable strategic decision. 

The gory details of a prior knife killing could well have

negatively influenced the jury. And, while Zapien pled to

voluntary manslaughter, there was evidence that the killing

was actually premeditated—evidence that would likely have

been revealed to the jury had counsel elaborated on the details

of the attack. Under the circumstances, counsel’s strategy

can easily be viewed as competent representation.

5. Juror Prejudice

Zapien’s final argument is that his right to an impartial

jury was violated when the trial court failed to dismiss a juror

who admitted to hearing a news report that suggested Zapien

would hurt his guards if he were given the death penalty. The

trial court held a hearing in which the judge questioned the

juror, and eventually ruled that he was capable of being

impartial. The California Supreme Court rejected Zapien’s

argument that the trial court erred in this credibility

determination, and concluded that the juror’s knowledge of

the news report was harmless. 

Zapien argues that the California Supreme Court’s

decision was an unreasonable application of Mattox v. United

States, 146 U.S. 140 (1892), which established a rebuttable

presumption of prejudice when a juror is exposed to

information garnered outside of the trial. However, in

substance, the California Supreme Court applied the Mattox

presumption when it held that the trial court properly

determined the juror could be impartial. Once again, our

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ZAPIEN V. MARTEL 17

posture is doubly deferential: Zapien asks us to hold that the

California Supreme Court was unreasonable in failing to find

that the trial court made an unreasonable credibility

determination about whether the juror was prejudiced. 

Zapien has no non-speculative basis for that conclusion. 

Instead, he effectively advocates for a per se rule in which

exposure to any out-of-trial information automatically

requires juror dismissal. Such an approach is plainly

inconsistent with Mattox and its progeny. As with Zapien’s

other claims, the California Supreme Court’s decision was at

least reasonable.

AFFIRMED.

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