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

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. .. 

FILED 

.AESed States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPE Tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT FEB 2 7 1991 

ANDY RAEL, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

ROBERT TANSY, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

> Clerk 

) 

) 

) 

) No. 90-2092 

) (D.C. No. 88-330-JC) 

) (D. N.M.) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before LOGAN, MOORE, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P . 

34(a); 10th Cir.' R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Petitioner appeals from a district court order denying 

petitioner habeas relief pursuant to 28 u.s.c. § 2254 from his 

state convictions on two counts of aggravated assault, N.M. Stat. 

Ann. § 30-3-2A, and one count of aggravated assault on a peace 

officer, N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-22-22A(1), all with firearm 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2092 Document: 010110028891 Date Filed: 02/27/1991 Page: 1 
enhancement, N.M. Stat. Ann.§ 31-18-16, and one count of criminal 

damage to property, N.M. Stat. Ann.§ 30-15-1. These convictions 

arose out of an incident involving the shooting of the homes of 

two of petitioner's relatives. 

Petitioner asserted three claims for habeas relief: 1) the 

state trial court denied petitioner due process by allowing 

testimony concerning other wrongful acts involving petitioner 

occurring subsequent to the crimes charged; 2) the trial court 

denied petitioner his sixth amendment right to confront witnesses 

by allowing the admission of hearsay testimony; and 3) defense 

counsel's representation of petitioner was ineffective and, 

therefore, violated petitioner's sixth amendment right to counsel, 

because defense counsel failed to object or failed to object in a 

timely manner to the admission of both the hearsay and the other 

wrongful acts testimony. 

Petitioner's first claim for habeas relief challenged the 

trial court's admission into evidence of testimony that the 

witness overheard petitioner offer to pay the witness's husband 

to kill one of petitioner's cousins and another individual. 

Petitioner asserted this statement was irrelevant, prejudicial, 

and not offered for any valid purpose for which other wrongful 

acts testimony would be admissible. See N.M. R. Evid. 11-401, 

11-403, and 11-404B. 

Petitioner will not be entitled to federal habeas relief on 

the basis of a violation of state evidentiary rules unless that 

violation "'render[ed] the trial so fundamentally unfair as to 

constitute a denial of federal constitutional rights.'" Hopkinson 

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Appellate Case: 90-2092 Document: 010110028891 Date Filed: 02/27/1991 Page: 2 
v. Shillinger, 866 F.2d 1185, 1197 (10th Cir.)(quoting Brinlee v. 

Crisp, 608 F.2d 839, 850 (10th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 

1047 (1980)), reh'g en bane on another issue, 888 F.2d 1286 (10th 

Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 3256 (1990). A federal 

habeas court, therefore, "will not disturb a state court's 

admission of evidence of prior crimes, wrongs or acts unless the 

probative value of such evidence is so greatly outweighed by the 

prejudice flowing from its admission that the admission denies 

defendant due process of law." Id. Reviewing the district 

court's decision de novo, cf. Nichols v. Sullivan, 867 F.2d 1250, 

1253 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 109 S. Ct. 3169 (1989), we affirm 

the district court's determination that the state trial court's 

admission of the murder solicitation testimony did not render the 

trial fundamentally unfair and, therefore, did not deny petitioner 

due process. 

In his second claim, petitioner asserted that the state trial 

court, by allowing the admission of hearsay testimony, denied 

petitioner his sixth amendment right to confront witnesses. The 

trial court allowed a witness to testify that her daughter, 

petitioner's girlfriend, told the witness that petitioner did the 

shooting. 

This court will review the district court's determination de 

novo. Myatt v. Hannigan, 910 F.2d 680, 685 (10th Cir. 1990). The 

district court determined that this statement bore sufficient 

indicia of reliability in light of the corroborating testimony of 

another witness. Independent evidence corroborating the hearsay 

testimony, however, is not sufficient to establish the inherent 

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Appellate Case: 90-2092 Document: 010110028891 Date Filed: 02/27/1991 Page: 3 
trustworthiness of the statement, as required by the confrontation 

clause. Idaho v. Wright, 110 S. Ct. 3139, 3150-51 (1990). 

Nonetheless, although admission of the hearsay was a technical 

violation of petitioner's confrontation rights, the testimony was 

cumulative at best, and any error committed by its admission was 

harmless. Cf. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986). 

Petitioner's third claim for relief asserted petitioner's 

trial counsel provided ineffective assistance, in violation of the 

sixth amendment, in light of defense counsel's failure to object 

or to object in a timely manner to the admission of the challenged 

testimony of these two witnesses. In order to establish 

ineffective assistance of counsel, petitioner bears the burden of 

establishing both that counsel's performance was deficient and 

that the deficient performance prejudiced petitioner's defense. 

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984); see also 

Hopkinson, 866 F.2d at 1204. This court reviews the district 

court's determination de novo. Hopkinson, 866 F.2d at 1204. 

The district court determined that, while defense counsel's 

failure to object or to object in a timely manner to these 

statements fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and, 

therefore, was deficient, see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 

petitioner failed to establish that counsel's deficient conduct 

prejudiced his defense. 1 In order to establish prejudice, 

1 We find the district court's determination that petitioner 

met the first prong of the Strickland test questionable in light 

of the Court's requirement that petitioner show "that counsel made 

errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 

'counsel' guaranteed (petitioner] by the Sixth Amendment." 

Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. Nonetheless, if we can affirm the 

(continued on next page) 

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Appellate Case: 90-2092 Document: 010110028891 Date Filed: 02/27/1991 Page: 4 
petitioner "must show that there is a reasonable probability that, 

but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the 

proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is 

a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." 

Id. at 694. 

Petitioner asserts that prejudice was conclusively 

established by the state appellate court's indication that, had 

counsel properly preserved these evidentiary issues, the state 

appellate court would have reversed these convictions and granted 

petitioner a new trial. Because, in reviewing an ineffective 

assistance claim, "the ultimate focus of inquiry must be on the 

fundamental fairness of the proceeding whose result is being 

challenged," id. at 696, the district court did not err in 

determining that the state court's indication that it would have 

reversed petitioner's convictions on appeal had the evidentiary 

issues been properly preserved did not conclusively establish the 

prejudice required under Strickland. 

Rather, the district court properly reviewed the fundamental 

fairness of the state trial court proceeding, determining that 

petitioner had failed to establish that counsel's errors deprived 

him of a fundamentally fair trial. An error of state law 

justifying reversal in state court is not, in and of itself, an 

error of constitutional magnitude resulting in the denial of a 

(continued from previous page) 

district court's determination that any errors made by defense 

counsel failed to prejudice petitioner's defense, we need not 

address whether counsel's performance was deficient. Id. at · 697. 

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Appellate Case: 90-2092 Document: 010110028891 Date Filed: 02/27/1991 Page: 5 
fundamentally fair trial. See Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 

637, 642-43 (1974). Because petitioner failed to meet his burden 

of establishing a "reasonable probability that, absent the errors, 

the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting 

guilt," id., we affirm the district court's determination that 

petitioner failed to establish ineffective assistance of counsel 

in violation of the sixth amendment. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico is AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

John P. Moore 

Circuit Judge 

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