Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_98-cv-02024/USCOURTS-azd-2_98-cv-02024-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 28:2254 Ptn for Writ of H/C - Stay of Execution

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

David Gulbrandson )

) CV-98-2024-PHX-SMM

Petitioner, )

) DEATH PENALTY CASE

v. )

)

) ORDER

Dora B. Schriro, et al., )

)

Respondents. )

)

Before the Court is Petitioner’s Consolidated Motion to Alter or Amend Judgment and

Issue Certificate of Appealability. (Dkt. 89.) The motion is brought in response to the

Court’s order denying Petitioner’s amended habeas corpus petition and denying a certificate

of appealability. (Dkts. 87, 88.) Petitioner challenges the Court’s denial of Claims 3, 9, 12,

and 13 on the merits and Claim 14 as procedurally barred. 

DISCUSSION

 A motion under Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is essentially

a motion for reconsideration. Motions for reconsideration are disfavored and appropriate

only if the court is presented with newly discovered evidence, if there is an intervening

change in controlling law, or if the court committed clear error. McDowell v. Calderon, 197

F.3d 1253, 1255 (9th Cir. 1999) (per curiam); see School Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah County,

Or. v. ACandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1263 (9th Cir. 1993). A motion for reconsideration is not

a forum for the moving party to make new arguments not raised in its original briefs,

Northwest Acceptance Corp. v. Lynnwood Equipment, Inc., 841 F.2d 918, 925-926 (9th Cir.

Case 2:98-cv-02024-SMM Document 90 Filed 04/18/07 Page 1 of 5
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1988), nor is it the time to ask the court to “rethink what it has already thought through,”

United States v. Rezzonico, 32 F. Supp.2d 1112, 1116 (D. Ariz. 1998) (quotation omitted).

Petitioner does not cite new evidence or a change in law, but instead repeats the

arguments he has already offered and asks the court to revisit the decisions it has already

made. The Court declines this invitation. However, the Court will briefly respond to

Petitioner’s contention that he is entitled to a certificate of appealability with respect to

Claims 3, 9, 12, 13, and 14. 

As the Court has explained, to be entitled to a certificate of appealability, a petitioner

“must demonstrate that 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).

Petitioner has not met this standard.

In Claim 3, Petitioner alleged that his constitutional rights were violated because the

trial court precluded expert testimony about Petitioner’s state of mind at the time of the

crime, including testimony that Petitioner was insane. As this Court previously noted, the

trial court was presented with no expert evidence indicating that Petitioner met the

M’Naghten definition of insanity. Petitioner’s repeated claim that his expert, Dr. Blinder,

was prepared to testify that Petitioner was insane is contrary to the record. Dr. Blinder’s

report (ROA 125u-125cc), together with trial counsel’s affidavit (Dkt. 63, Ex. B), indicate

that at the time of trial Dr. Blinder had determined that Petitioner did not meet the

M’Naghten standard for insanity. Moreover, in his later affidavit, which Petitioner has relied

on heavily in these proceedings, Dr. Blinder only stated that he would have been willing to

testify that Petitioner’s condition somehow approached satisfying the M’Naghten standard.

(ROA-PCR, Ex. E.) If Dr. Blinder, a “renowned forensic psychiatrist” (Dkt. 27 at 30), had

held the opinion that Petitioner was insane under M’Naghten, he was capable of articulating

that opinion to trial counsel and would have included it in his initial report and in his

subsequent affidavit. He did not.

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1 In Musladin, the Court addressed the effect on a defendant’s fair-trial rights of

private-actor courtroom conduct, as opposed to state-sponsored conduct. 127 S. Ct. at 653-

54. The Court noted that its prior decisions had only addressed the latter issue. The Court

further observed that, “[r]eflecting the lack of guidance from this Court, lower courts have

diverged widely in their treatment of defendants’ spectator-conduct claims.” Id. at 654. The

Court concluded that:

Given the lack of holdings from this Court regarding the potentially prejudicial

effect of spectators’ courtroom conduct of the kind involved here, it cannot be

said that the state court “unreasonabl[y] appli[ed] clearly established Federal

law.” § 2254(d)(1) . . . Therefore, the state court’s decision was not contrary

to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.

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Because there was no evidence that Petitioner was M’Naghten insane, the trial court

properly applied state evidentiary law, e.g., State v. Mott, 187 Ariz. 536, 540-41, 931 P.2d

1046, 1050-51 (1997), to preclude expert testimony concerning whether Petitioner acted with

premeditation at the time of the murder. Because the United States Supreme Court has

upheld the constitutional validity of the Mott rule, Clark v. Arizona, 126 S. Ct. 2709, 2737

(2006), and because, despite the trial court’s ruling, Dr. Blinder, did in fact testify as to

Petitioner’s state of mind at the time of the crime, this claim is clearly without merit, a

conclusion which reasonable jurors could not debate.

In Claim 9, Petitioner alleged that the trial court denied his fundamental right to testify

on his own behalf. Because, as this Court already noted and as Petitioner appears to concede,

there is no Supreme Court precedent requiring an on-the-record waiver of a defendant’s right

to testify, the decision of the Arizona Supreme Court denying this claim was not an

unreasonable application of “clearly established Federal law” under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

This is not a conclusion about which reasonable jurists could differ, particularly in light of

the Supreme Court’s recent reiteration of the principle that “‘clearly established Federal law’

in § 2254(d)(1) ‘refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court’s decisions as

of the time of the relevant state-court decision.’” Carey v. Musladin, 127 S. Ct. 649, 653

(2006) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000)).1

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Id.

2 Petitioner again insists that counsel performed ineffectively by failing to

present testimony, this time at sentencing, that Petitioner was insane. This allegation is

meritless because, as explained above, no such testimony existed.

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In Claim 12, Petitioner alleged that he was denied his right to effective assistance of

counsel at the guilt stage of trial because counsel did not elicit from Dr. Blinder testimony

that Petitioner was insane. Because, as previously noted, Dr. Blinder had not promulgated

the opinion that Petitioner was insane, counsel cannot be deemed ineffective under either the

deficiency or prejudice prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), for failing

to present such non-existent testimony. Reasonable jurists could not debate this Court’s

conclusion that the decision of the PCR court rejecting this claim was not an unreasonable

application of Strickland.

In Claim 13, Petitioner alleged that he was denied his right to effective assistance of

counsel at the sentencing stage of his trial because counsel failed to call for testimony from

Dr. Blinder. Because, as the PCR court correctly noted, counsel presented Dr. Blinder’s

comprehensive and detailed testimony at the guilt phase of trial – including his opinion that

Petitioner suffered from mental illnesses and acted impulsively when he attacked his victim

– counsel was not ineffective for failing to present the testimony again at the presentence

hearing.2

 Reasonable jurists, applying clearly established federal law as set forth in Bell v.

Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), could not debate this Court’s conclusion that the PCR court’s

denial of this claim did not entitle Petitioner to relief under § 2254(d)(1).

In Claim 14, Petitioner alleged that his constitutional rights were violated because he

was not competent to stand trial. This Court found that the claim was procedurally barred

because Petitioner failed to exhaust the claim in state court and failed to excuse the default

by establishing cause and prejudice or a fundamental miscarriage of justice. (Dkt. 46 at 17.)

Petitioner contends that the rules of procedural default do not apply to substantive

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3

 Petitioner now contends that Martinez-Villareal is inapposite because the claim

there was not a substantive but a procedural incompetency claim based on ineffective

assistance of counsel. The Court disagrees. While the petitioner did also raise ineffective

assistance claims, including in earlier filings, “Claims concerning Martinez-Villareal’s

competence to stand trial were not raised until Martinez-Villareal’s third PCR petition. The

State’s defense in this case was procedural default, not waiver. Therefore, the district court

erred in holding that the claim was not procedurally defaulted.” Martinez-Villareal, 80 F.3d

at 1307. 

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competency claims. As this Court noted in its order on the procedural status of Petitioner’s

claims, the Ninth Circuit has rejected the argument that mental incompetency claims cannot

be procedurally defaulted, holding, in Martinez-Villareal v. Lewis, 80 F.3d 1301, 1306-07

(9th Cir. 1996), that a claim alleging actual incompetence to stand trial is subject to the same

state procedural default rules as other claims.3

 Because Petitioner’s argument is clearly

foreclosed by applicable precedent, reasonable jurors could not debate this Court’s dismissal

of Claim 14 as procedurally barred.

Based on the foregoing, the Court again finds that Petitioner is not entitled to habeas

relief on Claim 3, 9, 12, 13, and 14, and that the claims are not suitable for the issuance of

a certificate of appealability.

Accordingly, 

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED denying Petitioner’s Consolidated Motion to Alter or

Amend Judgment and Issue Certificate of Appealability (Dkt. 89). 

DATED this 18th day of April, 2007.

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