Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_04-cv-00280/USCOURTS-caed-2_04-cv-00280-6/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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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DAVID HERNANDEZ,

Petitioner, No. CIV S-04-0280 GEB GGH P

vs.

JOSEPH McGRATH, 

Respondent. ORDER

 /

Introduction and Summary

This case involves the all too familiar gang ambush shootings allegedly

undertaken in a never ending cycle of act and retribution. The case also involves the perverse

code of gang ethics where shooting someone is OK (nevertheless subjecting the shooter to

possible retribution), but the unpardonable sin is to be seen as a snitch, even when cooperating

with a law enforcement investigation attempting to bring to justice the rival gang aggressor who

killed or attempted to kill the victim gang member or associates.

Petitioner requests an evidentiary issue on the specific issue of ineffective

assistance of counsel. Defense trial counsel altered a statement of one of the witnesses before he

turned it over to the prosecution because he thought the redacted portion to be inculpatory. This

fact came out at trial as a result of the prosecution cross-examination, and the trial court issued a

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severe evidentiary sanction, including the instruction to the jury to accept a fact known to be

untrue. Petitioner desires to posit by means of trial counsel’s testimony at evidentiary hearing

what trial counsel might have done in terms of changed tactics, if he had not committed the

discovery violation.

For the reasons set forth below, the motion for evidentiary hearing is denied.

Facts

The full details of the case need not be set forth herein. Petitioner was convicted

of participating in two gang-related shootings involving five victims. The trial court sentenced

petitioner to life in prison for the attempted premeditated murder of a wounded victim, Samuel

Vasquez, and imposed a consecutive term of 25 years to life for a firearm enhancement as well as

some other concurrent sentences. With respect to the Vasquez charge, petitioner posited a

defense that he was at a birthday party at his girlfriends’s house (Claudia Manriquez) at the time

of the shooting. Manriquez also testified that at one time pertinent to the chronology of one of

the shootings, petitioner and she had traveled to a store to pick up the birthday cake. Manriquez

did not relate on direct that petitioner, when at the shopping center, had walked over and talked

to Ramiro Montanez, who was then driving a stolen pick-up which was involved in the later

Vasquez shooting. Petitioner’s palm and thumb print and other prints (as the undersigned

understands) were found on the pick-up. While this alleged meeting of petitioner and Montanez

could have been confirmatory of petitioner’s whereabouts at a particular time, and the meeting

could have negated the impact of the print evidence, it was also problematic to the defense in that

the meeting could have been seen as preparatory to the later shooting, and the prosecutor could

and did argue that the placement of the prints was consistent with petitioner having driven the

stolen pick-up involved in the attempted murder. On direct, defense counsel did not ask Claudia

Manriquez any questions about petitioner’s purported encounter with Montanez. According to

the California Court of Appeal:

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On cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Claudia a series of

questions about defendant’s whereabouts during the trip. Claudia

revealed that, when they arrived at the store, defendant stopped to

talk to Montanez, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of a large

pickup truck in the store’s parking lot. She indicated she and

Galaviz entered the store while defendant remained in the parking

lot talking to Montanez. When the prosecutor asked her if she saw

defendant touch the driver’s mirror on the truck, she replied: “He

probably could have leaned on it...he probably could have touched

it.” Claudia asserted she told Stewart, defendant’s investigator,

about defendant having seen Montanez, but conceded that she did

not tell him that defendant went over to the truck.

Later in the proceedings, the prosecutor told the court that he

wished to call investigator Stewart as a rebuttal witness to ask

whether Claudia had told him previously about seeing defendant

with Montanez. According to the prosecutor, there was no

reference to Montanez or the pickup truck in the discovery

materials he received regarding Stewart’s interview with Claudia

on December 13, 1999.

At this point, defense counsel revealed that, during her interview

by Stewart on December 22, 1999, Claudia had mentioned

defendant’s encounter with Montanez. 

Calling the omission a “huge problem,” the court stated it intended

to sanction the discovery violation by preventing Stewart from

testifying that Claudia had told him of the encounter.

At the request of defense counsel, the court held an in camera

hearing to learn of counsel’s reasons for not turning over Stewart’s

[complete] report to the prosecution. At the hearing, counsel

explained that he did not think he had to disclose to the prosecutor

this portion of her statement to Stewart because he never intended

to have Claudia testify about her observations of Montanez in the

truck. He redacted this information from Stewart’s report before

giving it to the prosecutor because he believed the evidence was

inculpatory in that it showed defendant had a relationship with

Montanez.

Following the hearing, the court stated that defense counsel had

explained his tactics, and that his decision not to disclose Claudia’s

statement to Stewart about defendant speaking with Montanez at

the grocery store was made in good faith. Nonetheless, the court

concluded counsel had violated the reciprocal discovery

provisions...by not disclosing the entirety of the statement made by

a witness counsel intended to call at trial. In effect, counsel had

“sandbagged” the prosecution, which warranted the sanction of

precluding Stewart from testifying that Claudia had timely revealed

the information about Montanez to him. In addition, the court

stated that it would advise the jurors that Claudia did not mention

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Montanez and the pickup truck when Stewart interviewed her. The

court reasoned that the sanction in effect allowed the prosecutor to

impeach Claudia with a prior inconsistent statement, while not

forcing counsel to reveal his theory of the case by disclosing the

unredacted contents of Stewart’s report.

In accordance with its ruling, the court advised the jurors that they

were to consider as conclusively proved the following: “On

December 22, 1999, Wilson Stewart interviewed Claudia

Manriquez regarding the birthday party and the trip to the store to

pick up the cake. She did not tell him of the pickup truck in the

parking lot, nor of defendant discussing – talking to the man in the

pickup truck.”

Court of Appeal Opinion at 25-27.

On direct appeal, petitioner raised the issues that the trial court had erred in

finding a violation of discovery obligations, the trial court erred by excluding evidence as a

sanction, that the sanction was overly severe in any event, and that alternatively, defense counsel

was ineffective when he violated the discovery rules. The latter claim was very short, and based

solely on the record. Petitioner argued that counsel’s actions were prejudicial in that the

discovery sanction was so severe. 

The appellate court found that the entire report should have been disclosed, and

that trial counsel had violated his discovery obligations, but that the sanction given was

unwarranted. The jury was instructed as to a matter that was untrue – Claudia had in fact

mentioned some of the meeting to Stewart – but the jury was not informed about this. The jury

was left to believe, by virtue of the court’s instruction, that Claudia had lied about the meeting. 

Nevertheless, because Claudia had been impeached in significant other particulars as to the

supposed birthday party, petitioner being at her home at all pertinent times, and with respect to

the trip to the store happening at all, the appellate court found that the sanction, which clearly

would have impeached Claudia further, was harmless.

Petitioner Is Procedurally Precluded From Obtaining an Evidentiary Hearing

Petitioner argues here that he needs defense counsel to testify as to what counsel

might have done if he had not violated the discovery rules. Specifically, petitioner now

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represents that counsel would have disclosed the entire report and would testify that he would

have questioned Manriquez about the meeting in order to negate the print evidence, i.e., perhaps

petitioner touched the mirror and door during this meeting. The downside that the meeting may

have looked like a planning meeting would just have to be endured.

Although the issue of trial counsel’s discovery violation was highlighted on direct

appeal, petitioner did not file a habeas action in which he proffered the outside-the-record-facts

of what tactics his counsel might have used if counsel had not decided to alter the evidence. 

Respondent claims that because petitioner did not even attempt to obtain an evidentiary hearing

for this information via a state habeas, petitioner has not acted diligently under federal AEDPA

law. Petitioner believes that the matter was at issue on direct appeal sufficiently that no request

for an evidentiary hearing need have been made. In addition, petitioner somewhat lamely argues

that if he had filed a state habeas corpus action, it might have been dismissed for being untimely

(as if that were an excuse for failing to ask for an evidentiary hearing). 

Generally:

To obtain an evidentiary hearing on an ineffective assistance of

counsel claim, a habeas petitioner must establish that (1) his

allegations, if proven, would constitute a colorable claim, thereby

entitling him to relief and (2) the state court trier of fact has not,

after a full and fair hearing, reliably found the relevant facts. 

Correll v Stewart, 137 F.3d 1404, 1413 (9th Cir. 1998). If, of course, petitioner’s facts cannot

stand as the basis for a federal claim, e.g., the alleged error is not prejudicial as a matter of law,

no evidentiary hearing is required.

Since the passage of AEDPA, a petitioner who has “failed to develop” a claim,

i.e., had an opportunity to develop a claim, but did not do so, is not entitled to an evidentiary

hearing unless that petitioner demonstrates diligence to discover the factual predicate for his

claim despite his “failure,” and that he is actually innocent of the crime for which he was

convicted. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2); Williams (Michael) v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 120 S. Ct. 1479

(2000). A petitioner has not neglected his or her rights in state court if diligent in efforts to

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 The undersigned would not hesitate to add that trial counsel’s deficiencies involved 1

more than a simple discovery violation. It involved the alteration of evidence with a submission

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search for evidence. Williams, 529 U.S. at 435-436, 120 S. Ct. at 1490. “Diligence ... depends

upon whether the prisoner made a reasonable attempt, in light of the information available at the

time, to investigate and pursue claims in state court.” Id. “Diligence require[s] in the usual case

that the prisoner, at a minimum, seek an evidentiary hearing in state court in the manner

prescribed by state law.” Id.; Bragg v. Galaza, 242 F.3d 1082, 1090 (9th Cir. 2001), as amended

252 F.3d 1150 (9th Cir. 2001). It may be that petitioner’s rendition of facts in the petition,

explicitly or implicitly, calls for an evidentiary hearing, see Horton v. Mayle, 408 F.3d 570, 582

(n.6), but even under that case, one must present something to the state courts in the manner of a

proffer of the outside-the-record facts. A petitioner is not excused from presenting outside-the

record facts which petitioner believes dispositive, or very important, simply because the same

issue was discussed from an on-the-record standpoint on direct review. See also Aiken v.

Spalding, 841 F.2d 881, 883 (9th Cir. 1988); compare Earp v. Ornoski, 431 F.3d 1158, 1169 (9th

Cir.2005) (“Because the factual basis for Earp’s claim was adequately proffered to the state

court, he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing...”).

Having failed to ever proffer to the state courts the testimony petitioner now seeks

to have delivered here, or even to file a habeas corpus action, he is at fault for not having given

the state courts the opportunity to review the ineffective assistance claim with the facts now

proffered. Petitioner does not allege that any of the exceptions to the default are applicable, and

therefore, he is precluded from an evidentiary hearing. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (e)(2).

However, the lack of an evidentiary hearing is not fatal to the claim. In this

situation, as petitioner argues, the options which would have been open to trial counsel were very

limited. It is a tautology to assert that if counsel had not violated the discovery rules, he would

have turned over the entire report – the essence of the violation was that not all information had

been disclosed. Moreover, having turned over the evidence, counsel would necessarily have 1

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of the altered evidence to one’s adversary. Counsel had an ethics problem as well as a discovery

problem. Representing one’s client, even in a criminal context, does not entitle one to alter

documents to be disclosed in discovery. 

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utilized it as best he could. Once the meeting had been disclosed, it would be irrational to

assume counsel would not have highlighted the potentially favorable print evidence by asking

Manriquez about the meeting of petitioner and Montanez.

The court will ultimately review the claim with this scenario in mind – the merits

of which are not addressed here. Not only is an evidentiary hearing precluded, it is not necessary. 

Conclusion

Petitioner’s May 24, 2006, motion for an evidentiary hearing is denied.

DATED: 8/30/06

/s/ Gregory G. Hollows

 

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

GGH:gh:035

hern0280.ord

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