Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_06-cv-01530/USCOURTS-azd-3_06-cv-01530-0/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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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

James David Walker, 

Petitioner,

vs.

Dora B. Schriro, et al., 

Respondents.

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No. CV-06-1530-PCT-PGR

 

 ORDER

Having reviewed de novo the exhaustive Report and Recommendation of

Magistrate Judge Anderson in light of Petitioner’s Objection to the Magistrate

Judge’s Report and Recommendation (doc. #24), the Court finds that the

petitioner’s objections are meritless and that the Magistrate Judge correctly

concluded that the petitioner’s Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, should be denied in its entirety.

The petitioner was convicted of assaulting and murdering Carol

Glazebrook, who died as a result of complications arising from the burns she

suffered when the petitioner threw boiling water on her while she was walking 

into the kitchen of the trailer that they shared. The petitioner’s defense was that

Glazebrook burned herself when she knocked over a pot of boiling water on a

stove while intoxicated. The petitioner’s first objection to the Report and

Case 3:06-cv-01530-PGR Document 25 Filed 11/20/07 Page 1 of 5
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1

 While the petitioner raised the issue of the exclusion of the videotape in

his first petition for post-conviction relief, the issue was raised solely in the

context that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance because the splash

test experiments had been precluded because they were not timely disclosed. 

The trial judge denied this post-conviction claim on the ground that the petitioner

had not shown that the outcome of his trial would have likely changed even if the

splash test evidence had been admitted.

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Recommendation, to the extent that the Court understands it, is in part that the

petitioner was denied a fundamentally fair trial because the trial judge manifestly

erred by failing to hold a hearing pursuant to Daubert v. Merrell Dow

Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), prior to excluding a “splash test”

videotape made by the petitioner’s trial counsel’s staff “reenacting” the crime that

supposedly showed that the burns on Glazebrook could not have been made in

the manner charged by the prosecution. The trial judge excluded the evidence

because it was disclosed in an untimely manner, because it would have been

confusing and misleading to the jury, and because it was unreliable in that there

was no indicia of the accuracy of the splash test experiments.

The Court rejects this objection because the petitioner failed to raise the

issue as a claim in his amended petition, and because the Court has not been

cited to anything in the record that establishes that the petitioner ever exhausted

this particular claim by fairly presenting it to the state courts as part of his postconviction relief procedures.1

In any case, even if the Court were to consider the merits of the claim, the

claim does not present a sufficient basis on which to grant habeas relief. Since

the admissibility of evidence is generally a matter of state law, a state court’s

evidentiary ruling is not subject to federal habeas review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254

unless the ruling violates federal law, either by infringing on a specific federal

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2

 While the petitioner cites to the Daubert case, Daubert does not set a

constitutional floor on the admissibility of scientific evidence and does not govern

the admission of such evidence in state court proceedings - it only governs the

application of Fed.R.Evid. 702 in cases in federal courts. See Logerquist v.

McVey, 1 P.3d 113 (Ariz. 2000) (Arizona Supreme Court rejected the use of the

Daubert test in applying Ariz.R.Evid. 702).

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constitutional or statutory provision or by depriving the defendant of the

fundamentally fair trial guaranteed by due process.2

 See Estelle v. McGuire, 502

U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991). While a criminal defendant has a due process right to

receive a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense, Holmes v. South

Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 324 (2006), there is no constitutional entitlement in a

criminal case to present any evidence critical to a criminal defense and the

introduction of relevant evidence can be limited by the state for a valid reason. Id.

at 326 (“While the Constitution thus prohibits the exclusion of defense evidence

under rules that serve no legitimate purpose or are disproportionate to the ends

that they are asserted to promote, well-established rules of evidence permit trial

judges to exclude evidence if its probative value is outweighed by certain other

factors such as unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or potential to mislead

the jury.”); see also, Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37, 53 (1996). In determining

whether the exclusion of evidence violates the due process right to a fair trial or

the Sixth Amendment right to present a defense, the Court looks to various

factors: (1) the probative value of the excluded evidence as to the central issue;

(2) the reliability of such evidence; (3) whether it is capable of evaluation by the

trier of fact; (4) whether it is the sole evidence on the issue or is merely

cumulative; and (5) whether it constitutes a major part of the defense. Chia v.

Cambra, 360 F.3d 997, 1004-05 (9th Cir. 2004).

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3

 The Court rejects as meritless the petitioner’s contention that the

Magistrate Judge’s failure to hold a Daubert evidentiary hearing was “manifestly

erroneous.”

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A balancing of these factors does not establish that any constitutional

violation occurred when the splash test evidence was excluded - while the

excluded evidence went to the central issue of the petitioner’s defense, i.e., that

Glazebrook accidently burned herself, the state had a substantial interest in

excluding the evidence given that the evidence was not reliable and would not

have been capable of being properly evaluated by the jury in light of the various

questions about its reliability, and the excluded evidence was not the sole

evidence supporting the petitioner’s defense on the issue of how Glazebrook got

burned because, e.g., Dr. Keen testified that the burn pattern was inconsistent

with Glazebrook being in a standing position and was instead more consistent

with her being in a recumbent or backward reclining position when she was struck

with the boiling water, which cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory that the

petitioner threw the water on Glazebrook as she walked into the kitchen.

Furthermore, even if the exclusion of the evidence amounted to

constitutional error, the erroneous exclusion must have had “a substantial and

injurious effect” on the verdict in order to justify federal habeas relief, Brecht v.

Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 623 (1993), and the petitioner has made no such

showing.3

The petitioner’s second objection to the Report and Recommendation is a

conclusory general objection “to each and every finding by [the Magistrate Judge]

concerning preclusion, failure to exhaust[.]” The Court concludes that the

Magistrate Judge correctly determined that the merits of claims 1(d), 1(e), 1(k),

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1(l), 1(m), 2(a), 2(b), 2 (c), and 2(e) in the amended petition cannot be reached

because the petitioner procedurally defaulted as to those claims and he failed to

establish the existence of cause and prejudice or a fundamental miscarriage of

justice as to them. Therefore,

IT IS ORDERED that the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation

(doc. #21) is accepted and adopted by the Court.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the petitioner’s Amended Petition for Writ

of Habeas Corpus by a Person in State Custody Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254

(doc. #5) is denied and that this action is dismissed. The Clerk of the Court shall

enter judgment accordingly.

DATED this 20th day of November, 2007.

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