Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_12-cv-00359/USCOURTS-caed-1_12-cv-00359-2/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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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

EDGARDO ALONSO, )

)

Petitioner, )

)

)

v. )

)

M. D. BITER, Warden, ) 

 )

Respondent. )

)

 )

1:12-cv—00359-SKO-HC

ORDER DISMISSING THE PETITION FOR

WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS WITHOUT

PREJUDICE (DOC. 1)

ORDER DECLINING TO ISSUE A

CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY AND

DIRECTING THE CLERK TO CLOSE THE

ACTION

Petitioner is a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in

forma pauperis with a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant

to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1),

Petitioner has consented to the jurisdiction of the United States

Magistrate Judge to conduct all further proceedings in the case,

including the entry of final judgment, by manifesting consent in

a signed writing filed by Petitioner on March 22, 2012 (doc. 4).

Pending before the Court is the petition, which was filed on

March 9, 2012.

I. Screening the Petition

Rule 4 of the Rules Governing § 2254 Cases in the United

States District Courts (Habeas Rules) requires the Court to make

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a preliminary review of each petition for writ of habeas corpus.

The Court must summarily dismiss a petition "[i]f it plainly

appears from the petition and any attached exhibits that the

petitioner is not entitled to relief in the district court....”

Habeas Rule 4; O’Bremski v. Maass, 915 F.2d 418, 420 (9th Cir.

1990); see also Hendricks v. Vasquez, 908 F.2d 490 (9th Cir.

1990). Habeas Rule 2(c) requires that a petition 1) specify all

grounds of relief available to the Petitioner; 2) state the facts

supporting each ground; and 3) state the relief requested. 

Notice pleading is not sufficient; the petition must state facts

that point to a real possibility of constitutional error. Rule

4, Advisory Committee Notes, 1976 Adoption; O’Bremski v. Maass,

915 F.2d at 420 (quoting Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 75

n. 7 (1977)). 

Allegations in a petition that are vague, conclusory, or

palpably incredible are subject to summary dismissal. Hendricks

v. Vasquez, 908 F.2d at 491. Further, the Court may dismiss a

petition for writ of habeas corpus either on its own motion under

Habeas Rule 4, pursuant to the respondent's motion to dismiss, or

after an answer to the petition has been filed. Advisory

Committee Notes to Habeas Rule 8, 1976 Adoption; see, Herbst v.

Cook, 260 F.3d 1039, 1042-43 (9th Cir. 2001).

II. Background 

Petitioner alleges that he is an inmate of the Kern Valley

State Prison (KVSP) serving a sentence of fifty-four years to

life imposed in the Tulare County Superior Court in June 2009 for

attempted murder with gang and gun enhancements. (Pet. 2.) 

Petitioner raises the following claims in the petition: 1) the

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trial court abused its discretion in denying Petitioner’s motion

to sever counts 1 and 2 from counts 3 through 7 because counts 3

through 7 were not eligible for joinder under Cal. Pen. Code 

§ 954; 2) the failure to sever and the introduction of

inflammatory gang predicate evidence violated Petitioner’s right

to due process and a fair trial; 3) the prosecutor committed

prejudicial misconduct by vouching for two key prosecution

witnesses and impeaching a defense witness with a non-existent

criminal offense, which violated Petitioner’s Fourteenth

Amendment right to due process and a fair trial; 4) trial

counsel’s failure to impeach witness Rodriguez with prior

convictions, request an instruction limiting use of the evidence

of gang activity, object to the court’s directions regarding gang

expert testimony, object on the basis of due process and pursuant

to Cal. Evid. Code § 352 to predicate crime gang evidence,

request an in-custody protective instruction, object and request

admonitions concerning various instances of prosecutorial

misconduct, impeach witness Rodriguez with prior convictions,

request a prophylactic gang evidence instruction, object to

unspecified, related misinstructions, challenge inflammatory gang

evidence, and request an instruction to prevent diminution of the

presumption of innocence all constituted prejudicial, ineffective

assistance of counsel; 5) incorrect instructions on imperfect

self-defense violated Petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment right to

due process and a fair trial; and 6) cumulative prejudice from

the matters forming the substance of many of the aforementioned

claims violated Petitioner’s right to due process of law. (Pet.

3-12.)

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Petitioner’s first claim concerning severance was dismissed

without leave to amend as a state law claim. Petitioner had

neither alleged that all his claims were presented to the

California Supreme Court nor provided this Court with

documentation showing that all the claims had been presented to

the California Supreme Court. Accordingly, this Court issued an

order to Petitioner to show cause why the petition should not be

dismissed for failure to exhaust state court remedies as to some

of the claims. The order also permitted Petitioner to move to

amend the petition to name a proper respondent in order to avoid

dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 

The order to show cause (OSC) issued on April 23, 2012, and

was served by mail on Petitioner on the same date. (Doc. 5.) 

Petitioner responded to the OSC and moved to amend the petition

to name a proper respondent. On November 7, 2012, the petition

was amended to name the present respondent, and the order to show

cause was discharged. 

With respect to exhaustion, the Court noted in the order to

show cause that in substance, Petitioner had alleged in the

petition that he had presented to the California Supreme Court

the following issues: 1) abuse of discretion by the trial court;

2) inadequate defense counsel; and 3) prosecutorial misconduct. 

(Pet. 13.) Although Petitioner’s allegations were not

sufficiently precise to be understood with certainty, it appeared

that Petitioner did not raise the claims concerning instructional

error and cumulative error.

In his response to the order to show cause, Petitioner

stated that he failed to exhaust state court remedies with

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respect to the second claim concerning a violation of due process

and the right to a fair trial by the failure to sever or

bifurcate gang evidence, the fifth claim concerning instructional

error with respect to imperfect self-defense, and the sixth claim

concerning cumulative prejudice from a combination of some of the

other errors. (Response, doc. 9, 2-3.) Petitioner admitted that

his petition is a “mixed” petition containing some unexhausted

claims and some claims as to which state court remedies were

exhausted. Petitioner requested that the Court either dismiss

the petition without prejudice to give Petitioner an opportunity

to exhaust the unexhausted claims, or give Petitioner an

opportunity to amend the petition to delete the unexhausted

claims and permit review of the properly exhausted claims. (Id.

at 2-3.)

On November 7, 2012, the Court directed Petitioner to

withdraw his unexhausted claims within thirty days of service or

suffer dismissal of the petition. The order was served by mail

on Petitioner on the same date. Petitioner has not responded to

the Court’s order.

III. Dismissal without Prejudice for Failure to

 Exhaust State Court Remedies 

A petitioner who is in state custody and wishes to challenge

collaterally a conviction by a petition for writ of habeas corpus

must exhaust state judicial remedies. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1). 

The exhaustion doctrine is based on comity to the state court and

gives the state court the initial opportunity to correct the

state's alleged constitutional deprivations. Coleman v.

Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 731 (1991); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509,

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518 (1982); Buffalo v. Sunn, 854 F.2d 1158, 1162-63 (9th Cir.

1988). 

A petitioner can satisfy the exhaustion requirement by

providing the highest state court with the necessary jurisdiction

a full and fair opportunity to consider each claim before

presenting it to the federal court, and demonstrating that no

state remedy remains available. Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270,

275-76 (1971); Johnson v. Zenon, 88 F.3d 828, 829 (9th Cir.

1996). A federal court will find that the highest state court

was given a full and fair opportunity to hear a claim if the

petitioner has presented the highest state court with the claim's

factual and legal basis. Duncan v. Henry, 513 U.S. 364, 365

(1995) (legal basis); Kenney v. Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1, 9-10

(1992), superceded by statute as stated in Williams v. Taylor,

529 U.S. 362 (2000) (factual basis). 

Additionally, the petitioner must have specifically told the

state court that he was raising a federal constitutional claim. 

Duncan, 513 U.S. at 365-66; Lyons v. Crawford, 232 F.3d 666, 669

(9th Cir. 2000), amended, 247 F.3d 904 (9th Cir. 2001); Hiivala

v. Wood, 195 F.3d 1098, 1106 (9th Cir. 1999); Keating v. Hood,

133 F.3d 1240, 1241 (9th Cir. 1998). In Duncan, the United

States Supreme Court reiterated the rule as follows: 

In Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275...(1971),

we said that exhaustion of state remedies requires that

petitioners "fairly presen[t]" federal claims to the

state courts in order to give the State the

"'opportunity to pass upon and correct’ alleged

violations of the prisoners' federal rights" (some

internal quotation marks omitted). If state courts are

to be given the opportunity to correct alleged violations

of prisoners' federal rights, they must surely be

alerted to the fact that the prisoners are asserting

claims under the United States Constitution. If a

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habeas petitioner wishes to claim that an evidentiary

ruling at a state court trial denied him the due

process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment,

he must say so, not only in federal court, but in state

court.

Duncan, 513 U.S. at 365-366. The Ninth Circuit examined the rule

further in Lyons v. Crawford, 232 F.3d 666, 668-69 (9th Cir.

2000), as amended by Lyons v. Crawford, 247 F.3d 904, 904-05 (9th

Cir. 2001), stating: 

Our rule is that a state prisoner has not "fairly

presented" (and thus exhausted) his federal claims

in state court unless he specifically indicated to

that court that those claims were based on federal law.

See, Shumway v. Payne, 223 F.3d 982, 987-88 (9th Cir.

2000). Since the Supreme Court's decision in Duncan,

this court has held that the petitioner must make the

federal basis of the claim explicit either by citing

federal law or the decisions of federal courts, even

if the federal basis is "self-evident," Gatlin v. Madding,

189 F.3d 882, 889 (9th Cir. 1999) (citing Anderson v.

Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 7... (1982)), or the underlying

claim would be decided under state law on the same

considerations that would control resolution of the claim

on federal grounds, see, e.g., Hiivala v. Wood, 195 

F.3d 1098, 1106-07 (9th Cir. 1999); Johnson v. Zenon,

88 F.3d 828, 830-31 (9th Cir. 1996); Crotts, 73 F.3d 

at 865.

...

In Johnson, we explained that the petitioner must alert

the state court to the fact that the relevant claim is a

federal one without regard to how similar the state and

federal standards for reviewing the claim may be or how

obvious the violation of federal law is.

Lyons v. Crawford, 232 F.3d 666, 668-69 (9th Cir. 2000), as

amended by Lyons v. Crawford, 247 F.3d 904, 904-05 (9th Cir.

2001).

Where none of a petitioner’s claims has been presented to

the highest state court as required by the exhaustion doctrine,

the Court must dismiss the petition. Raspberry v. Garcia, 448

F.3d 1150, 1154 (9th Cir. 2006); Jiminez v. Rice, 276 F.3d 478,

481 (9th Cir. 2001). Further, where some claims are exhausted

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and others are not (i.e., a “mixed” petition), the Court must

dismiss the petition without prejudice to give Petitioner an

opportunity to exhaust the claims if he can do so. Rose, 455

U.S. at 510, 521-22; Calderon v. United States Dist. Court

(Gordon), 107 F.3d 756, 760 (9th Cir. 1997), en banc, cert.

denied, 118 S.Ct. 265 (1997); Greenawalt v. Stewart, 105 F.3d

1268, 1273 (9th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 1794 (1997). 

However, the Court must give a petitioner an opportunity to amend

a mixed petition to delete the unexhausted claims and permit

review of properly exhausted claims. Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. at

520; Calderon v. United States Dist. Ct. (Taylor), 134 F.3d 981,

986 (9th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 920 (1998); James v.

Giles, 221 F.3d 1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 2000).

Although non-exhaustion of remedies has been viewed as an

affirmative defense, it is the petitioner’s burden to prove that

state judicial remedies were properly exhausted. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2254(b)(1)(A); Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200, 218-19 (1950),

overruled in part on other grounds in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391

(1963); Cartwright v. Cupp, 650 F.2d 1103, 1104 (9th Cir. 1981). 

If available state court remedies have not been exhausted as to

all claims, a district court must dismiss a petition. Rose v.

Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 515-16 (1982).

As Petitioner acknowledges, he has not exhausted his state

court remedies as to some of the claims in the instant petition. 

Accordingly, the instant petition is a mixed petition containing

exhausted and unexhausted claims. Petitioner has been given an

opportunity to withdraw the unexhausted claims and to proceed on

the fully exhausted claims; however, Petitioner failed to

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withdraw the unexhausted claims. The Court must thus dismiss the

petition without prejudice.

IV. Certificate of Appealability 

Unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of

appealability, an appeal may not be taken to the Court of Appeals

from the final order in a habeas proceeding in which the

detention complained of arises out of process issued by a state

court. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537

U.S. 322, 336 (2003). A certificate of appealability may issue

only if the applicant makes a substantial showing of the denial

of a constitutional right. § 2253(c)(2). Under this standard, a

petitioner must show that reasonable jurists could debate whether

the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or

that the issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement

to proceed further. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. at 336

(quoting Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)). A

certificate should issue if the Petitioner shows that jurists of

reason would find it debatable whether the petition states a

valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right or that

jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district

court was correct in any procedural ruling. Slack v. McDaniel,

529 U.S. 473, 483-84 (2000). 

In determining this issue, a court conducts an overview of

the claims in the habeas petition, generally assesses their

merits, and determines whether the resolution was debatable among

jurists of reason or wrong. Id. It is necessary for an

applicant to show more than an absence of frivolity or the

existence of mere good faith; however, it is not necessary for an

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applicant to show that the appeal will succeed. Miller-El v.

Cockrell, 537 U.S. at 338. 

A district court must issue or deny a certificate of

appealability when it enters a final order adverse to the

applicant. Rule 11(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases.

Here, it does not appear that reasonable jurists could

debate whether the petition should have been resolved in a

different manner. Petitioner has not made a substantial showing

of the denial of a constitutional right. 

Accordingly, the Court will decline to issue a certificate

of appealability.

V. Disposition

Accordingly, it is ORDERED that:

1) The petition for writ of habeas corpus is DISMISSED

without prejudice for Petitioner’s failure to exhaust state 1

court remedies; and

Petitioner is informed that a dismissal for failure to exhaust will not

1

itself bar him from returning to federal court after exhausting his available

state remedies. However, this does not mean that Petitioner will not be

subject to the one-year statute of limitations imposed by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d).

Although the limitations period is tolled while a properly filed request for

collateral review is pending in state court, 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2), it is not

tolled for the time an application is pending in federal court. Duncan v.

Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 172 (2001).

Petitioner is further informed that the Supreme Court has held in

pertinent part:

[I]n the habeas corpus context it would be appropriate

for an order dismissing a mixed petition to instruct

an applicant that upon his return to federal court he is to

bring only exhausted claims. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 41(a)

and (b). Once the petitioner is made aware of the exhaustion

requirement, no reason exists for him not to exhaust all potential

claims before returning to federal court. The failure to comply

with an order of the court is grounds for dismissal with prejudice.

Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 41(b). Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 489

(2000).

Therefore, Petitioner is forewarned that in the event he returns to federal

court and files a mixed petition of exhausted and unexhausted claims, the

petition may be dismissed with prejudice.

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3) The Court DECLINES to issue a certificate of 

appealability; and 

4) The Clerk is DIRECTED to close the case.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 4, 2013 /s/ Sheila K. Oberto 

ie14hj UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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