Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_12-cv-01137/USCOURTS-casd-3_12-cv-01137-1/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

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ALAN G. GIMENEZ,

Petitioner,

CASE NO. 12-CV-1137-LAB-BLM

ORDER RE: RESPONDENT’S

vs. MOTION TO DISMISS

J. TIM OCHOA, Warden

Respondent.

Over twenty years ago, on April 10, 1992, Gimenez was convicted of second degree

murder for violently shaking his seven-week-old daughter Priscilla to death. He was

sentenced to an indeterminate term of fifteen years to life in prison. Now before the Court

is Respondent’s motion to dismiss Gimenez’s second federal habeas petition. 

The petition is massive (it asserts twenty-seven claims), and so is all of the briefing

(there are hundreds of pages of it), but the crux of Gimenez’s petition is rather

straightforward. He argues that our medical understanding of shaken baby syndrome today

isn’t what it was in the early 1990s when he was tried and convicted, and that under today’s

evolved understanding he would not have been convicted. How so? First, when Gimenez

was tried it was the accepted view of the medical community that shaken baby syndrome

could be established absent any evidence of head or neck injuries, which Priscilla didn’t

display—and that is no longer the accepted view. Second, it’s now accepted that the

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symptoms of shaken baby syndrome Priscilla did display—swellingand bleeding of the brain,

and retinal hemorrhaging—could have other causes, such as a brain bleed that begins at

birth. 

Because Gimenez’s petition isn’t his first, it has to satisfy several threshold conditions

under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b), before his claims can even be considered on their merits under

§ 2254(d). The R&R finds that it doesn’t satisfy those conditions, and the Court agrees. But

even assuming it does, the Court would also find that Gimenez isn’t entitled to habeas relief

under § 2254(d). For these reasons, given below, Respondent’s motion to dismiss

Gimenez’s habeas petition is GRANTED.

I. Procedural History

This isn’t Gimenez’s first federal habeas petition. He previously filed a petition on May

28, 1999, represented by one of the attorneys who represents him now. That petition

1

asserted two claims. The first was an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, accusing his

trial counsel of: (1) failing to obtain a report from Children’s Hospital that diagnosed Priscilla

with epilepsy and noted a bloody spinal tap, both of which suggest that some pre-existing

injury or disease caused her death; (2) failing to obtain all of Priscilla’s medical records; and

(3) failing to retain and consult with a hematologist to evaluate the lab reports and offer a

cause of death. The second claim was a Brady claim, accusing the prosecution of 2

withholding the Children’s Hospital report and Priscilla’s lab reports. This petition was 3

denied on October 24, 2003, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial in a memorandum on

May 27, 2005.4

Over four years later, on August 24, 2009, Gimenez started a new round of collateral

See Case No. 99-CV-1133-JM-JFS. 1

 Case No. 99-CV-1133, Doc. No. 51 (R&R) at 9. 2

 Case No. 99-CV-1133, Doc. No. 51 at 26. 3

 Lodgment 24. 4

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review, filing a habeas petition in San Diego Superior Court. The Superior Court denied that

5

petition on October 18, 2010. Gimenez pressed on. In a one-page opinion, the Court of

Appeal denied his petition on November 21, 2011, and in a one-sentence opinion the

California Supreme Court denied his petition on February 15, 2012. It is really the Superior 6

Court’s denial of Gimenez’s petition that’s relevant here, because as the most reasoned

decision, and the decision the Court of Appeal expressly adopted, it is the decision this Court

must look to. Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 805–06 (1991). 

Gimenez filed his second federal habeas petition in this Court on May 9, 2012, and

he obtained the Ninth Circuit’s authorization to file it on October 18, 2012. See 28 U.S.C. 7

§ 2244(b)(3)(A).

II. Gimenez’s Petition

Gimenez’s present petition asserts twenty-seven claims. They can be grouped. 

A. Claims 1 through 7

Gimenez’s first seven claims argue that his conviction violated the Due Process

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it was based on the “false material

testimony” of medical experts. Gimenez doesn’t argue that their testimony was perjured or

nefarious in any way, but rather that it has been discredited by more recent testimony and/or

by the evolved medical understanding of shaken baby syndrome. For example, Gimenez’s

first claim is that the pathologist who performed Priscilla’s autopsy and testified against him,

Dr. Eisele, was wrong about the age of subdural bleeding. He testified that the bleeding was

only weeks old when Priscilla died, but he relied on the textbook of a prominent

neuropathologist, Dr. Leestma, who now refutes that conclusion. As do others:

Eisele testified he relied on a textbook by Dr. Leestma, a

prominent neuropathologist. Dr. Leestma has reviewed the case

and concluded the bleeding began at or shortly after birth and

was chronic and that Dr. Eisele’s methodology was deficient. 

Dr. Wolfe, also a neuropathologist, and Dr. Plunkett, a

 Doc. No. 19-6 at 63.

5

 Lodgments 8, 10.

6

 Doc. No. 4. 

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pathologist, agree the bleeding was chronic and most likely

began at birth. Dr. Eisele’s testimony was materially false.8

Gimenez has submitted declarations from doctors Leestma, Wolfe, and Plunkett to back this

claim up. 

9

The Leestma declaration, dated January 22, 2007, is seven pages long and

concludes:

In summary, I can find no persuasive evidence that Priscilla

Gimenez was the victim of abuse. Her injuries likely date back

to birth and continued to evolve during her life culminating in her

admission to hospital and her subsequent death due to

complications of her subdural hematoma and cerebral

venous/sagittal sinus thrombosis . . . . The findings that were

used by others involved with the case to substantiate the

allegation of the shaken baby syndrome lack scientific

foundation or credibility as discussed above. I hold these

opinions to a reasonable degree of medical and scientific

certainty based upon the objective evidence (radiological and

pathological studies) and relevant medical literature.

Dr. Leestma also wrote a supplemental letter on July 26, 2010, noting that recent

contributions to the medical literature on shaken baby syndrome “further discredit the notions

held by many that subdural hematomas in infants are evidence of inflicted trauma.” Dr.

Wolfe, a neuropathologist at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City, concluded in a 

July 22, 2008 letter to Gimenez’s counsel that the cause of Priscilla’s death was “Natural

Disease.” Dr. Plunkett, a retired coroner and neuropathologist in Minnesota, explained that

much of what was taught and understood about infant head injuries in 1991 is no longer

supportable, and that “[t]here is no evidence to support a conclusion that abuse caused the

signs and symptoms leading to Priscilla’s death.”

This first claim is representative of the nature of the second through seventh claims

in Gimenez’s habeas petition. The clear theme is that, on a closer analysis of Priscilla’s

medical records by esteemed neuropathologists, and under modern, advanced

understandings of shaken baby syndrome, Priscilla wasn’t murdered by Gimenez but rather

died of natural causes. Gimenez takes this to mean that the evidence by which he was

 Pet. at 6. 8

 The declarations are Exhibits A, C, and D to his habeas petition, Doc. No. 12-2. 9

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convicted was false, in violation of his rights under the Due Process Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment.

B. Claims 8 through 15

These eight claims are ineffective assistance of counsel claims. They are easy to

describe. 

Gimenez argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for: (1) hiring an incompetent

pathologist to testify, Dr. Hormez Guard, who had previously been fired by the San Diego

Medical Examiner’s office (Claim 8); (2) failing to hire a radiologist to interpret and testify

about Priscilla’s x-rays and CT scans (Claim 9); (3) calling as a defense witness a radiologist,

Dr. Lee Harvey, who actually agreed with the prosecution’s theory of the case (Claim 10); 

(4) failing to provide a defense pediatric neurologist, Dr. Tiznado-Garcia, with CT scans the

doctor asked to review before reaching an opinion on the cause of Priscilla’s death (Claim

11); (5) failing to present any credible testimony from qualified experts suggesting an

alternative, natural cause of Priscilla’s death (Claim 12); (6) failing to subpoena all of

Priscilla’s medical records and provide them to the defense’s expert witnesses (Claim 13);

(7) failing to properly interview or prepare the family physician, Dr. Kerley, who delivered

Priscilla and could have testified that her birth was atypical (Claim 14); and (8) failing to

meaningfully challenge the prosecution’s medical evidence with available forensic evidence 

(Claim 15).

C. Claims 16 through 26

Gimenez’s sixteenth through twenty-sixth claims are actual innocence claims. For

example, his sixteenth claim is that the accepted proof of shaken baby syndrome when he

was tried—the “triad” of subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and brain swelling—is no

longer the accepted proof of shaken baby syndrome. The twenty-third claim, for another

10

example, argues that a lab technician’s inability to draw blood from Priscilla shows she had

a congenital and chronic bleeding disorder, “which was never tested for and which would

 Pet. at 9F. 10

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have explained the stroke-like clot that resulted in her death.”11

These claims aren’t fundamentally different from Gimenez’s first eight claims. The

first eight claims argue that modern medical knowledge and analysis of infant head injuries

discredit the testimony and evidence that convicted Gimenez. These later claims argue that

modern knowledge and analysis actually establish his innocence. But both sets of claims

essentially argue that were Gimenez tried today, the evidence at trial would be very different

and he would not be convicted of murdering Priscilla.

D. Claim 27

Gimenez’s final claim is a cumulative claim that simply tallies up all of his others

relating to false evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and new evidence.

12

III. Discussion

The Court will start where the R&R does, with Gimenez’s ineffective assistance

claims. There are two, threshold problems with the claims. The first problem is that

Gimenez already asserted ineffective assistance in his original habeas petition, and his

“new” claims may not be different enough such that he can assert them in a second,

successive petition. This problem arises under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1), which mandates that

“[a] claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section

2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.” The second problem is

that Gimenez was able to assert these claims earlier than he did. This problem arises under

28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(I), which mandates that a claim not previously presented may be

asserted if “the factual predicate for the claim could not have been discovered previously

through the exercise of due diligence.”

A. The § 2244(b)(1) Problem with Gimenez’s Ineffective Assistance Claims

As the Court noted above, Gimenez’s first habeas petition asserted two ineffective

assistance of counsel claims, one of which was that his trial counsel: (1) failed to obtain a

report from Children’s Hospital that diagnosed Priscilla with epilepsy and noted a bloody

 Pet. at 9I.

11

 Pet. at 9K.

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spinal tap, both of which suggest that some pre-existing injury or disease caused her death;

(2) failed to obtain all of Priscilla’s medical records; and (3) failed to retain and consult with

a hematologist to evaluate the lab reports and offer a cause of death.

13

Under § 2244(b)(1), “AEDPA requires the dismissal of claims that were previously

presented in a federal habeas petition.” Babbitt v. Woodford, 177 F.3d 744, 745 (9th Cir.

1999). The Ninth Circuit also made clear in Babbitt that “claims” is more categorical than it

is specific, and that where the “gravamen” of a legal claim is “essentially the same,” it has

been previously presented under § 2241(b)(1). Id. at 746. It doesn’t matter if the factual

allegations behind the claim are different:

Although Babbitt asserts new factual explanations for his

counsel’s ineffectiveness at trial, the gravamen of his legal

argument is essentially the same. Because we have already

determined that trial counsel’s performance during the guilt,

sanity, and penalty phases was not constitutionally deficient, we

will not consider new factual grounds in support of the same

legal claim that was previously presented. 

Id. Babbitt is an instructive case. The petitioner argued in his first petition that his trial

counsel was ineffective for failing to present a PTSD defense during the guilt or mitigation

phases of his trial. In his second petition, the petitioner argued that his trial counsel abused

alcohol during the trial. Even though there’s a clear difference between failing to put on

relevant, mitigating, and identifiable evidence at trial, and being generally impaired at trial,

the Ninth Circuit held that the second claim was barred under § 2244(b)(1).14

 Case No. 99-CV-1133, Doc. No. 51 (R&R) at 9. 13

In Gimenez’s objection to the R&R, he suggests that the second ineffective 14

assistance claim in Babbit was that trial counsel’s alcohol abuse was responsible for his

failure to present a PTSD defense, which of course makes it very similar to an ineffective

assistance claim that trial counsel failed to put on a PTSD defense but doesn’t offer an

explanation. (Obj. at 5.) The Court doesn’t read the Babbitt opinion that way. As the Ninth

Circuit described it, the petitioner’s second claim was that “because of his trial counsel’s

alcohol abuse, his counsel was ineffective during the guilt, sanity, and penalty phases of

Babbitt’s trial.” Id. at 746. That is a general claim about his counsel’s overall performance

or capacity at trial. It’s not simply another theory as to why he failed to present a PTSD

defense. The Court disagrees with Gimenez’s statement that “the legal claim in both

petitions was that counsel failed to sufficiently present a PTSD defense or to use PTSD for

mitigation” and that “[t]he new factual information indicated that these failures were not

simply based on ordinary deficient performance, but also on alcohol consumption.” (Obj. at

5–6.)

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Subsequent opinions have followed Babbitt’s lead. In Cooper v. Brown, the Ninth

Circuit held that an ineffective assistance claim in a capital case based on trial counsel’s

failure “to advocate regarding the evidence of . . . hair in the victims’ hands” was foreclosed

under § 2244(b)(1) by previous ineffective assistance claims based on trial counsel’s failure

“to advocate regarding forensic evidence.” 510 F.3d 870, 931 (9th Cir. 2007). While those

two claims naturally sound quite similar—they both involve trial counsel’s handling of forensic

evidence at trial—the court used quite broad language to explain the force of § 2244(b)(1):

“If Petitioner has previously adjudicated a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in this

Court, his pending claim of ineffective assistance must be dismissed. New factual grounds

in support of a legal claim that has already been presented, i.e., ineffective assistance, are

not sufficient to evade the mandatory dismissal requirement.” Id. at 931.15

Gimenez’s own briefing walks right into the wall Babbitt and Cooper set up, arguing

that “[t]he ineffective assistance of counsel claims in the new petition . . . have factual bases

that are completely different than the factual bases of the ineffective assistance of counsel

claims in the original petition.” That’s precisely what Gimenez does not want to argue, in 16

light of what Babbitt and Cooper say. Gimenez says, “In none of the new claims does

petitioner rely on the evidentiary bases for the ineffective assistance of counsel claims in the

first petition.” Babbitt and Cooper explicitly say that doesn’t much matter. A second

17

habeas claim “is successive if the basic thrust or gravamen of the legal claim is the same,

Gimenez notes in his objection to the R&R that this language from Cooper is 15

actually in the district court’s opinion, which is appended to the Ninth Circuit’s opinion. That’s

correct. What Gimenez doesn’t say, however, is that the Ninth Circuit effectively adopted

the district court’s analysis of the ineffective assistance claims. Speaking of those claims,

the Ninth Circuit said, “Each has been adjudicated previously in one forum or another. And

we are in accord with the district court’s treatment of all of the claims. See Order at 980–85.” 

Id. at 887. While the pages the Ninth Circuit references and adopts aren’t the same pages

the R&R and Court quote here, that appears to be because the district court didn’t address

all of the ineffective assistance claims in one place. The language and rationale for

dismissing some claims at pages 980–985, however, is the same as that at page 931. 

Indeed, by adopting the district court’s opinion of Cooper’s ineffective assistance claim that

his trial counsel failed to introduce evidence that victims were clutching hair in their hands,

the Ninth Circuit is referencing pages 930–31, not just pages 980–85.

 Obj. at 7.

16

 Obj. at 7.

17

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regardless of whether the basic claim is supported by new and different legal

arguments . . . [or] proved by different factual allegations.” Gulbrandson v. Ryan, 738 F.23d

976, 997 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Babbitt, 177 F.3d at 746). 

Gimenez’s previous ineffective assistance claims accused his trial counsel of, in

essence, failing to assemble and present evidence, including expert testimony, showing that

Priscilla died of natural causes. That is the common thread through the allegations that he:

(1) failed to obtain a certain report from Children’s Hospital; (2) failed to obtain all of her

medical records; and (3) failed to consult with a hematologist regarding the cause of her

death. Setting those next to his current claims, it’s clear to the Court that the “basic thrust

or gravamen . . . is the same.” Babbitt, 177 F.3d at 746. 

To be more specific, Gimenez’s first two new ineffective assistance claims allege that

his trial counsel hired an incompetent pathologist and failed to hire a radiologist. His third 18

new claim alleges that his counsel called the wrong radiologist, his fourth new claim alleges

that he didn’t properly prepare a defense pediatric neurologist, and his fifth claim alleges that

he didn’t present any expert testimony suggesting that Priscilla died of natural causes. His 19

six and seventh new claims, respectively, allege that his trial counsel failed to prepare all

defense witnesses with Priscilla’s complete medical records and failed to prepare the 20

physician who delivered her. All of these claims relate to trial counsel’s failure to present 21

expert testimony that would have been favorable to Gimenez, which is the core of the claim

in his earlier petition that his counsel failed to consult a hematologist. The remaining claim

in his new petition—that his trial counsel failed to utilize available forensic evidence to

challenge the prosecution’s medical evidence—is comparable to his previous claim that his

 Pet. at 9B 18

 Pet. at 9C–D. 19

Even Gimenez essentially concedes that this claim—claim 13 in his new 20

petition—was previously raised. (Obj. at 2, 7 (“The ineffective assistance of counsel claims

in the new petition, with the possible exception of claim 13, have factual bases that are

completely different than the factual bases of the ineffective assistance of counsel claims

in the original petition.”).)

 Pet. at 9D. 21

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trial counsel didn’t obtain all relevant medical records and reports. Gimenez argues in his

objection to the R&R that he hasn’t just supplemented his previous ineffective assistance

claims with new evidence, but rather “has raised fundamentally different ineffective

assistance of counsel claims.” The Court disagrees. It finds that, following Babbitt,

22

Cooper, and Gulbrandson, Gimenez’s new ineffective assistance claims are repeat claims

under the meaning of § 2244(b)(1).23

B. The § 2244(b)(2)(B)(I) Problem with the Ineffective Assistance Claims

Even assuming the ineffective assistance claims Gimenez presents now weren’t

presented in his previous habeas petition, there is yet another hurdle they must clear. “A

claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254

that was not presented in a prior application shall be dismissed unless . . . the factual

predicate for the claim could not have been discovered previously through the exercise of

due diligence.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(I). The R&R finds that the bases of the ineffective

assistance claims has been known to Gimenez since his trial in 1992. For example, 24

Gimenez’s eleventh claim is that his trial counsel failed to provide a defense witness,

pediatric neurologist Dr. Tiznado-Garcia, with Priscilla’s CT scans before he testified, which

forced Dr. Tiznado-Garcia to review them while testifying and then concede that he wasn’t

even qualified to read them. (Pet. at 9C.) Had his trial counsel provided the CT scans to Dr.

Tiznado-Garcia in advance, Gimenez argues, Dr. Tiznado-Garcia could have alerted his trial

counsel of the need to hire a radiologist. Obviously, this is something Gimenez knew well

before he filed his petition. He knew it at the very moment that Dr. Tiznado-Garcia testified.

 Obj. at 7.

22

Gimenez says that the Ninth Circuit’s recent Pizzuto v. Blades opinion is on his side, 23

to the extent it held that a judicial bias claim that his trial judge announced a pre-sentencing

intention to impose the death penalty didn’t bar a subsequent judicial misconduct claim that

the trial judge orchestrated the testimony of a damaging witness. 673 F.3d 1003, 1008 n.1

(9th Cir. 2012). The Court disagrees. Not only is there a categorical difference between a

judicial bias claim at sentencing and a judicial misconduct claim at trial, but the difference

between those two claims is simply more apparent than the difference between Gimenez’s

ineffective assistance claims at issue here, all of which, as the Court has said, accuse his

trial counsel of putting on a bad evidentiary case. 

 R&R at 8–11. 24

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Gimenez’s response to this in his objection to the R&R is that the factual predicates

of his ineffectiveness aren’t just trial events, but also medical records that his counsel

continued to collect until 2009 “coupled with declarations from defense experts as these

medical and forensic records came into petitioner’s possession.” He explains: “As 25

petitioner obtained Priscilla’s medical, forensic and court records, he showed them to

numerous experts in several different medical and scientific fields. These experts compared

the newly obtained records with the medical and forensic evidence and testimony introduced

at trial and prepared new factual information in the form of declarations detailing their

findings.”26

The problem with this response is that the “new factual information” is truly new, and

Gimenez’s trial counsel can’t be faulted for failing to assemble it in 1992. In fact, to the

extent that Gimenez’s other habeas claims, based on false testimony and actual innocence,

rely on the medical community’s evolved understanding of shaken baby syndrome in recent

years, his ineffectiveness claims are almost logically inconsistent with them. Either the

medical community’s understanding of shaken baby syndrome today is not what it was in

1992, in which case Gimenez presses new claims of false testimony and actual innocence,

or the state of understanding is approximately the same, in which case Gimenez’s trial

counsel was ineffective at the time in preparing and shaping expert testimony. The Court

suspects it is the former. Gimenez’s objection to the R&R says that as his habeas counsel

was trying to collect all of Priscilla’s medical records, she was also “researching the latest

developments in SBS and contacting experts about the case.” But obviously, an 27

ineffectiveness claim dating back to 1992 cannot be based on “the latest developments” in

medical science in 2009. That would obliterate the first prong of the Strickland analysis

requiring that “the defendant . . . show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective

standard of reasonableness.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688 (1984). 

 Obj. at 11. 25

 Obj. at 13–14. 26

 Obj. at 15. 27

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We can be more specific here. Gimenez’s eighth claim—his first ineffectiveness

claim—is that his trial counsel hired an incompetent pathologist, Dr. Hormez Guard, to testify

at trial. According to Gimenez, Dr. Guard “had been fired from the San Diego Medical

Examiner’s Office for incompetence, was unfamiliar with the specialized processes involving

the aging and dating of neomembranes on the autopsy slides which confirmed Priscilla’s

earlier brain bleed, was unfamiliar with SBS symptoms, and had given inaccurate testimony

in prior cases, all of which the prosecutor brought out and skewered him with at trial.” (Pet.

at 9B.) Even assuming none of this was known at trial or could not have been discovered

with some diligence—which seems very hard to believe—the more recent expert testimony

Gimenez has solicited is beyond anything his trial counsel could have been expected to

assemble. Gimenez argues in his objection to the R&R that a competent forensic

pathologist, Dr. Bonnell, reviewed autopsy slides in May 2009 and “confirmed the presence

of a venous clot or thrombosis before Priscilla died and dated the rib fracture as having

occurred around birth.” But Dr. Bonnell’s declaration, in multiple places, lets on that his is 28

a hindsight analysis. He says that “[t]he American Academy of Pediatrics has recently

reissued their position paper on Abusive Head Trauma eliminating the use of the term

Shaken Baby Syndrome because it is an unproven mechanism of injury.” He says 29

“Although Protein-C and Protein-S deficiencies were just beginning to be understood in

1991, I saw no medical records to indicate that any testing was done on the infant to identify

this as a possible cause of her forming thrombi or clots in her blood vessels.” He says 30

“[v]ery recent research from Great Britain has demonstrated that small subdural hematomas

commonly occur at birth, whether that birth is by normal vaginal delivery or Caesarean

section.” The clear message here is that Bonnell’s analysis is premised on modern 31

understandings that Gimenez’s trial counsel can’t be held accountable for. Dr. Bonnell does

 Obj. at 17. 28

 Bonnell Decl. ¶ 8.

29

 Bonnell Decl. ¶ 14. 30

 Bonnell Decl. ¶ 15. 31

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say that “[n]europathologists from the University of California San Diego Medical Center

were available for consult at this time in 1991, yet their expertise was not used,” but even 32

then it’s hard to disentangle his view of what is clear today from what might have been clear

in 1992. Bonnell’s declaration was executed in July 2009, and it was based on his career

as a forensic pathologist leading up until that time.

Gimenez’s ninth claim, for another example, is that his trial counsel failed to hire a

radiologist to interpret and testify about Priscilla’s x-rays and CT scans. Had he, “he would

have been able to adduce testimony demonstrating that the x-rays and CT scans showed

that Priscilla died of a different cause.” Gimenez claims that “[h]abeas counsel has 33

consulted with a radiologist who has reviewed the birth x-rays and concludes they showed

an abnormality which was the same as the so-called ‘healing fractured rib’ found on the xrays taken just days before Priscilla’s death.” That radiologist is Patrick Barnes, the Chief 34

of Pediatric Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center. He does say that “[t]he

rib abnormality described is likely perinatal in origin, especially since it is present on the

radiographs at birth and appears unchanged on the later films.” But he goes on to 35

immediately say “Also, from our current base in 2007, it is well-known that plain x-ray films

are unreliable for the specific diagnosis and timing of certain bone abnormalities (e.g. rib

fractures) and require confirmation by other imaging technologies (i.e. CT, MRI, or

postmortem radiography).” He even says those very imaging technologies “were not 36

available or employed for this child back in 1991.” Even if some of Barnes’s testimony is 37

retrospective to the time that Gimenez was actually tried, Gimenez’s petition doesn’t do an

adequate job of disentangling what his counsel could reasonably have been expected to do

 Bonnell Decl. ¶ 21. 32

 Pet. at 9B.

33

 Pet. at 9B.

34

 Barnes Decl. ¶ 3.

35

 Barnes Decl. ¶ 3 (emphasis added). 36

 Barnes Dec. ¶ 2. 37

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in 1992 and what a reasonable lawyer defending Gimenez today would do. 

For the reasons given in the R&R, and also the reasons given here, Gimenez’s

objections to the R&R with respect to his ineffective assistance claims are OVERRULED.

The Court finds, first, that the claims were previously presented in his earlier habeas petition. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1). It finds, in the alternative, that if they weren’t previously

presented, their factual predicates could have been discovered previously through the

exercise of due diligence because they all relate to some act or omission of Gimenez’s trial

counsel at trial. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(I). It finds, finally, that if their factual

predicates couldn’t have been discovered previously, they are based on contemporary

medical and scientific knowledge for which trial counsel in 1992 cannot conceivably be held

responsible. Gimenez’s argument that he can show prejudice—the second prong of

Strickland—“using the declarations of experts who had recently reviewed the case, and thus

had access to the medical, forensic, and case evidence that the prosecution released to the

defense between 1998 and 2009" overlooks the fact that those experts are contemporary

experts drawing on contemporary understandings and advancements in medical science. 

The Court GRANTS Respondent’s motion to dismiss Gimenez’s ineffective assistance

claims.

In the end, the Court doubts that Gimenez sees his ineffective assistance claims as

essential to his habeas petition. The question this petition presents, at its core, is whether

limited medical knowledge in the past justifies federal habeas relief in the present.38

Gimenez has eighteen other claims that, in various ways, try to answer that question in the

affirmative. They are where the action is. The Court will move on to those claims now.

C. Gimenez’s False Testimony Claims

As a threshold matter, Gimenez’s false testimony claims survive the § 2244(b)(1) and

The “Introduction” to Gimenez’s original habeas memorandum supports this. There 38

is a sentence or two about what wasn’t challenged by the defense at trial, but the

introduction opens and closes with what was “universally accepted” within the medical

community in 1992 in contrast to what is “established” today. (Doc. No. 11 at 1–2.) In

addition to the ineffective assistance claims failing for the reasons the Court has given, they

also run the risk of diluting Gimenez’s habeas petition and stealing attention from his false

testimony and actual innocence claims.

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§ 2244(b)(2)(B)(I) problem that his ineffective assistance claims run into. First, they were

not presented in his previous petition, and second, they are based on newly gathered

medical and forensic evidence, new analyses of that evidence by experts, and new

academic research on shaken baby syndrome—none of which could have been discovered

previously through the exercise of due diligence. But these are not the only hurdles to full

habeas consideration of the claims. Gimenez must also show that “the facts underlying the

claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to

establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable

factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.” 28 U.S.C. §

2244(b)(2)(B)(ii).

There is some uncertainty—and corresponding debate between the parties—as to the

significance of the words “but for constitutional error” in the statute. As Respondent would

have it, Gimenez must actually show that the false testimony was a constitutional error,

which Gimenez claims is the violation of due process. As Gimenez would have it, the more 39

sensible construction “is to accept the defendant’s characterization of the error as being

constitutional, subject to a cursory review to make sure the characterization corresponds to

a recognized constitutional rule, and then evaluate the impact of that error on a reasonable

factfinder.” The R&R cites an Eleventh Circuit case, In re Boshears, that construed 40

§ 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) more in line with Respondent’s construction:

First, we must identify “the facts underlying the [applicant’s]

claim” and accept them as true for purposes of evaluating the

application. We next must decide whether these facts establish

a constitutional error. Finally, we evaluate these facts in light of

the evidence as a whole to determine whether, had the applicant

known these facts at the time of his or her trial, the application

clearly proves that the applicant could not have been convicted.

110 F.3d 1538, 1541 (11th Cir. 1997) (emphasis added).

But the Second Circuit has held that § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) requires merely the identification of

To be precise, Gimenez’s false testimony claims are based on the Fourteenth

39

Amendment, while his actual innocence claims are based on the Fifth and Fourteenth

Amendment. (Pet. at 6–9B, 9F–9K.)

 Obj. at 27. 40

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a constitutional error. See Quezada v. Smith, 624 F.3d 514, 521 (2d Cir. 2010) (“Once newly

discovered evidence has been presented, the gate-keepingissues are whether Quezada has

identified a constitutional error and, if so, whether he has shown by clear and convincing

evidence that but for that error no reasonable jury would have found him guilty. As noted,

at this stage Quezada is required only to make a prima facie showing that these two

requirements have been met.”). This language in Quezada comes closer to Gimenez’s

suggestion that a court should “accept the defendant’s characterization of the error as

constitutional, subject to a cursory review to make sure the characterization corresponds to

a recognized constitutional rule.” Likewise, after the Eleventh Circuit decided Boshears,

41

it interpreted § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) to require that a petitioner “assert” or “allege” constitutional

error. In re. Lambrix, 624 F.3d 1355, 1362 (11th Cir. 2010). The R&R concludes that “in

order to survive a motion to dismiss, Gimenez must show constitutional error occurred.”42

In light of the language in Boshears, Quezada, and Lambrix, the Court finds this conclusion

to be a bit strong. Gimenez doesn’t have to show a due process violation, necessarily, but

he does have to allege that the false testimony at issue implicates, as he puts it, “a

recognized constitutional rule.” That is, it must be plausible that the testimony violated

43

Gimenez’s right to due process. 

The R&R, on this question, says that “Gimenez has provided no case, Ninth Circuit

or otherwise, which holds due process is violated when testimony, given truthfully at the time,

is later determined to be unwittingly false; nor has the Court located any such case.

Gimenez has also provided no evidence the medical experts at his trial perjured themselves

or lied about their expert opinions in any way.” Gimenez responds to this with four cases, 44

each of which merit discussion.

The first case Gimenez cites is Phillips v. Ornoski, 673 F.3d 1168 (9th Cir. 2012), a

 Obj. at 27. 41

 R&R at 13 (emphasis added). 42

 Obj. at 27. 43

 R&R at 14.

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habeas case challenging Phillips’s conviction for capital murder. Phillips’s girlfriend Sharon

Colman had testified against him at trial, offering critical testimony that he committed murder

during the commission of a robbery. But when she was asked by Phillips’s trial counsel if

she was receiving any benefit for testifying, she said no. This wasn’t true. Her attorney,

unbeknownst to her, had reached an agreement with the prosecutor that all charges against 

her would be dropped in exchange for her testimony, and she then encouraged Colman to

trust her advice and to testify. Colman wasn’t told of the deal precisely so she wouldn’t have

to admit to it under cross-examination and could truthfully represent that she had received

no offers of leniency. The prosecutor even stressed during his closing argument that

Colman hadn’t been promised anything. The Ninth Circuit held that Colman was essentially

tricked into lying, and “that a witness may have been unaware of the agreement entered into

on his behalf may mean that his testimony denying the existence of such an agreement is

not knowingly false or perjured, but it does not mean it is not false nonetheless.” Id. at 1184.

Indeed, “[t]he prosecutor’s effort to ‘insulate’ Colman from her own immunity agreement was

a deliberate effort to deceive the jury—a ruse that flagrantly violated basic due process

principles.” It isn’t hard to distinguish Phillips from this case. The false testimony in Phillips

was not only deliberately false, it was deliberately misleading. The Ninth Circuit labeled it

as deceptive and pernicious, and likened it to the “covert subornation of perjury.” Id. at 1185

(citing Hayes v. Brown, 399 F.3d 972, 981 (9th Cir. 2005)). One of the guiding cases in

Phillips, Napue v. Illinois, held that “a conviction established through use of false evidence,

known to be such by representatives of the State, must fall under the Fourteenth

Amendment.” 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959). None of those labels or descriptions can

conceivably be attached to the testimony of the expert witnesses at Gimenez’s trial in 1992. 

Gimenez’s next case is Maxwell v. Roe, also a habeas case. 628 F.3d 486 (9th Cir.

2010). Maxwell was charged with murdering ten men in downtown Los Angeles, and the

case against him rested on the testimony of an infamously dishonest jailhouse informant,

Sidney Storch, who said that Maxwell confessed to the murders. The Ninth Circuit

concluded on habeas review that Storch’s testimony was actually false, and that even if it

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was offered in good faith “to permit a conviction based on uncorrected false evidence to

stand is a violation of a defendant’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.” 

Id. at 507. This is an unremarkable conclusion, as far as this case is concerned. The

perjured testimony of a jailhouse informant can’t be analogized to the expert testimony at

Gimenez’s trial, which, if it was false, was only false in retrospect more than twenty years

later. Id. at 506.

The third case that Gimenez offers is Killian v. Poole, 282 F.3d 1204 (9th Cir. 2002). 

Killian is not meaningfully different from Maxwell and doesn’t add to Gimenez’s argument. 

The defendant in Killian was convicted of murder based, in large part, on the perjured

testimony of a jailhouse informant. Id. at 1206–07. The court simply held, as it did in

Maxwell, that this violated the defendant’s due process rights even over the government’s

assurances that the testimony was offered in good faith. Id. at 1209–10. Again, this is not

a remarkable conclusion, and it doesn’t inform this Court’s treatment of expert testimony in

1992 that, by all accounts, wasn’t perjured, or deceptive, or dishonest in any way.

Gimenez’s last case is Hall v. Director of Corrections, 343 F.3d 976 (9th Cir. 2003),

in which a defendant was convicted of first degree murder largely on the basis of

incriminating written notes produced by a jailhouse informant. After the trial, the informant

confessed that he fabricated the notes: “The notes purported to be a series of questions and

answers between Lee and Hall; after the trial, however, Lee confessed he had submitted

innocent or innocuous questions to Hall and then erased and altered them after Hall had

written his answers in order to make them incriminating.” Id. at 978. Hall didn’t claim that

the prosecution knew the notes were false, only that allowing his conviction to stand based

on the knowledge that they were false violated his right to due process. Id. at 981. The

court agreed. Id. at 985. Hall is deficient for the same reasons that Phillips, Maxwell, and

Killian are defective. 

In each of these cases, the evidence at issue was deliberately and wholly false, and

the bearer of the evidence knew it to be false. Maybe that’s not true of Phillips, but even in

that case the court essentially imputed the knowledge of the witness’s attorney that she

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would receive leniency for her testimony to the witness herself, finding that “her attorney,

who was her agent, had accepted the immunity agreement on her behalf.” Phillips, 673 F.3d

at 1185. Gimenez tries to seek refuge in these cases because they show that unwittingly

false testimony can give rise to a due process claim, but that connects them to this case only

in the most superficial way. The evidence at issue in each case (excluding Phillips) was

unwittingly false only to the prosecution. Here, even accepting Gimenez’s allegations, the

expert testimony against him in 1992 was unwittingly false to everyone in the courtroom,

including the experts themselves who couldn’t anticipate changes in the medical

understanding of shaken baby syndrome twenty-plus years into the future. And Gimenez

offers no authority that this kind of allegedly false testimony constitutes a due process

violation.

45

Gimenez argues, in his first seven habeas claims, that the testimony against him was

false based on the state of medical understanding today. Even assuming that’s true, the

Court finds no authority for the proposition that a conviction based on the most up-to-date

knowledge in the past transforms to a violation of due process when that knowledge is

modified in ensuing years. For this reason, the Court finds that Gimenez fails to even

identify or allege a constitutional error under § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii). But, even if he has—even

if the Court accepts that a conviction based upon knowledge that later becomes outdated

violates due process—the Court agrees with the R&R’s thorough assessment that “Gimenez

has not established the expert testimony presented at his trial was false. He has only

established that his new experts interpret the medical evidence differently than the experts

The R&R reviewed a number of other cases cited by Gimenez and concluded, “In 45

very case the Court has reviewed . . . the alleged due process violation was based on a

witness’s perjury.” (R&R at 13.) In his objection to the R&R, Giminez responds that “a

number of the cases listed either do not involve perjury or involve due process issues based

on evidence that is merely false rather than perjured.” (Obj. at 30.) This is a distinction with

no real difference. In Dow v. Virga, for example, “the prosecutor knowingly elicited and then

failed to correct false testimony,” testimony that he knew at the time was false. 729 F.3d

1041, 1042–43 (9th Cir. 2013). Another case, Gentry v. Sinclair, involved a claim that a

witness lied about the parole benefits he received for his testimony and that the prosecutor

knew he lied. 705 F.3d 884, 902–03 (9th Cir. 2013) Even if the word “perjury” doesn’t

appear in these opinions, they are still quickly distinguishable from this case, in which the

falsity of the evidence at issue was allegedly unknown to everyone for over twenty years

following Gimenez’s conviction.

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at his trial and that those new experts have different opinions about what the evidence

shows.” And following on that, he hasn’t established by clear and convincing evidence that

46

no reasonable factfinder would have found him guilty. 

Gimenez’s objections to the R&R’s treatment of his false testimony claims are

OVERRULED, and Respondent’s motion to dismiss those claims is GRANTED.

D. Gimenez’s Actual Innocence Claims

Gimenez’s actual innocence claims confront the same threshold issue as his false

testimony claims—the significance of the words “but for constitutional error” in

§ 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii). With his previous false testimony claims, he was at least able to assert

an independent constitutional violation that rendered § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) intelligible, and in

the following way: “the facts underling the [due process] claim, if proven and viewed in light

of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence

that, but for [the false testimony], no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant

guilty of the underlying offense.” The Court rejected that for the reasons given above, but

it was at least an intelligible argument.

It is tougher for Gimenez, though, when it comes to his actual innocence claims,

because when “actual innocence” is substituted for the “constitutional error” in the statutory

language of § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) it renders a perplexing formulation. The section would have

to be read to say that Gimenez’s new evidence “would be sufficient to establish by clear and

convincing evidence that, but for [Gimenez’s actual innocence], no reasonable factfinder

would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.” As the Eleventh Circuit has

recognized, however, it is “inconceivable that a person would be found not guilty ‘but for’—or

‘except for’—his actual innocence; rather, a person is found not guilty precisely because of

his actual innocence.” In re Davis, 565 F.3d 810, 823 (11th Cir. 2009). Even though the

statutory language of § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) doesn’t easily accommodate an actual innocence

claim, the Eleventh Circuit held nonetheless that “[t]he statute undeniably requires a

petitioner seeking leave to file a second or successive habeas petition to establish actual

 R&R at 14.

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innocence by clear and convincing evidence and another constitutional violation.” Id. at 824. 

The Tenth Circuit has held the same: “In conclusion, the universe of facts that enter into the

subparagraph (B)(ii) analysis consists only of evidence presented at the time of trial,

adjusted for evidence that would have been admitted or excluded ‘but for constitutional error’

during trial proceedings. The factual universe does not encompass new facts that became

available only after trial and that are not rooted in constitutional errors occurring during trial.” 

Case v. Hatch, 731 F.3d 1015, 1038 (10th Cir. 2013). Because Gimenez’s successive

habeas claim of actual innocence isn’t tethered to a claim of constitutional error, the Court 

finds that it doesn’t pass § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii). Id. at 1037.

As with his false testimony claims, however, even if the Court accepts that his actual

innocence claims survive § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii), it would still find that Gimenez has failed to

establish by clear and convincing evidence that, with allegedly better, more contemporary

testimony, no reasonable factfinder would have found him guilty. The R&R puts the point

well.

This is not a case where the science upon which Gimenez was

convicted is now considered ‘junk science,’ nor is it a case where

current scientific methods, such as DNA analysis, definitively

exclude Gimenez as the agent of Priscilla’s death. Rather, it is

a case which involves scientific and medical judgment and a

forceful debate among experts in the field. Although medical

opinion as to the mechanics of injury in infant head trauma and

how to diagnose shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma

has evolved over time, such a diagnosis was not false at the

time, nor has Gimenez established it is currently false as

opposed to simply being a matter of controversy and judgment.47

Gimenez’s objections to the R&R are OVERRULED, and the Respondent’s motion to

dismiss his actual innocence claims is GRANTED. 

E. Gimenez’s Cumulative Error Claim

Gimenez’s remaining claim is a cumulative error claim based on false testimony,

ineffective assistance of counsel, and actual innocence. It is, in essence, the aggregate of

 R&R at 24.

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all of his claims, asserted under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.48

The cumulative error claim can’t fail simply because all of its constituent claims have

failed. The entire point of a cumulative error claim is that “although no single trial error

examined in isolation is sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal, the cumulative effect of

multiple errors may still prejudice a defendant.” U.S. v. Frederick, 78 F.3d 1370, 1381 (9th

Cir. 1986). At the same time, the constituent alleged errors that comprise Gimenez’s petition

fail not necessarily because they’re insufficiently prejudicial, which implies an analysis on the

merits, but rather because they don’t satisfy §§ 2244(b)(1) and (b)(2)(B) to even be

considered in the first instance. The Court has found that the ineffective assistance claims

fail because they were previously presented in an earlier habeas petition, or, in the

alternative, because their factual predicates could have been discovered previously because

they all relate to some act or omission at trial. Likewise, it has found that the false testimony

and actual innocence claims fail, either because: (1) they are not tethered to an independent

claim of constitutional error; (2) Gimenez can’t establish that the testimony at issue was

actually false; or (3) he cannot establish by clear and convincing evidence that, with the

evidence he has today, no reasonable factfinder would find him guilty. Given that Gimenez’s 

false testimony, ineffective assistance, and actual innocence claims all fail under § 2244(b),

his claim of cumulative error must fail as well. His objection to the R&R is OVERRULED,

and Respondent’s motion to dismiss the claim is GRANTED. 

IV. Conclusion

If there is a kernel of merit to Gimenez’s habeas petition, it is that a trial today for

someone accused of shaking a baby to death would go differently than it went in 1992, when

he was tried. We know more today than we knew then, and at least one state court has

even ordered a new trial on this basis, equating “the emergence of a legitimate and

significant dispute within the medical community as to those injuries [associated with shaken

baby syndrome]” to new evidence that establishes a reasonable probability of a different

result at trial. State v. Edmunds, 308 Wis.2d 374, 392 (Wis. Ct. App. 2008). 

 Pet. at 9K.

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But, the question on federal habeas review is not whether a petitioner would have a

better shot at an acquittal today than he did when we was tried. It is whether the state

court’s adjudication of his claims “(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved

an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the

Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an

unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court

proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). See also Murray v. Schriro, 2014 WL 997716 at *7–8

(9th Cir. Mar. 17, 2014) (defining standards under §§ 2254(d)(1) and (2)). 

The Court doesn’t even reach that question here because, as a second, successive

habeas petition, Gimenez’s petition must satisfy the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2244. It

must present claims that haven’t been presented before. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1). If the

claims haven’t been presented before, their factual predicates must have been previously

undiscoverable through the exercise of due diligence. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(I). Even

then, “the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole,

[must] be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional

error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying

offense.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii). For the reasons the Court has given above, all of

Gimenez’s habeas claims are lost in § 2244. None survive to even be considered under §

2254(d). 

That said, the Court has familiarized itself with the record in this case, Gimenez’s

allegedly new evidence, and the Superior Court’s reasoned order denying his state habeas

petition. It sees no basis for federal habeas relief. The Court agrees with the Superior 49

Court’s conclusion that “Petitioner’s new evidence regarding SBS theory of injury in the

absence of trauma demonstrates the existence of an ongoing debate, not that the entire

theory has been refuted or deemed uniformly unreliable.” Regarding its treatment of the 50

The briefing cites the order as Lodgment 1, but the Court finds it in Lodgment 3, 49

Volume 2, Lodgment 27. 

 Lodgment 3, Volume 2, Lodgment 27 at 3. 50

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false evidence claims, the Court doesn’t find that it was contrary to or an unreasonable

application of Supreme Court precedent, nor does it find that it was an unreasonable

determination of the facts. It concludes the same with respect to the order’s treatment of 51

Gimenez’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims.52

Respondent’s motion to dismiss is GRANTED. The Court grants Gimenez a

certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,

327 (2003). While the Court is confident in its reasoning, there are some issues Gimenez’s

petition raises that haven’t been definitively addressed by the Ninth Circuit, for example: (1)

the definition of a “claim” under § 2244(b)(1); (2) the significance of the words “but for

constitutional error” in § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii); and (3) the question whether a freestanding actual

innocence claim based on new evidence can be brought in a successive habeas petition

governed by § 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii); and (4) whether it is a due process violation to have been

convicted on the basis of evidence that wasn’t knowingly false to anyone at the time but has

since been called into question by advances in scientific or medical understanding. 

Finally, Respondent argues that Gimenez’s petition is untimely because it was filed

more than a year after the factual predicates for his claims became known to him. The R&R

agrees with that argument, concluding his petition was due on November 26, 2009 and that

it’s not saved by statutory or equitable tolling. Because the Court has considered 53

Gimenez’s petition under both § 2244(b) and § 2254(d), it doesn’t reach the timeliness issue.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: March 27, 2014

HONORABLE LARRY ALAN BURNS

United States District Judge

 Lodgment 3, Volume 2, Lodgment 27 at 5–8. 51

 Lodgment 3, Volume 2, Lodgment 27 at 8–13. 52

 R&R at 30–32. 

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