Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06690/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-06690-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ron Rackley
Respondent
Charles M. Titlow
Petitioner

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CHARLES M. TITLOW,

Petitioner,

v.

RON RACKLEY,

Respondent.

Case No. 17-cv-06690-EMC 

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR 

WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

I. INTRODUCTION

Charles M. (“Mike”) Titlow filed this action for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 2254 to challenge his conviction from Contra Costa County Superior Court. Respondent 

has filed an answer to the petition, and Mike Titlow has filed a traverse. For the reasons discussed 

below, the petition is denied. 

II. BACKGROUND

Mike Titlow was convicted of murder for shooting a man with whom his adult son had a 

disagreement.1 In general, the evidence showed the following: Mike Titlow’s son, Chuck Titlow, 

was the aggressor in a road-rage incident on August 18, 2009, and twice rammed the vehicle of 

Ricardo Colina. Mike Titlow was not present for that event. The day after the road-rage incident, 

Chuck Titlow located Mr. Colina and invited several friends and his father to join him at a street 

location to fight with Mr. Colina. Once they arrived at that location, Chuck Titlow got out of his 

vehicle and began to fight with Mr. Colina. Mike Titlow stayed in his truck and shot Mr. Colina 

 

1 The two central figures in this case are the petitioner, Charles Michael Titlow, and his son, 

Charles Robert Titlow. Throughout the state court proceedings, the former was referred to as 

Mike Titlow and the latter as Chuck Titlow. This Court also will use those nicknames. 

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as Mr. Colina fought with Chuck Titlow. The Titlows and the friends enlisted by Chuck Titlow to 

join them at the fight then fled the area of the shooting and went to Mike Titlow’s house. At the 

house, the revolver used to shoot Mr. Colina was handed off for disposal. At a gathering later that 

day in a garage, Chuck Titlow described to many people how his father shot Mr. Colina. Chuck 

Titlow’s statements give rise to the bulk of Mike Titlow’s federal habeas claims. 

The California Court of Appeal described the evidence presented at trial:

At 4:22 p.m. on August 19, 2009, a shooting was reported on San 

Pablo Avenue in an unincorporated area of Contra Costa County 

known as Tara Hills. Colina was found dead face down in the 

middle of an intersection. He died from a single gunshot wound.

Mike and Chuck were charged with the murder of Colina (count 1) 

and Chuck was charged as an accessory after the fact (count 2). It 

was further alleged that Mike personally and intentionally 

discharged a handgun causing Colina's death.

Prosecution's Case

Background

Chuck graduated from high school in 2007. In the summer of 2009, 

he sometimes lived at his father Mike's house in Tara Hills on 

Sargent Avenue and sometimes lived nearby in Pinole with Mike's 

brother, Claude Titlow (Claude). Chuck was friends with Kellen 

Horn, Justin Stonebraker, Richie Milhollin, and Kareem Nazari, and 

they all hung out together all the time. Chuck drove a truck that was 

primered in a flat gray color.

The prosecution called eyewitnesses to Chuck's conduct leading up 

to Colina's murder, eyewitnesses who were driving on San Pablo 

Avenue around the time of the shooting, and Chuck's friends—

including Horn, who was with Chuck when he confronted Colina on 

San Pablo Avenue, and others whom Chuck had called to join him 

in a fight with Colina. The prosecution also presented physical 

evidence connecting Mike to the shooting.

August 18 “Road Rage” Incident

Colina's friend Nia Gordon testified that, shortly after midnight on 

August 18, 2009, she was riding in a car with Colina and his cousin, 

Jerry Owens, in Tara Hills. Colina was driving. She noticed they 

were being tailgated by a gray pickup truck. The truck pulled up 

next to them at an intersection, and Colina yelled at the driver of the 

truck. The driver “looked really red in the face and looked upset” 

and rammed his truck into Colina's car. Colina backed up and the 

truck hit his car again and sped off. Colina was upset; he took off 

his shirt, chain, and hat, and stood in the middle of the street cussing 

and yelling. The gray truck returned and drove up very fast toward 

Colina, who jumped out of the way to avoid being hit.

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Although Gordon did not identify the driver of the gray truck, other 

witness testimony established Chuck was the driver, and Chuck does 

not dispute he was involved in a road rage incident with Colina.

August 19 Before the Shooting

Paul Petruzzelli lived near the site of the road rage incident. Owens 

lived across the street from him. At trial, Petruzzelli remembered 

that detectives had been at his house for a couple of hours the night 

of August 19, 2009, but he testified that he could not recall anything 

about that afternoon. So, a recording of his August 19, 2009, 

interview with sheriff's detectives was played for the jury.

Petruzzelli told the detectives that a White man, whom he thought 

went by “Chuck,” stopped by his house around 3:30 p.m. that day.

Chuck was driving a black pickup truck with a broken corner light. 

Chuck saw Colina and another person walking, “and he kind of like 

got real quiet for a minute.” Then Chuck “said something to them 

and just [took] off down the street.” It appeared to Petruzzelli “there 

was some type of . . . aggression” between Chuck and Colina. After 

Chuck drove off, Colina asked Petruzzelli what Chuck said and 

apparently told him about the road rage incident.

The day after the shooting, he identified Chuck's truck as the truck 

he had seen at his house the previous day. But, after Chuck was 

arrested that day, Petruzzelli was taken to view him in person, and 

Petruzzelli told the officers he did not know him.

Eyewitnesses on San Pablo Avenue

In the afternoon of August 19, 2009, Michael Brunelle was driving 

southbound toward Richmond on San Pablo Avenue near the First 

Baptist Church. He noticed three men near a small “gray primered” 

truck that was parked at O'Connor Drive facing San Pablo. The 

three men caught his attention because they seemed to be in a heated 

argument. It appeared that one of the men was Black, one was 

White, and one was Hispanic. After he drove past them, Brunelle 

observed the whole incident through his driver's side mirror. He 

saw the Black man running at an angle toward the median of San 

Pablo followed by the White man. Brunelle slowed down and then 

stopped his car in the middle of the street when he saw the men 

running to the median.

The two men stopped, faced each other in the left turn lane, and 

began fighting. The Black man was facing toward Pinole (north), 

and Brunelle could see his back. The White man was facing toward 

Richmond (south), and Brunelle could see his face. They were 

“throwing punches to each other, more slapping almost.” The two 

men stepped away from each other. The White man's hands were by 

his side, and Brunelle did not see anything in his hands. Then a 

gunshot rang out, and the White man appeared “quite surprised” and 

“very shocked.” The gunshot came from Brunelle's left. He heard 

only one shot. The Black man dropped to the ground. The White 

man ran to Brunelle's left toward O'Connor. After the shooting, 

Brunelle backed up to see if he could assist the victim. He did not 

see a red truck near the two men fighting, nor did he see a black 

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truck near the gray truck.

Another witness, Daryl Wallace, was driving on O'Connor Drive 

and turned right onto San Pablo Avenue (northbound toward Pinole) 

near the Baptist Church. To make the turn, he had to drive around a 

small, flat-black pickup truck blocking his way. The occupants 

appeared to be two Hispanic male juveniles; the driver seemed 

annoyed. As he drove north on San Pablo, Wallace saw through his 

rearview mirror two Black men walking in his direction on the 

sidewalk behind him. Then he heard two gunshots, and he saw the 

two Black men running away from the black truck. Through his 

rearview and passenger mirrors, Wallace saw that the driver of the 

black truck had a weapon, and he was in the street firing at the two 

Black men. He also testified, however, that he did not see the driver 

get out of his truck, but when he heard the gunshots, he saw a person 

standing in the street and assumed he was the driver of the truck.

Wallace did not see where the black truck or its occupants went, and 

he did not notice any other cars that appeared to be associated with 

the truck.

Chuck's Friends and Acquaintances

Kellen Horn

Horn grew up in Tara Hills. He was Chuck's close friend, and had 

known Colina since kindergarten.

One evening prior to the killing, Horn and a friend, Cordon 

Hamilton, were at Mike's house waiting for Chuck to get off work.

When Chuck arrived home, he was angry because someone had run 

into his truck or cut him off and thrown “[w]ater bottles or 

something of that sort” at his truck. Horn and Hamilton went with 

Chuck in the truck to “go confront the people about it,” meaning 

“[m]ost likely fighting.” As they drove by the area of the road rage 

incident, Horn saw Colina on the sidewalk jumping around with his 

shirt off and “holding onto his pants.” Horn thought Colina might 

have a gun although he did not see a weapon. He told Chuck, “Keep 

driving. He has a gun.” Chuck, Horn, and Hamilton then went back 

to Chuck's house and played video games.

The afternoon of Colina's murder, Chuck called Horn and said he 

had seen the people who ran into his truck walking near Horn's 

house in Tara Hills. Chuck told Horn he was going to pick him up 

“and we were gonna go fight ‘em.” Chuck and Horn drove around 

the neighborhood and saw Colina and another Black man, who all 

agree was Owens, walking about a block from San Pablo Avenue.

Chuck then called Milhollin and Mike. Stonebraker was also called, 

although Horn was unsure whether it was he or Chuck who called 

him. Chuck told Milhollin “he had found the kids that ... ran into 

him and we were going to fight ‘em.”

Chuck and Horn drove to the intersection of San Pablo Avenue and 

Tara Hills Drive and waited. Horn saw a burgundy Dodge Ram 

truck traveling north on San Pablo. Chuck pulled out in front of it, 

and Horn saw that Mike was driving the burgundy truck. At some 

point, Horn also saw Stonebraker on San Pablo Avenue driving a 

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shiny black Chevy truck. As Chuck and Horn drove north on San 

Pablo, Horn saw Colina and Owens on the sidewalk. Chuck “drove 

up on them pretty fast and then ... pulled the emergency brake.”

Chuck's truck skidded to a stop at the driveway of the Baptist church 

within a couple feet of Colina and Owens, and they jumped out of 

the way.

Chuck got out and chased Colina. Colina ran into the church 

parking lot and then back to the street heading south on San Pablo 

Avenue. Mike cut Colina off with his truck, and prevented him from 

running further south. Colina ran to the median strip at the 

intersection of O'Connor Drive, and he and Chuck started fighting.

Horn was north of Chuck because he had started to chase Owens, 

who had run north on San Pablo. Horn did not run very far because 

Owens was “a lot faster than [him],” so he ran back to help Chuck. 

Stonebraker had parked in front of Chuck's truck and also briefly 

chased Owens.

Horn observed Colina and Chuck fighting. Chuck hit Colina in the 

jaw, and Colina hit Chuck in the eye. Chuck was facing toward 

Richmond and Colina was facing toward Pinole. Horn heard a 

gunshot, and “[e]verybody dropped.” Mike's truck was in the lane 

closest to the median on northbound San Pablo Avenue. After the 

gunshot, Chuck and Horn got up and ran to Chuck's truck. Chuck 

had to run in front of Mike's truck to get to his truck. Chuck seemed 

shocked and confused. He said to Horn, “what the fuck just 

happened?” Three trucks then left the scene headed north on San 

Pablo Avenue. Stonebraker led the way, followed by Mike and then 

Chuck. After they left the church driveway, Chuck called Milhollin.

Chuck and Horn drove to Mike's house, and Mike talked to them in 

the front yard. He told them not to worry, and gave Horn a gun 

wrapped in a t-shirt. Mike told Horn to take it to his house and keep 

it. Horn testified he did not say no to Mike “[b]ecause if I would 

have said anything, it would have given him doubt in me of whether 

or not he could trust me.”

Milhollin arrived at the house, and Chuck and Horn borrowed 

Milhollin's truck to drive to Horn's house. Horn hid the gun in his 

closet. He thought the gun was a .38-caliber revolver. He had seen 

Mike with the revolver once before when Mike had it at Horn's 

house during a party. Chuck and Horn returned to Mike's house, 

and Mike had left. Chuck told Horn that Mike had gone to a 

construction site where Claude was working so he would have an 

alibi. Horn thought Nazari and Nick Tormey were also at Mike's 

house.

Chuck and Horn went to Nazari's house in Pinole. They hung out in 

the garage with Nazari, Milhollin, and Daniel Dye, who was a 

casual acquaintance. Horn testified, “[Chuck] was pretty much just 

saying what had happened. How, you know, we got out and we—he 

was fighting Ricardo [Colina], and then how his dad pulled up and 

how his dad shot and then how we got out of there.” Horn could not 

remember whether Chuck “said how his dad had shot him or if he 

had demonstrated it.” Chuck described or demonstrated the 

shooting on more than one occasion, and, at trial, Horn could not 

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remember what Chuck said about the shooting in Nazari's garage 

and what he said at other times. Chuck said Mike's weapon was 

never outside the truck; the gun was inside the truck when it was 

fired. Horn recalled that someone in Nazari's garage said, “‘Your 

dad must have done it,’” and someone, referring to Mike, said, 

“‘He's a crazy motherfucker.’”

Horn testified that Chuck told him that Mike called and wanted the 

gun. So, he and Chuck left Nazari's house and went to Horn's house 

to get the gun and return it to Mike. [footnote omitted] He and 

Chuck drove to Mike's girlfriend's house in Rodeo and gave the gun 

to him. At that time, Mike was driving a small green car.

Late that evening, Chuck sent Horn a text about “Paul,” apparently 

referring to Petruzzelli. Horn knew that Chuck talked about the road 

rage incident with Paul and that Chuck told Paul, “‘They're going to 

find out who they're fucking with.’” In his text, Chuck expressed 

concern that Paul was “putting his name out there,” and connecting 

Chuck to the shooting.

The day following the murder, detectives Mike Meth and Garrett 

Schiro interviewed Horn at his house. Horn told them about the 

events that led to the fight in front of the church, but he lied and said 

he did not know who fired the gun. He testified, “I was told not to 

say that” Mike fired the gun, and he did not identify Mike 

“[b]ecause I didn't want to be that guy who told on somebody else.” 

He was also afraid if he said something, “somebody would come 

after me.” Meth and Schiro told Horn they knew he was 

withholding information, and Horn was arrested as an accessory to 

murder. Chuck was also arrested that day, but they were both 

released within a few days without charges filed.

Sometime after his release, Horn was at Mike's house, and Mike and 

Chuck asked him if he talked to anybody. They had heard he told 

the whole story to a woman. Horn denied it, and they told him to 

keep his mouth shut.

Chuck told Horn that his uncle Claude had taken the burgundy truck 

to his grandmother's house. Chuck said they would explain any 

gunshot residue in the truck by saying it was from 4th of July 

fireworks. Chuck also told Horn “they had put [Mike's] arms in 

bleach” to get rid of any gunshot residue.

The prosecutor asked Horn whether, after the killing, he learned 

“about a plan related to what Mike Titlow was going to do at that 

scene.” He answered that he remembered “knowing something of 

that,” but he could no longer remember what was said about a plan.

Sergeant Tiffany Van Hook was the lead detective on the case, and 

she interviewed Horn at least five times. In addition to Horn's 

testimony, the jury heard excerpts of Horn's first and second taped 

interviews. In Horn's second interview, Van Hook asked if there 

had been a conversation between Chuck and Mike “about a gun” 

after the road rage incident and before the shooting. Horn 

responded that, the night of the road rage incident, Chuck told Mike 

over the phone, “I think these people have guns.” Chuck later told 

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Horn, “‘Uh, whenever shit goes down,’ just call his dad.”

Horn reported that, at the fight on San Pablo Avenue, nobody had a 

gun except Mike, and no one else was in Mike's truck. Asked 

whether Chuck said Mike was going to “back you guys up with a 

gun,” Horn answered, “Yeah, he was just—he was supposed to—

what (Chuck) told is he was supposed to be there. And from what 

[Chuck] knew before is [Mike] was going to be there with an eye on 

us. . . .”

At Mike's house after the shooting, Horn saw Mike hand the gun to 

Chuck and say, “‘Take care of this. Get it out of here.’” Mike 

directed them to hide the gun at Horn's house. Chuck and Horn 

borrowed Milhollin's truck because they did not want to carry the 

gun in Chuck's truck when they thought the police would be looking 

for it. Around 7:00 p.m., they returned the gun to Mike at his 

girlfriend's house in Rodeo. Horn was driving his truck at this time.

In Rodeo, Mike no longer had the burgundy Dodge truck; he was in 

a green Honda. Horn said to Chuck that the best way to get rid of 

the gun was to throw it over a bridge. Horn told Van Hook, 

“[Chuck] just came back and told me it was taken care of,” but he 

was not more specific.

Chuck demonstrated to Horn how Mike had shot Colina from his 

truck. From the way Chuck described the shooting, Horn thought 

Chuck knew what happened because Mike told him, not because 

Chuck saw Mike fire the gun. Chuck demonstrated that Mike held 

the gun across his chest and did not point the gun out the window of 

the truck. Chuck told Horn, “‘He would have fucking shot me if he 

wasn't—if he would have been six inches more to this side.’” Horn 

said Mike's truck was six to ten feet from Colina and Chuck. Horn 

also told Van Hook that Chuck would not tell on his dad.

Van Hook testified that Horn told her of “a plan that he learned 

about after the shooting with regard to Mike.” In his second 

interview, Horn reported that Chuck said the plan had been for 

Chuck and Horn not to get out of the truck; the plan was Chuck was 

going to pull his truck up to Colina and Owens, they were going to 

run, and Mike was going to shoot them. Similarly, in a third 

interview in February 2010, Horn told Van Hook that, after the 

shooting, Chuck told him that the initial plan was for Chuck to drive 

up and Mike was to take care of everything. Horn told Van Hook 

that Chuck did not know the plan was they would remain in the 

truck before the shooting, which was why Chuck and Horn chased 

Colina and Owens. Horn believed the only part of the plan Chuck 

did not know about was that they were not supposed to get out of the 

truck.

Horn said, when Mike gave them the gun after the shooting, he said 

to Chuck, “‘Don't worry. This isn't my first time.’” The night Chuck 

and Horn were released from jail within a week of the murder, 

Chuck told Horn that Mike had dunked his arms in bleach the night 

of the shooting.

In a telephone interview in December 2012, Horn said that before 

the shooting, he and Chuck were waiting for Mike at Tara Hills 

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Drive, and Chuck pulled onto San Pablo Avenue after Mike arrived.

Justin Stonebraker

Stonebraker testified that his group of friends in 2009 included 

Chuck, Horn, Milhollin, Nazari, Tormey, and Chris Martin. One 

afternoon in August 2009, Chuck called and said to meet him at 

Nation's Hamburger because he found “‘the guys that flashed the 

gun on me. Let's get them.’” Stonebraker drove to Tara Hills Drive 

and San Pablo Avenue in his black Chevy pickup truck. He had 

heard about the car-ramming incident from Chuck, and he intended 

to help him. Horn called and said they were on San Pablo.

Stonebraker headed toward Pinole (north) on San Pablo Avenue and 

saw Chuck's truck on a side street to his right. Chuck was ready to 

make a right turn. Chuck pulled out onto San Pablo Avenue, sped 

up, and stopped near Colina and Owens. Stonebraker drove around 

Chuck's truck to follow Owens and stopped about a block past the 

Baptist Church. He got out of his truck and saw Owens trying to 

jump a fence. At this point, Stonebraker heard what sounded like a 

gunshot. He ran to his truck and drove away. As he drove north on 

San Pablo, he saw a burgundy truck that he had seen before at 

Claude's house. Stonebraker did not see who was driving the 

burgundy truck, and he did not see Mike that day.

Richie Milhollin

Milhollin testified that his friends in the summer of 2009 included 

Nazari, Chuck, Horn, Stonebraker, and Martin. He drove a black 

Chevy truck. At trial, Milhollin did not recall the events of the day 

Colina was killed.

A recording of Milhollin's August 25, 2009, interview with Meth 

and Van Hook was played for the jury. Milhollin said Chuck called 

him around 3:50 or 4:00 p.m. on August 19. Chuck said he was 

about to get into a fight and told Milhollin to meet him at Nation's. 

Milhollin was with some friends at Nazari's house in Pinole Valley 

when he got the call. He told Nazari that Chuck was fighting, and 

they went to meet him. Milhollin and Martin took Milhollin's truck, 

and Nazari went in his own truck.

As Milhollin drove by the church on San Pablo Avenue, he thought 

someone had been hit by a car. He saw Colina lying on the ground. 

Chuck called and said, “‘Shit[’]s all bad,’” and to meet at his house.

Milhollin drove to Mike's. At the house, Chuck “was all like scared 

and juiced.” He was yelling and screaming and said he needed 

Milhollin's truck. Chuck and Horn took the truck and returned after 

about five or 10 minutes. At that time, Milhollin sensed Mike was 

the shooter.

Later that day in Nazari's garage, Chuck told everyone, “I told you 

we were gonna fight them motherfuckers.” He said he jumped out 

of his truck, and Mike almost hit Colina with his truck. Chuck said 

he was “swinging [at Colina] and all of a sudden he heard pop, pop, 

pop, and then he dropped.” Milhollin told Meth, “Then [Chuck] 

pulls me aside and tells me, you know who did it right? I was like 

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yeah, I can fucking put . . . two and two together, I ain't stupid. And 

he goes well yeah, well that gun is already in the bay now.”

Van Hook interviewed Milhollin again in September 2009. He told 

her that Mike had been to his house while he was away. Mike told 

Milhollin's father that Millhollin should talk to Mike when he 

returned. Milhollin and Nazari went to see Mike at Claude's house.

Mike told Milhollin, “‘You're going to take this to your grave. Keep 

your mouth shut.’” Mike also said he thought Nazari might be 

talking, and he told Milhollin to tell Nazari to keep his mouth shut.

Kareem Nazari

Nazari testified that he was friends with Milhollin and Martin. He 

knew Chuck and considered him an acquaintance through mutual 

friends. Like Petruzzelli and Milhollin, Nazari did not recall the 

events of August 19, 2009. He remembered seeing sheriff's 

detectives, but did not recall any of his conversations with them.

Van Hook interviewed Nazari a week after Colina was killed. He 

told her that Milhollin, Martin, and Tormey were at his house on the 

afternoon of August 19. Milhollin told him Chuck called and said 

they needed to go down to the Nation's in Tara Hills because Chuck 

was going to get into a fight and they were going to help him.

Milhollin told Nazari that Chuck said he was going to fight the guys 

that had previously pulled a gun on him. Milhollin and Martin got 

in Milhollin's truck, and Nazari and Tormey got in Nazari's truck.

Nazari took San Pablo Avenue and saw a body in the road. 

Milhollin called and told him to go to Chuck's house. When he got 

to the house, Milhollin and Martin were standing on the sidewalk.

Chuck and Horn arrived in Milhollin's truck a short time later.

Nazari overheard Chuck saying that Mike was at the fight on San 

Pablo Avenue. Nazari demonstrated for Van Hook how Chuck had 

demonstrated the holding of a gun, but he did not know whether this 

meant Mike or Chuck shot the victim.

Nazari told Van Hook that Chuck and Horn were at his house later 

that evening. Milhollin, Tormey, Martin, Dye, and Nazari's 

girlfriend were there. Nazari also recalled receiving a text from 

Milhollin about the gun being thrown over a bridge.

On the Sunday after the shooting, Nazari and Milhollin went to 

Claude's house, and Milhollin spoke with Mike alone. Later, 

Milhollin told Nazari that Mike was worried that Nazari was 

snitching.

Nick Tormey

Tormey testified that he was friends with Nazari and hung out with 

Milhollin, Horn, and Dye. He did not know Chuck. One afternoon 

in August 2009, he went with Nazari in Nazari's truck. He thought 

they were just meeting a friend. On San Pablo Avenue, it appeared 

someone had been hit by a car, and Nazari drove to his friend's 

house. After they arrived, Chuck and other people arrived at the 

house; Chuck appeared frantic and paranoid. Tormey asked if they 

saw the man that had been hit by a car, and they said the person was 

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not run over. Tormey saw Mike arrive at the house around the same 

time in a green Honda. He also seemed frantic and paranoid.

Tormey was at Nazari's house when Chuck and Horn arrived there 

later that evening in a white truck. Chuck stayed for about 10 

minutes. He said Horn was in the car with him when the fight 

started, and Horn was worried about being a suspect in the shooting.

Chuck said his dad was there, and he thought his dad shot the 

victim. Everyone said they should throw the gun off a bridge.

Additional Evidence

A pathologist conducted a postmortem exam on Colina and 

recovered a bullet from his body. Colina died from a single gunshot 

wound of the neck and chest that caused him to bleed to death. The 

pathologist concluded the gun would have been more than 12 to 15 

inches away when fired.

A firearms expert testified the bullet recovered from Colina's body 

was lead and, based on its size and markings, was discharged from 

either a .38 Special or .357 Magnum revolver.

The day after Colina was killed, the sheriff's department searched 

Mike's house. A holster for a small revolver and a box of lead .357 

Magnum ammunition were recovered. No other ammunition was 

found. The box of ammunition held 50 rounds, and nine rounds 

were missing. The firearms expert testified the holster was probably 

an ankle or leg holster, and would hold a small .357 Magnum 

revolver.

When Chuck was arrested the day after the killing, his hands were 

swabbed for gunshot residue (GSR) analysis, and the white tank top 

he was wearing was also taken for GSR analysis. No particles of 

GSR were found on Chuck's hands, but one particle characteristic of 

GSR and many particles consistent with GSR were on the tank top. 

[Footnote omitted.]

Sheriff's deputies seized a red Dodge Ram 1500 truck found at the 

residence of Mike's mother, Mary Titlow, in Butte County in late 

August 2009. The truck was registered to Mary and Ernest Titlow, 

but receipts with Mike's name and Chuck's name were found inside 

the truck. Many particles consistent with GSR were found on the 

truck's headliner.

Phone records for Chuck's cell phone showed that, on August 19, 

2009, he called Horn shortly before 4:00 p.m., he called Stonebraker 

at 4:08 p.m., and he called Mike and Milhollin multiple times 

between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Mike's cell phone records showed 

he called Chuck at 4:11 p.m. Between 5:45 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., 

there were eight calls between Mike and Chuck.

Defense

Mike called Javari Jackson, who was riding in his father's truck as 

they drove south on San Pablo Avenue around the time of the 

shooting. He noticed two young Black men walking, and then saw a 

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dark gray truck pull up on the sidewalk with its tires screeching. 

The two Black men ran in opposite directions. One man ran south 

toward Richmond. The driver of the gray truck, who appeared to be 

White or Mexican, chased him. A light colored Honda was driving 

north on San Pablo. The Black man ran around the driver's side of 

the Honda toward the middle of the road, and the man chasing him 

ran on the other side of the car. The two men met in the middle of 

the road. The Black man turned around, “squaring up ready to 

fight,” and the White man swung. It appeared the Black man got 

knocked out because he fell to the ground face first. Jackson 

watched the men from the time the truck screeched to a stop at the 

sidewalk, and he did not see a red truck pull up to the two men while 

they were fighting.

Mary Titlow testified that she owned a maroon Dodge Ram truck, 

which Mike borrowed in March or April of 2009 and returned after 

four or five months. Mary took her husband target shooting in the 

truck in November 2008. At that time, he was terminally ill and 

could not get out of the truck. She set up targets for him, and he sat 

in the passenger seat and shot his rifle out the window. He died in 

January 2009. Mary never saw Chuck with a gun.

Jessica Johnston testified as a character witness for Chuck. He was 

her boyfriend in the summer of 2009. They had an on-again, offagain relationship for about four or five years. Johnston never saw 

Chuck with a gun and he never spoke enthusiastically about guns.

He was loyal to his friends.

Chuck also played excerpts of taped interviews of Horn, Tormey, 

and Nazari.

People v. Titlow, No. A138713, 2016 WL 5121799 (Cal. Ct. App. Sept. 21, 2016) (People v. 

Titlow).

Following the jury trial in Contra Costa County Superior Court in 2013, Mike Titlow was 

convicted of second degree murder and was found to have personally used a firearm causing great 

bodily injury and death. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 187, 12022.53. He was sentenced to a total of 40 

years to life in prison, comprised of 15 years to life for the murder plus a consecutive 25 years to 

life for the firearm enhancement. (His son, Chuck Titlow, was convicted of voluntary 

manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact, for which he received a prison sentence of 6 

years, 8 months.)

Mike Titlow appealed. The California Court of Appeal affirmed his conviction and the 

California Supreme Court denied his petition for review. 

Mike Titlow then filed this action to obtain a federal writ of habeas corpus. He alleges the 

following claims in his federal petition: (1) the admission of evidence of statements made by 

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Chuck Titlow to other persons about the shooting violated Mike Titlow’s rights to due process and 

confront witnesses under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) the admission of Mr. 

Horn’s statement that Chuck Titlow said that Mike Titlow had a “plan” to shoot the victim 

violated Mike Titlow’s right to due process; (3) the prosecutor’s misconduct during closing 

argument violated Mike Titlow’s right to due process; and (4) the cumulative effect of the trial 

errors prejudiced Mike Titlow.

Respondent has filed an answer. Mike Titlow has filed a traverse. The matter is now 

ready for decision.

III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this action for a writ of habeas corpus under 

28 U.S.C. § 2254. 28 U.S.C. § 1331. This action is in the proper venue because the petition 

concerns the conviction and sentence of a person convicted in Contra Costa County, California, 

which is within this judicial district. 28 U.S.C. §§ 84, 2241(d).

IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court may entertain a petition for writ of habeas corpus “in behalf of a person in 

custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in 

violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). 

The Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) amended § 2254 

to impose new restrictions on federal habeas review. A petition may not be granted with respect to 

any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court’s adjudication of 

the claim: “(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).

“Under the ‘contrary to’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court 

arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if 

the state court decides a case differently than [the] Court has on a set of materially 

indistinguishable facts.” Williams (Terry) v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000).

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“Under the ‘unreasonable application’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if 

the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court’s 

decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Id. at 413. 

“[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its 

independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law 

erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Id. at 411. “A 

federal habeas court making the ‘unreasonable application’ inquiry should ask whether the state 

court’s application of clearly established federal law was ‘objectively unreasonable.’” Id. at 409.

The state-court decision to which § 2254(d) applies is the “last reasoned decision” of the 

state court. See Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 803-04 (1991). “When there has been one 

reasoned state judgment rejecting a federal claim, later unexplained orders upholding that 

judgment or rejecting the same claim rest upon the same ground.” Ylst, 501 U.S. at 803. When 

confronted with an unexplained decision from the last state court to have been presented with the 

issue, “the federal court should ‘look through’ the unexplained decision to the last related statecourt decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained 

decision adopted the same reasoning.” Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). The 

presumption that a later summary denial rests on the same reasoning as the earlier reasoned 

decision is a rebuttable presumption and can be overcome by strong evidence. Kernan v. 

Hinojosa, 136 S. Ct. 1603, 1605-06 (2016). 

Section 2254(d) generally applies to unexplained as well as reasoned decisions. “When a 

federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be 

presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication 

or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 99 (2011). 

When the state court has denied a federal constitutional claim on the merits without explanation, 

and there is no lower state court decision to “look through” to, the federal habeas court “must 

determine what arguments or theories supported or . . . could have supported, the state court’s 

decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those 

arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of [the U.S. Supreme] 

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Court.” Id. at 102.

V. DISCUSSION

A. Admission of Evidence of Chuck Titlow’s Statements To Third Parties

1. Trial Court Proceedings

Mike Titlow contends that his constitutional rights were violated when the trial court 

admitted evidence that Chuck Titlow had made statements inculpating Mike Titlow to several 

witnesses. The statements at issue were made by Chuck Titlow at a gathering in Mr. Nazari’s 

garage the evening of the shooting. Docket No. 1 at 46. 

The statements were: [(1)] that Chuck described his fight with 

Colina and said that Mike had driven up so close during the fight 

that he almost hit Chuck and Colina; [(2)] that Chuck demonstrated 

to Millhollin how Mike has fired the gun across his body and said 

that Mike had thrown the gun off a bridge; [(3)] that Chuck told his 

friends not to talk about the shooting; [(4)] that Chuck told Kellen 

how Mike had pulled up in the truck almost hitting Chuck and 

Colina and how Mike fired the gun while reaching across his body; 

[(5)] that Chuck told Kellen that Mike was going to bring a gun in 

case Colina had a gun; [(6)] that Chuck told Kellen how Mike said 

he planned to shoot Colina; and [(7)] that Chuck implicated Mike in 

the murder.

The trial court rejected the defense motion to exclude these statements as inadmissible 

hearsay, ruling instead that they were declarations against interest admissible under California 

Evidence Code section 1230.2 The trial court explained that the evidence allowed a reasonable 

inference that Chuck Titlow had informed his father he intended to fight and believed that Mr. 

Colina had a gun, and allowed a reasonable inference that Chuck Titlow was aware his father had 

access to a gun. It was against Chuck Titlow’s “penal interest in describing his father’s conduct as

well as his own in setting up these circumstances and engaging in the fight. It did expose and does 

expose Chuck to very significant culpability.” RT 1271. The trial court also found that the 

 

2 California Evidence Code section 1230 provides: “Evidence of a statement by a declarant 

having sufficient knowledge of the subject is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the 

declarant is unavailable as a witness and the statement, when made, was so far contrary to the 

declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far subjected him to the risk of civil or criminal 

liability, or so far tended to render invalid a claim by him against another, or created such a risk of 

making him an object of hatred, ridicule, or social disgrace in the community, that a reasonable 

man in his position would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be true.”

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statements were against Chuck Titlow’s “familial interest” and subjected him to social approbation 

and damaging the family ties with his father. RT 1272. The trial court further found that Chuck 

Titlow’s statements were highly reliable based on these circumstances: (a) he was speaking to his 

“closest friends, the people he invited to back him up in this fight”; (b) he did “not have a motive 

to falsely implicate his father and lift blame from himself” because the people to whom the 

statements were made were not aligned with law enforcement; and (c) he did not have a motive to

“falsely implicate his father in the shooting” because the Titlow family was close. RT 1271. 

2. State Appellate Court Decision

On appeal, Mike Titlow argued that the admission of the statements made by Chuck Titlow

violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. 

Constitution, as well as his state law rights. He argued on appeal (as he does here) that, 

notwithstanding the major change in Confrontation Clause analysis worked by Crawford v. 

Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), older Confrontation Clause cases and other general Due Process

Clause cases from the U.S. Supreme Court support the view that the admission of a nontestifying 

codefendant’s statement is unconstitutional. See Docket No. 1 at 44, 54-60. 

The California Court of Appeal rejected the argument that Mike Titlow’s federal 

constitutional rights were violated by the admission of the six statements by Chuck Titlow.

“[I]n Ohio v. Roberts (1980) 448 U.S. 56, 66, [Roberts] [the 

Unite[d] States Supreme Court] construed the federal Constitution's 

confrontation right as allowing the use at trial of any out-of-court 

statements that were within a ‘firmly rooted hearsay exception’ or 

had ‘particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.’ But some 25 

years later, in Crawford [v. Washington (2004) 541 U.S. 36 

(Crawford) ], the high court abandoned that approach and adopted 

this general rule: The prosecution may not use ‘[t]estimonial 

statements' of a witness who does not appear at trial, unless the 

witness is unavailable to testify and the defendant had a prior 

opportunity for cross-examination.” (People v. Dungo (2012) 55 

Cal.4th 608, 616.)

Mike concedes the admission of evidence of Chuck's statements to 

his friends did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to confront 

witnesses because the statements were not testimonial. Despite this 

concession, he argues admitting this evidence violated his 

constitutional right to due process because Chuck's statements were 

“unreliable” and lacked “sufficiently particularized guarantees of 

trustworthiness.” Mike relies on Lilly v. Virginia (1999) 527 U.S. 

116, 139 (Lilly), in which the United States Supreme Court 

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concluded an accomplice's statement inculpating another was not so 

reliable that there was no need for cross-examination under the 

confrontation clause. But Lilly predated Crawford, and the Lilly

court applied the now-rejected reliability test set forth in Roberts.

3

(Lilly, supra, 527 U.S. at pp. 135–139.) “Roberts, supra, 448 U.S. 

56, and its progeny are overruled for all purposes. . . . Thus, there is 

no basis for an inference that, even if a hearsay statement is 

nontestimonial, it must nonetheless undergo a Roberts analysis 

before it may be admitted under the Constitution.” (People v. Cage

(2007) 40 Cal.4th 965, 981, fn. 10, italics added.) Accordingly, 

Lilly has no bearing on whether the admission of Chuck's 

nontestimonial hearsay statements was constitutional. (Ibid.; see 

United States v. Smalls (10th Cir. 2010) 605 F.3d 765, 773 

[“Roberts [is] no longer good law ... , rendering Lilly a dead 

letter”].)

[Footnote 3:] Under the prior rule, any hearsay 

statement (testimonial or not) made by an unavailable 

declarant was admissible only if it bore adequate “‘indicia of 

reliability.’” (Roberts, supra, 448 U.S. at p. 66.)

Mike argues Lilly establishes that the admission of evidence of 

Chuck's hearsay statements violated his constitutional right to 

reliable evidence under the due process clause. But Lilly was 

decided based on the confrontation clause. Even when it was good 

law, it had no relevance to due process analysis. Essentially, Mike's 

argument is that the Roberts reliability test (as applied in Lilly) 

survives Crawford through the due process clause. But Crawford

overruled Roberts in part because “[r]eliability is an amorphous, if 

not entirely subjective, concept” and because the Roberts reliability 

test was “so unpredictable.” (Crawford, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 63.)

Justice Kennedy later observed that Crawford rejected the Roberts

reliability test “to delink the intricacies of hearsay law from a 

constitutional mandate” and “to allow the States, in their own courts 

and legislatures and without this Court's supervision, to explore and 

develop sensible, specific evidentiary rules pertaining to the 

admissibility of certain statements.” (Bullcoming v. New Mexico

(2011) 564 U.S. 647, 681, (dis. opn. of Kennedy, J.) Given this 

history, we see no basis to conclude the Roberts reliability test 

nonetheless survives as a constitutional standard governing the 

admissibility of nontestimonial hearsay statements with its source as 

the due process clause instead of the confrontation clause. (Ibid.; 

see Simons, Cal. Evidence Manual (2016 ed.), § 2:113, p. 205 

[“There is no reason to believe that the Roberts reliability test will 

be resurrected through the Due Process Clause.”].)

People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *10-11. The California Court of Appeal also rejected 

Mike Titlow’s state law challenge to the admission of the evidence under California Evidence 

Code section 1230. People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *11-14.

As the last reasoned decision from a state court, the California Court of Appeal’s decision 

is the decision to which § 2254(d) is applied. See Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192. Mike Titlow is 

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entitled to habeas relief only if the California Court of Appeal’s decision was contrary to, or an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law from the U.S. Supreme Court, or was 

based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. 

3. Analysis of Federal Constitutional Claims

Mike Titlow urges that the admission of Chuck Titlow’s statements violated his rights 

under the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due 

Process Clause.3 Although he asserts a Confrontation Clause claim, he concedes that current law 

precludes relief under the Confrontation Clause and urges instead that principles from old 

Confrontation Clause cases now support relief under the Due Process Clause.

4

 

About fifteen years ago, the Supreme Court's decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 

U.S. 36 (2004), dramatically changed Confrontation Clause jurisprudence, and abandoned the 

analytic framework from Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980), that had been used for many years. 

Mike Titlow’s habeas petition contends that Crawford left the Roberts test intact as a test for 

whether a due process violation had occurred and that, applying the Roberts test, a due process 

violation occurred when certain nontestimonial hearsay was admitted at his trial. His 

Confrontation Clause argument fails because the Supreme Court has determined that Crawford did 

not leave the Roberts test intact; instead, the rule now is that the Confrontation Clause simply does 

 

3 Mike Titlow also argues that the evidence violated his rights under the Fifth Amendment’s Due 

Process Clause, and lumps together his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process arguments. 

The Fifth Amendment argument is a nonstarter because the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process 

Clause applies to federal action rather than state action. See generally United States v. Navarro, 

800 F.3d 1104, 1112 n.6 (9th Cir. 2015) (U.S. Sentencing Commission’s guidelines are governed 

by Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, rather than Fourteenth Amendment, because it is a 

federal actor and not a state actor); Zutz v. Nelson, 601 F.3d 842, 849 n.4 (8th Cir. 2010) (Fifth 

Amendment claim against local water board actors fails because the “‘Fifth Amendment’s Due 

Process Clause applies only to the federal government or federal actions”). Mike Titlow’s due 

process claim must be brought under the Fourteenth Amendment because it is the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Due Process Clause that applies to state action, such as his state court trial.

4 Although Mike Titlow captioned his claim as a claim for a violation of his Fifth, Sixth, and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights, see Docket No. 1 at 43, he stated in the text of his petition that his 

“Confrontation Clause rights are not implicated by Chuck’s statements made in Nazari’s garage” 

because “Chuck’s statements are not testimonial” under Crawford and Davis. Docket No. 1 at 57. 

Nonetheless, the Court must do a Confrontation Clause analysis because Mike Titlow asserts a 

Confrontation Clause claim in the heading in his petition, even though most of his Confrontation 

Clause discussion is a means to the end of using Confrontation Clause authorities to make a Due 

Process Clause argument.

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not apply to nontestimonial evidence. His Due Process Clause argument fails because the 

Supreme Court has not issued a holding that the Due Process Clause requires that the Roberts test 

or any test for establishing reliability must be satisfied for hearsay evidence to be admissible at 

trial. The analysis is explained in more detail below.

Confrontation Clause Claim

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides that in criminal cases the 

accused has the right to “be confronted with witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. The 

ultimate goal of the Confrontation Clause “is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a 

procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but 

that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination.”

Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61.

The Confrontation Clause applies to all “testimonial” statements. See Crawford, 541 U.S. 

at 50–51. “Testimony . . . is typically a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of 

establishing or proving some fact.” Id. at 51 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted); id.

at 68 (“[w]hatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary 

hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations”). The “primary 

purpose” test establishes the boundaries of testimonial evidence. Statements are testimonial: (1) 

“when they result from questioning, ‘the primary purpose of [which was] to establish or prove past 

events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution,’ Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822 

(2006),” and (2) “when written statements are ‘functionally identical to live, in-court testimony,’ 

‘made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact’ at trial, Melendez-Diaz v. 

Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 310-11 (2009).” Lucero v. Holland, 902 F.3d 979, 989 (9th Cir. 

2018) (alteration in original) (citing Ohio v. Clark, 135 S. Ct. 2173, 2179 (2015)). See, e.g., Davis 

v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 826-28 (2006) (victim’s frantic statements to a 911 operator naming 

the assailant who had just hurt her were not testimonial); id. at 829–30 (victim’s statements to 

officer telling him what had happened were testimonial, as there was no emergency in progress 

and were made after officer had separated victim and assailant); Crawford, 541 U.S. at 39–40, 68 

(statements were testimonial where made by witness at police station to a series of questions posed 

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by an officer who had given Miranda warnings to witness and was taping and making notes of the 

answers).

Before Crawford was decided, the Confrontation Clause analysis had been governed by the 

“indicia of reliability” test set out in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65–66 (1980). Under the 

Roberts test, hearsay statements could be introduced only if the witness was unavailable at trial 

and the statements had “adequate indicia of reliability,” i.e., the statements fell within a “firmly 

rooted hearsay exception” or bore “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” Roberts, 448 

U.S. at 66. Roberts was overruled in Crawford, although some readers of the Crawford opinion 

believed that Roberts was not overruled as to nontestimonial statements. Two years later, the 

Supreme Court clarified in Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 821 (2006), that the Roberts test 

had no continuing validity. Nontestimonial hearsay, “while subject to traditional limitations upon 

hearsay evidence, is not subject to the Confrontation Clause.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 821; see also 

Whorton v. Bockting, 549 U.S. 406, 420 (2007) (referring to “Crawford’s elimination of 

Confrontation Clause protection against the admission of unreliable out-of-court nontestimonial 

statements”); United States v. Larson, 495 F.3d 1094, 1099 n.4 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc) (Roberts

test no longer survives and nontestimonial statements are now outside the scope of the protection 

of the Confrontation Clause). 

The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of Mike Titlow’s Confrontation Clause claim 

was not an unreasonable application of Crawford, Davis, and Bockting. Mike Titlow does not 

contend that the statements of Chuck Titlow to friends and acquaintances in the garage were 

testimonial; indeed, he concedes that “Chuck’s statements are not testimonial.” Docket No. 1 at 

57. These statements made to friends and acquaintances at a social gathering were just the sort of 

communications that courts have repeatedly held to be nontestimonial and therefore outside the 

protection of the Confrontation Clause. See, e.g., Lucero, 902 F.3d at 989 (secret note written from 

prisoner to prisoner “was not ‘testimonial’ under any plausible understanding of that term” 

because it was not functionally identical to live in-court testimony and did not have the primary 

purpose of assisting in the defendant’s prosecution); Desai v. Booker, 732 F.3d 628, 630 (6th Cir.

2013) (“the Confrontation Clause no longer applied to nontestimonial hearsay such as the friendCase 3:17-cv-06690-EMC Document 16 Filed 05/01/19 Page 19 of 45
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to-friend confession”); United States v. DeLeon, 678 F.3d 317, 321–24 (4th Cir. 2012), judgment 

vacated on other grounds, 570 U.S. 913 (2013) (admission of evidence of stepson's statements 

describing his defendant-stepfather's disciplinary methods to social worker made several months 

before the stepson died did not implicate the Confrontation Clause because they were made for 

purposes of formulating a family treatment plan and were not testimonial); United States v. 

Berrios, 676 F.3d 118, 127–28 (3d Cir. 2012) (admission of evidence of surreptitiously recorded 

jailhouse conversations between codefendants did not violate the Confrontation Clause because 

they were not testimonial). Given that Chuck Titlow’s statements to friends and acquaintances in 

the garage were nontestimonial statements, the Confrontation Clause did not offer any protection 

against their admission under current Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court's Crawford, 

Davis and Bockting decisions have clearly established that the Roberts reliability test to determine 

whether the Confrontation Clause is violated no longer applies and that nontestimonial hearsay

evidence is not covered by the Confrontation Clause. 

Mike Titlow also appears to urge that Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), limits

the admissibility of Chuck Titlow’s statements to friends and acquaintances in the garage. The 

Bruton rule is a specialized rule that provides Confrontation Clause protection against the 

admission of a “facially incriminating confession of a nontestifying codefendant” at a joint trial, 

“even if the jury is instructed to consider the confession only against the codefendant.” 

Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 207 (1987). The Bruton rule provides no help to Mike 

Titlow, however, because it only applies to testimonial statements, as the Ninth Circuit recently 

held in Lucero, 902 F.3d at 987-88. “[T]he Bruton limitation on the introduction of codefendants’

out-of-court statements is necessarily subject to Crawford’s holding that the Confrontation Clause 

is concerned only with testimonial out-of-court statements.” Lucero, 902 F.3d at 987-88. Because 

Chuck Titlow’s statements to his friends and acquaintances at the gathering in the garage were 

nontestimonial, the Bruton rule does not apply to those statements. 

Mike Titlow relies heavily on the Confrontation Clause case of Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 

116 (1999), although he relies on it for a due process argument rather than a Confrontation Clause 

argument. In any event, Lilly does not help him in the Confrontation Clause context. Lilly held 

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that accomplice confessions implicating a defendant on trial are presumptively unreliable. 527 

U.S. at 131. Lilly’s discussion about unreliability of accomplice statements is an application of the 

Ohio v. Roberts test that considered the indicia of reliability of the evidence to be key to its 

admissibility under the Confrontation Clause, but Crawford has abandoned that approach. Jones 

v. Premo, 513 F. App’x 648 (9th Cir. 2013). Crawford did not actually overrule Lilly, but the 

factual difference between Lilly and Mike Titlow’s case means that Lilly does not apply here. 

Specifically, the evidence at issue in Lilly was a confession made during police interrogation, see 

Lilly, 527 U.S. at 120–21, and therefore was testimonial hearsay of just the sort that Crawford

determined was covered by the Confrontation Clause. Crawford recognized that very point in its 

reference to Lilly, as Crawford noted that even where its recent cases (including Lilly) had 

followed the reasoning of Roberts, those cases made a distinction for testimonial hearsay, and 

testimonial hearsay required unavailability and prior cross-examination. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 

58 (Lilly “excluded testimonial statements that the defendant had had no opportunity to test by 

cross-examination”); see also Davis, 547 U.S. at 825. Thus, the fact that the Supreme Court did 

not overrule Lilly (which concerned testimonial hearsay) does not provide any support for the 

argument that the Roberts test survives or that the Confrontation Clause continues to apply to 

nontestimonial hearsay. Mike Titlow sees his case and Lilly as similar because both involved 

confession-type statements by accomplices, but the critical difference in this post-Crawford era is 

that the statement in Mike Titlow’s case was to friends and acquaintances in a social gathering

(and, therefore, nontestimonial) whereas the Lilly confession was during police interrogation (and, 

therefore, testimonial). See generally United States v. Smalls, 605 F.3d 765, 773 (10th Cir. 2010) 

(district court erred in applying Roberts test to accomplice's statement to confidential informant 

because it was nontestimonial; “Roberts was no longer good law when the district court made its 

decision in this case, rendering Lilly a dead letter and eviscerating not only the presumption of 

unreliability, but the entire foundation upon which the district court's order rested”).

In sum, the statements made by Chuck Titlow to friends and acquaintances at the gathering 

in the garage were nontestimonial and their admission did not implicate, let alone violate, the 

Confrontation Clause. The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of the Confrontation Clause 

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claim was not an unreasonable application of, or contrary to, clearly established law from the U.S. 

Supreme Court. 

Due Process Clause Claim

Mike Titlow argues that the admission of those same statements made by Chuck Titlow to 

the friends and acquaintances in the garage violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s 

Due Process Clause. He relies on Supreme Court cases that are legally and factually inapposite. 

Mike Titlow’s due process analysis fails largely due to the limitations placed on federal habeas 

relief by the AEDPA. 

i. AEDPA Limits Novel Analysis and Extension of Precedent

As mentioned earlier, federal habeas relief is barred in a case governed by the AEDPA

unless the state court’s rejection of a claim was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable 

application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United 

States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The phrase “clearly established law” refers to “the holdings, as 

opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme] Court’s decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court 

decision.” Williams (Terry) v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000). 

A holding under one constitutional provision does not equate to a holding under another 

constitutional provision. See Premo v. Moore, 562 U.S. 115, 127-28 (2011). In Premo, the Ninth 

Circuit had granted relief on a claim that petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to effective 

assistance of counsel was violated when counsel failed to move to suppress a confession before 

advising him to plead guilty. Id. at 119-20. The Ninth Circuit found the state court’s rejection of 

the claim to be an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), the 

essential ineffective-assistance case, and contrary to Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279 (1991), 

a case regarding the admission of allegedly coerced confessions. See Premo, 562 U.S. at 120. 

The Supreme Court determined that the Ninth Circuit had erred in finding the state court’s 

rejection of the ineffective-assistance claim to be contrary to Fulminante because Fulminante 

“says nothing about the Strickland standard of effectiveness.” Premo, 562 U.S. at 128. In holding 

that the rejection of an ineffective-assistance claim was contrary to Fulminante, the Ninth Circuit

had “transposed that case into a novel context; and novelty alone—at least insofar as it renders the 

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relevant rule less than ‘clearly established’—provides a reason to reject it under AEDPA.” Premo, 

562 U.S. at 127; see, e.g., Littlejohn v. Trammell, 704 F.3d 817, 849-50 (10th Cir. 2013) (Supreme 

Court holding that defendant’s testimony at first trial given only because his illegally obtained 

confessions had been admitted in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights had to be excluded as 

fruit of the poisonous tree could not be extended to the novel context of a defendant who felt 

personally compelled to testify to give his side of story after evidence of his voluntary confession 

to a private actor properly was admitted). 

A state court’s failure to extend a Supreme Court rule to a new context does not support 

relief under § 2254(d)(1). “Section 2254(d)(1) provides a remedy for instances in which a state 

court unreasonably applies this Court’s precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that 

precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error.” White v. Woodall, 572 

U.S. 415, 426 (2014) (in capital case, not objectively unreasonable for state court not to extend to 

the penalty phase a constitutional rule that applies to guilt phase).

ii. Analysis of Due Process Claim

Mike Titlow argues that various cases support relief under the Due Process Clause for the 

admission of Chuck Titlow’s statements to friends and acquaintances. He relies heavily on Lilly v. 

Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, for his argument that unreliable evidence, such as declarations against 

penal interest that lack sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness, violate the defendant’s 

constitutional right to due process. Docket No. 1 at 54-60. But Lilly is a Confrontation Clause 

case (as discussed earlier in this order), and does not even mention the Due Process Clause. See

Lilly, 527 U.S. at 120 (“The question presented in this case is whether the accused’s Sixth 

Amendment right ‘to be confronted with the witnesses against him’ was violated by admitting into 

evidence at his trial a nontestifying accomplice’s entire confession that contained some statements 

against the accomplice's penal interest and others that inculpated the accused.”); id. at 139 (“The 

admission of the untested confession of [the nontestifying accomplice] violated petitioner’s 

Confrontation Clause rights.”). The California Court of Appeal’s failure to extend Lilly to the due 

process context does not support relief under § 2254(d)(1). AEDPA “does not require state courts 

to extend [Supreme Court] precedent.” White, 572 U.S. at 426; Premo, 562 U.S. at 127 (using a 

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case in a novel context “renders the relevant rule less than ‘clearly established’” and provides a 

reason to reject it under AEDPA).

Mike Titlow cites Bruton, 391 U.S. at 130-32, to argue that “the admission of a nontestifying codefendant’s statement with a limiting instruction . . . violates the defendant’s due 

process rights.” Docket No. 1 at 44. But Bruton’s holding rested only on the Confrontation 

Clause and not on the Due Process Clause. See Bruton, 391 U.S. at 126 (“We hold that, because 

of the substantial risk that the jury, despite instructions to the contrary, looked to the incriminating 

extrajudicial statements in determining petitioner’s guilt, admission of [codefendant’s] confession 

in this joint trial violated petitioner’s right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation 

Clause of the Sixth Amendment.”). The California Court of Appeal did not run afoul of §

2254(d)(1) by failing to extend Bruton to the due process context. See White, 572 U.S. at 426; 

Premo, 562 U.S. at 127. 

Another case cited by Mike Titlow, Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344 (2011), held that the 

wounded victim’s statements made to police to meet an ongoing emergency “were not testimonial 

and that their admission at [defendant’s] trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause.” Id. at 378. 

The case did not have any holding based on the Due Process Clause. As with Lilly and Bruton, the 

California Court of Appeal did not run afoul of § 2254(d)(1) by failing to extend Bryant to the due 

process context. See White, 572 U.S. at 426; Premo, 562 U.S. at 127. Bryant did mention the Due 

Process Clause in a footnote: “Of course the Confrontation Clause is not the only bar to 

admissibility of hearsay statements at trial. State and federal rules of evidence prohibit the 

introduction of hearsay, subject to exceptions. Consistent with those rules, the Due Process 

Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments may constitute a further bar to admission of, for 

example, unreliable evidence.” Id. at 370 n.13. This footnote which leaves open and ill-defined 

possible Due Process claims is not the holding of the case, however, and therefore is not “clearly 

established law” for purposes of § 2254(d)(1). See Williams, 529 U.S. at 412.

Another case cited by Mike Titlow at least has a holding resting on the Due Process 

Clause, but it still does not help him because it addressed a factually distinct issue. The case of 

Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977), “present[ed] the issue as to whether the Due Process 

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Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment compels the exclusion, in a state criminal trial, apart from 

any consideration of reliability, of pretrial identification evidence obtained by a police procedure 

that was both suggestive and unnecessary.” Id. at 99. The Supreme Court “conclude[d] that 

reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony,” and the 

factors to be considered in evaluating reliability include the “opportunity of the witness to view 

the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior 

description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation, and the time 

between the crime and the confrontation. Against these factors is to be weighed the corrupting 

effect of the suggestive identification itself.” Id. at 114. Manson concerned a particular kind of 

evidence (i.e., evidence derived from pretrial showups and pretrial lineups), and did not announce 

any general reliability requirement for all evidence. That Manson is specific to lineups and 

showups is evident from the factors identified by the Court for evaluating such reliability -- e.g., 

the witness’ opportunity to view the criminal, the witness’ descriptions of the criminal, and the

witness’ level of certainty in the identification – which do not make sense outside the context of 

witness identification procedures. Manson did not purport to establish a Due Process test of 

reliability more generally outside the context of the lineup. Hence, the California Court of Appeal 

did not run afoul of § 2254(d)(1) by not extending Manson to the very different context of the 

admission of hearsay statements. See White, 572 U.S. at 426; Premo, 562 U.S. at 127.

The last two cases cited by Mike Titlow also had due process holdings, but concern the 

trial court’s exclusion of evidence rather than the admission of evidence: Green v. Georgia, 442 

U.S. 95 (1979), and Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973). In Green, the Court held that, 

regardless of whether the proffered testimony of a third party who would testify that a second 

defendant confided that he killed the victim came within the State’s hearsay rule, the exclusion of 

that testimony violated the Due Process Clause because it was highly relevant to a critical issue in 

the punishment phase and substantial reasons existed to assume its reliability. 442 U.S. at 97. In 

Chambers, the Court held that refusal to allow a defendant to cross-examine a witness plus the 

exclusion of evidence showing a third party confessed under circumstances which bore substantial 

assurances of trustworthiness “denied him a trial in accord with traditional and fundamental 

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standards of due process.” 410 U.S. at 302. Neither of these cases which addressed the 

constitutionality of excluding certain evidence contained a holding about the constitutionality of 

admitting evidence. The California Court of Appeal’s failure to extend and apply these two cases 

to the admission of Chuck Titlow’s statements does not support relief under § 2254(d)(1). See 

White, 572 U.S. at 426; Premo, 562 U.S. at 127.

Because none of the cases cited by Mike Titlow provide the answer to his due process 

issue, the admissibility of Chuck Titlow’s statements is analyzed under more general Supreme 

Court cases that do apply to the admission of evidence. 

The United States Supreme Court has never held that the introduction of propensity or 

other allegedly prejudicial evidence violates due process. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 

68-70 (1991); id. at 75 n.5 (“we express no opinion on whether a state law would violate the Due 

Process Clause if it permitted the use of ‘prior crimes’ evidence to show propensity to commit a 

charged crime”). 

In Estelle v. McGuire, the defendant was on trial for the murder of his infant daughter after 

she was brought to a hospital and died from numerous injuries suggestive of recent child abuse. 

Defendant told police the injuries were accidental. Evidence was admitted at trial that the coroner 

discovered during the autopsy older partially healed injuries that had occurred six to seven weeks 

before the child’s death. Id. at 65. Evidence of the older injuries was introduced to prove 

“battered child syndrome,” which “exists when a child has sustained repeated and/or serious 

injuries by nonaccidental means.” Id. at 66. The state appellate court had held that the proof of 

prior injuries tending to establish battered child syndrome was proper under California law. Id. In 

federal habeas proceedings, the Ninth Circuit found a due process violation based in part on its 

determination that the evidence was improperly admitted under state law. Id. at 66-67. The U.S. 

Supreme Court first held that the Ninth Circuit had erred in inquiring whether the evidence was 

properly admitted under state law because “‘federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of 

state law.’” Id. at 67. The Supreme Court then explained:

The evidence of battered child syndrome was relevant to show 

intent, and nothing in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment requires the State to refrain from introducing relevant 

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evidence simply because the defense chooses not to contest the 

point. [¶] Concluding, as we do, that the prior injury evidence was 

relevant to an issue in the case, we need not explore further the 

apparent assumption of the Court of Appeals that it is a violation of 

the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment for 

evidence that is not relevant to be received in a criminal trial. We 

hold that McGuire’s due process rights were not violated by the 

admission of the evidence. See Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 

563–564, 87 S. Ct. 648, 653–654, 17 L.Ed.2d 606 (1967) (“Cases in 

this Court have long proceeded on the premise that the Due Process 

Clause guarantees the fundamental elements of fairness in a criminal 

trial . . . . But it has never been thought that such cases establish this 

Court as a rulemaking organ for the promulgation of state rules of 

criminal procedure”).

Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. at 70 (omission in original). 

The cited case, Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. at 563, held that the admission of evidence of 

prior convictions did not violate due process. The Supreme Court explained in Spencer that, 

although there may have been other, perhaps better, ways to adjudicate the existence of prior 

convictions (e.g., a separate trial on the priors after the trial on the current substantive offense 

resulted in a guilty verdict), Texas’ use of prior crimes evidence in a “one-stage recidivist trial” 

did not violate due process. Id. at 563-64. “In the face of the legitimate state purpose and the 

long-standing and widespread use that attend the procedure under attack here, we find it 

impossible to say that because of the possibility of some collateral prejudice the Texas procedure 

is rendered unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause as it has been interpreted and applied in 

our past cases.” Id. at 564. 

Estelle v. McGuire also cited to Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 228 (1941), in 

support of the conclusion that the introduction of the battered child syndrome evidence did not so 

infuse the trial with unfairness as to deny due process of law. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. at 

75. In Lisenba, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that the admission of inflammatory evidence 

violated the defendant’s due process rights. The evidence at issue in Lisenba was live rattlesnakes 

and testimony about them to show they had been used by the defendant to murder his wife. “We 

do not sit to review state court action on questions of the propriety of the trial judge’s action in the 

admission of evidence. We cannot hold, as petitioner urges, that the introduction and identification 

of the snakes so infused the trial with unfairness as to deny due process of law. The fact that 

evidence admitted as relevant by a court is shocking to the sensibilities of those in the courtroom 

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cannot, for that reason alone, render its reception a violation of due process.” Lisenba, 314 U.S. at 

228-29. 

These three Supreme Court cases declined to hold that the admission of prejudicial 

evidence violates the defendant’s due process rights. No Supreme Court cases since Estelle v. 

McGuire have undermined the holdings in these three cases. In other words, there is no Supreme 

Court holding that the admission of prejudicial evidence violates due process.

The Supreme Court has, however, established a general principle of “fundamental 

fairness,” i.e., evidence that “is so extremely unfair that its admission violates ‘fundamental 

conceptions of justice’” may violate due process. Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 352 

(1990) (quoting United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 790 (1977) (due process was not violated 

by admission of evidence to identify perpetrator and link him to another perpetrator even though 

the evidence also was related to crime of which defendant had been acquitted)). Thus, the court 

may consider whether the evidence was “so extremely unfair that its admission violates 

‘fundamental conceptions of justice.’” Id. 

In this circuit, the admission of prejudicial evidence may make a trial fundamentally unfair 

and violate due process “[o]nly if there are no permissible inferences the jury may draw from the 

evidence.” Jammal v. Van de Kamp, 926 F.2d 918, 920 (9th Cir. 1991). “Evidence introduced by 

the prosecution will often raise more than one inference, some permissible, some not; we must 

rely on the jury to sort them out in light of the court’s instructions. Only if there are 

no permissible inferences the jury may draw from the evidence can its admission violate due 

process. Even then, the evidence must ‘be of such quality as necessarily prevents a fair trial.’ 

Only under such circumstances can it be inferred that the jury must have used the evidence for an 

improper purpose.” Jammal, 926 F.2d at 920 (internal citation and footnote omitted).5

 

5

In Jammal, the police found a gun, $47,000 and drugs in the trunk of Jammal’s stolen car when 

they arrested Willis, who had stolen Jammal’s car; 18 months later, the police found $135,000 (but 

no drugs) in the trunk of Jammal’s car when they arrested Jammal. At trial, Willis said he had no 

idea the drugs and money were in the trunk of Jammal’s stolen car until police opened it. The 

prosecution urged the jury to infer that both the drugs and the $47,000 found in the trunk of 

Jammal’s car when Willis was arrested belonged to Jammal since Jammal later was arrested also 

with a large stash of cash in his trunk. Jammal unsuccessfully objected that this evidence 

effectively branded him a drug dealer and was therefore inadmissible character evidence. The 

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Here, the California Court of Appeal reasonably could have determined that the admission 

of evidence that Chuck Titlow told other persons that Mike Titlow shot the victim did not meet the 

very demanding standard of being so extremely unfair that its admission violated fundamental 

conceptions of justice. There were permissible inferences that could be drawn from the evidence, 

i.e., that Mike Titlow was the person who shot the victim and that the shooting was intentional. 

The evidence was relevant because it aided the jury in assessing the guilt of Mike Titlow and 

Chuck Titlow. 

“[E]valuating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule’s 

specificity. The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in caseby-case determinations.” Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004). Bearing in mind 

the extremely general nature of the Supreme Court’s articulation of a principle of “fundamental 

fairness” – i.e., evidence that “is so extremely unfair that its admission violates ‘fundamental 

conceptions of justice’” may violate due process, see Dowling, 493 U.S. at 352 – the California 

Court of Appeal’s rejection of Mike Titlow’s due process claim was not contrary to or an 

unreasonable application of federal law clearly established by the Supreme Court. See 

generally Holley v. Yarborough, 568 F.3d 1091, 1101 (9th Cir. 2009) (denying writ because, 

although Supreme Court “has been clear that a writ should be issued when constitutional errors 

have rendered the trial fundamentally unfair, it has not yet made a clear ruling that admission of 

irrelevant or overtly prejudicial evidence constitutes a due process violation sufficient to warrant 

 

Ninth Circuit explained that state law evidence rules were beside the point in a federal habeas 

proceeding and any problem in the jury inferring that Jammal had put the $47,000 and drugs in the 

car earlier (even if impermissible under state law) was not a constitutional problem because the 

inference that Jammal had put both the $47,000 and drugs in the trunk on an earlier occasion was a 

“rational inference” the jury could draw from the evidence that he was caught with $135,000 in his 

trunk. Jammal, 926 F.2d at 920.

Jammal is one of the few cases that gives any guidance as to what might amount to the 

introduction of evidence that might amount to fundamental unfairness. The Ninth Circuit 

continues to use the Jammal “permissible inference” test in habeas cases governed by the AEDPA. 

See, e.g., Noel v. Lewis, 605 F. App’x 606, 608 (9th Cir. 2015) (admission of gang evidence did 

not violate due process); Lundin v. Kernan, 583 F. App’x 686, 687 (9th Cir. 2014) (citing Jammal

and concluding that admission of graffiti evidence did not violate due process because there were 

permissible inferences to be drawn); Gonzalez v. Knowles, 515 F.3d 1006, 1011 (9th Cir. 2008) 

(citing Jammal and concluding that evidence of prior bad acts did not violate due process). 

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issuance of the writ.”); Alberni v. McDaniel, 458 F.3d 860, 865 (9th Cir. 2006) (denying habeas 

relief on claim that due process was violated by admission of evidence of defendant’s past violent 

actions and explosive temper to show propensity due to Estelle v. McGuire’s reservation of the 

question whether propensity evidence violates due process). Mike Titlow is not entitled to the 

writ on this claim.

iii. State Law Violation

Mike Titlow attempts to transform a state law error claim into a federal due process claim. 

He argues first that California’s declaration against penal interest hearsay exception (Cal. Evid.

Code § 1230) violates due process because California has not incorporated a presumption that 

accomplice hearsay is inherently unreliable “[d]espite the United States Supreme Court’s finding 

in Lilly that statements against penal interest are inherently unreliable when offered against a codefendant.” Docket No. 1 at 61. Lilly cannot bear the weight Mike Titlow tries to thrust on it

because, as explained above, Lilly, 527 U.S. 116, is a Confrontation Clause case and has no 

holding under the Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court has specifically directed that Section 

2254(d)(1) “does not require state courts to extend [Supreme Court] precedent or license federal 

courts to treat the failure to do so as error.” White, 572 U.S. at 426. It was not an unreasonable 

application of, or contrary to, Lilly for the California Court of Appeal to decline to extend that 

Confrontation Clause case to the very novel context of imposing a duty on states to incorporate a 

presumption of unreliability in accomplice hearsay as a matter of due process.

Mike Titlow also attempts to turn a state law violation into a federal due process violation 

by asserting that he had a due process right to have the state court follow state law. Docket No. 1 

at 67. His claim rests on a general statement in Hicks v. Oklahoma, 447 U.S. 343 (1980), that he 

contends imposes a federal constitutional duty on state courts to comply with state laws. It is 

necessary to look at the particular problem at issue in Hicks to understand the limited value of that 

case for habeas petitioners trying to use it as the basis of a due process claim. 

The Supreme Court observed in Hicks that a failure to follow state law might implicate the 

criminal defendant’s federal right to due process. Id. at 346. In Hicks, Oklahoma law provided 

that a convicted defendant was entitled to have his punishment fixed by the jury. Hicks’ jury had 

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been instructed, in accordance with a habitual offender statute then in effect, that the jury had to 

assess the punishment at 40 years’ imprisonment if it found defendant guilty. See Hicks, 447 U.S. 

at 344-45. The jury followed the instruction, imposing the mandatory 40-year term when it 

returned a guilty verdict. Id. at 345. Later, the Oklahoma habitual offender statute was declared 

unconstitutional in a separate case, and that led Hicks to try to set aside his sentence. The state 

appellate court rejected Hicks’ effort to have his sentence set aside, reasoning that he was not 

prejudiced by the impact of the unconstitutional habitual offender statute because his sentence was 

within the range of punishment that could have been imposed. Id. The U.S. Supreme Court 

determined that this analysis was erroneous. The Court explained that a convicted defendant was 

entitled under Oklahoma law to have his punishment fixed by the jury and that, without the 

unconstitutional statute, the jury could have imposed any sentence of not less than ten years, so it 

was incorrect to say that the instruction that directed a 40-year sentence did not prejudice the 

defendant. Id. at 345-46. The Court next rejected the argument that this was only a state law 

error: “It is argued that all that is involved in this case is the denial of a procedural right of 

exclusively state concern. Where, however, a State has provided for the imposition of criminal 

punishment in the discretion of the trial jury, it is not correct to say that the defendant’s interest in 

the exercise of that discretion is merely a matter of a state procedural law. The defendant in such a 

case has a substantial and legitimate expectation that he will be deprived of his liberty only to the 

extent determined by the jury in the exercise of its statutory discretion, and that liberty interest is 

one that the Fourteenth Amendment preserves against arbitrary deprivation by the State.” Id. at 

346 (citation omitted).

It is extremely doubtful that Hicks could support habeas relief for the sort of alleged error 

that occurred here. To do so would require extending Hicks from the sentencing context to the 

entirely different context of the admission of hearsay evidence at trial. A state court’s failure to 

extend a Supreme Court rule to a new context does not support relief under § 2254(d)(1). White,

572 U.S. at 426.

Even assuming arguendo that Hicks provides clearly established federal law from the U.S. 

Supreme Court that a criminal defendant’s federal right to due process rights is violated by the 

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state court’s failure to follow state law, Mike Titlow’s claim fails because the California Court of 

Appeal determined that there was not a failure to follow state law, i.e., it held that the statements 

were properly admitted under California’s hearsay rule. A state court’s interpretation of state law, 

including one announced on direct appeal of the challenged conviction, binds a federal court 

sitting in habeas corpus. Bradshaw v. Richey, 546 U.S. 74, 76 (2005). This court is bound by the 

California Court of Appeal’s determination that the evidence was properly admitted under 

California law. There was no Hicks-type due process violation because there was no failure to 

follow state law.

Ultimately, Mike Titlow’s claim is just an attempt to make a state law claim into a federal 

one simply by labeling it a “due process” violation. That will not work because a litigant cannot 

“transform a state-law issue into a federal one merely by asserting a violation of due process.” See 

Langford v. Day, 110 F.3d 1380, 1389 (9th Cir. 1996). That is just what Mike Titlow has 

attempted to do with his claim that hearsay evidence was improperly admitted because the trial 

court failed to correctly apply California Evidence Code section 1230. To the extent his claim is 

one for state law error, it must be rejected because a state law error cannot be the basis for federal 

habeas relief. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67 (1991) (“We have stated many times that 

‘federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law.”).

Finally, Mike Titlow argues that the trial court made an unreasonable determination of the 

facts in determining that Chuck Titlow made his statements to his “closest friends,” when in fact 

some of the people in the garage were new acquaintances. See Docket No. 1 at 73-74. This 

argument does not aid him because the alleged discrepancy does not make any difference for his 

federal constitutional claims. With regard to the Confrontation Clause claim, the evidence would 

be testimonial (and covered by the Confrontation Clause) only if the statements were made in 

response to “questioning, ‘the primary purpose of [which was] to establish or prove past events 

potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution,’” or “functionally identical to live, in-court 

testimony,’ ‘made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact’ at trial.” Lucero, 902 F.3d 

at 989 (alteration in original). Given the complete absence of evidence that the people in the 

garage were affiliated with law enforcement, it matters not whether those people were his closest 

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friends or merely new acquaintances because his statements were not made to police or to anyone 

aligned with the police and were not made to aid in the prosecution. With regard to the Due 

Process Clause claim, the status of the listeners does not drive the analysis of whether the 

admission of the evidence violated the criminal defendant’s federal constitutional right to due 

process. With regard to the due process claim based on the alleged failure to follow state law, the 

California Court of Appeal found that state law was complied with because the statements were 

admissible in that they were made in a “noncoercive setting among friends, not an interrogation,” 

even if the audience was not comprised of just his closest friends. People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 

5121799, *14. 

Mike Titlow is not entitled to the writ on his claims that the admission of Chuck Titlow’s 

statements violated his right to due process. 

B. Admission of Mr. Horn’s Testimony About the “Plan” To Kill Mr. Colina

Mike Titlow urges that his right to due process was violated when the trial court 

erroneously admitted evidence of Mr. Horn’s statement that Chuck Titlow said that Mike Titlow

had a “plan” to shoot Mr. Colina. Docket No. 1 at 82. Mike Titlow argues that the statements 

should not have been admitted “because they were hearsay statements not subject to an 

exception.” Id. 

The California Court of Appeal rejected his challenge to the admission of the evidence. 

The appellate court discussed only the state hearsay questions, and concluded that the evidence 

was admitted properly under the California Evidence Code See People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 

5121799, *15-16. 

Because there is no reasoned state court decision on the federal constitutional claim, this 

Court “must determine what arguments or theories supported or . . . could have supported the state 

court’s decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that 

those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision” of the U.S. 

Supreme Court. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. at 102. 

In this claim, Mike Titlow again attempts to turn a state law violation into a federal due 

process violation by asserting that he had a due process right to have the state court follow state 

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law. Docket No. 1 at 83 (citing Hicks v. Oklahoma, 447 U.S. 343 (1980)). This claim is rejected 

for the same reasons that this Court rejected his similar claim about Chuck Titlow’s statements

identifying Mike Titlow as the shooter, discussed in Section A.3.b.3, above. The reasoning will be 

presented only briefly because it is the same as in Section A.3.b.3. 

The Supreme Court observed in Hicks that a failure to follow state law might implicate the 

criminal defendant’s federal right to due process. Id. at 346. It is extremely doubtful that Hicks

could support habeas relief for the sort of alleged error that occurred here because doing so would 

require extending Hicks from the sentencing context to the entirely different context of the 

admission of hearsay evidence at trial. The state court’s failure to extend a Supreme Court rule to 

a new context does not support relief under § 2254(d)(1). White, 572 U.S. at 426.

Even assuming arguendo that Hicks provides clearly established federal law from the U.S. 

Supreme Court that a criminal defendant’s federal right to due process rights is violated by the 

state court’s failure to follow state law, Mike Titlow’s claim fails because the California Court of 

Appeal determined that there was not a failure to follow state law, i.e., it held that the evidence 

properly was admitted under California’s hearsay rule. A state court’s interpretation of state law, 

including one announced on direct appeal of the challenged conviction, binds a federal court 

sitting in habeas corpus. Bradshaw, 546 U.S. at 76. This court is bound by the California Court 

of Appeal’s determination that the evidence was properly admitted under California law. There 

was no Hicks-type due process violation because there was no failure to follow state law.

Finally, insofar as Mike Titlow seeks relief on the ground that there was a state law error, 

the claim fails because federal habeas relief is not available for state law errors. See Estelle v. 

McGuire, 502 U.S. at 67. Mike Titlow is not entitled to the writ on his claim that the admission of 

Mr. Horn’s testimony about a plan to kill Mr. Colina violated due process. 

C. Prosecutorial Misconduct

Mike Titlow asserts that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by making certain 

comments during closing argument. The California Court of Appeal rejected his prosecutorial 

misconduct claim in a reasoned decision. (The particular errors alleged and the state appellate 

court’s analysis will be discussed in detail below.)

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As the last reasoned decision from a state court, the California Court of Appeal’s decision 

is the decision to which § 2254(d) is applied. See Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1192. Mike Titlow is 

entitled to habeas relief only if the California Court of Appeal’s decision was contrary to, or an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law from the U.S. Supreme Court, or was 

based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. 

The appropriate standard of review for a prosecutorial misconduct claim in a federal 

habeas corpus action is the narrow one of due process and not the broad exercise of supervisory 

power. Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986) (“it ‘is not enough that the prosecutors’ 

remarks were undesirable or even universally condemned’”); Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 219 

(1982) (“the touchstone of due process analysis in cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct is the 

fairness of the trial, not the culpability of the prosecutor.”). Under Darden, the inquiry is whether 

the prosecutor’s behavior or remarks were improper and, if so, whether they infected the trial with 

unfairness. Tan v. Runnels, 413 F.3d 1101, 1112 (9th Cir. 2005). The “Darden standard is a very 

general one, leaving courts ‘more leeway . . . in reaching outcomes in case-by-case 

determinations.’” Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. 37, 48 (2012) (omission in original) (quoting 

Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). 

1. Prosecutor Mentions Victim’s Family In The Courtroom

Mike Titlow argues that the following comment by the prosecutor was misconduct because 

it: (a) mentioned the victim’s family in the courtroom after the trial court had ruled that the 

attorneys were not to mention the family, and (b) “denigrat[ed] defense counsel as insensitive 

toward Colina’s family in the courtroom.” Docket No. 1 at 88. The comment in question was the 

following: 

You know, both defense attorneys started their arguments saying 

that the murder of Ricardo Colina was senseless, beyond senseless. 

And then they both turned, and I frankly I do not understand this, 

and looked at the Colina family, at Ricardo’s mom, his dad, his 

aunts, his uncle, and had the nerve to talk about their pain. 

Ricardo’s attacked in the courtroom, accused of having a gun. 

Really? [¶] They have to sit and watch these defense attorneys 

attack their child that they poured their heart and soul into raising --.

RT 3627. Chuck Titlow’s attorney objected that the argument appealed to the passions, prejudices 

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and sympathies of the jurors. RT 3627. The trial court responded that the court had “instructed 

the jury that sympathy and passion are not to be considered as factors in this case.” Id. 

The California Court of Appeal rejected the prosecutorial misconduct claim. That court 

correctly identified the applicable federal constitutional standard: “The applicable federal and 

state standards regarding prosecutorial misconduct are well established. A prosecutor's . . . 

intemperate behavior violates the federal Constitution when it comprises a pattern of conduct so 

egregious that it infects the trial with such unfairness as to make the conviction a denial of due 

process.” People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *17 (omission in original) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

The state appellate court explained that the trial court had granted a pretrial defense request 

to preclude the prosecutor from referring to the victim’s family and friends, including those in the 

gallery. Id. at *18. The prosecutor did not mention the family in her closing argument, but then 

both defense attorneys referred to the victim’s family in their closing argument, stating that the 

victim’s death must have caused significant pain and suffering for the family. Id. at 18 & n.8. In 

her rebuttal argument, the prosecutor made the challenged comment quoted above. 

The California Court of Appeal found there was no constitutional violation:

“‘[W]e view the prosecutor's comments in relation to the remarks of 

defense counsel, and inquire whether the former constitutes a fair 

response to the latter.’” (People v. Pearson (2013) 56 Cal.4th 393, 

431–432.) Given that the prosecutor's argument was a response to 

comments made by both defense attorneys, we cannot say her 

reference to Colina's family was deceptive or reprehensible. The 

prosecutor's comment that the defense attorneys “had the nerve to 

talk about [the Colina's] pain” was extremely brief and not 

reprehensible or unduly inflammatory. It would not have prejudiced 

the defendants especially in light of the trial court's immediate 

reminder that “sympathy and passion are not to be considered as 

factors in this case.”

Id. at *18 (alternations in original).

The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of this claim was not contrary to or an 

unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

A prosecutor’s comment in rebuttal “must be evaluated in light of the defense argument that 

preceded it.” Darden, 477 U.S. at 179. “Criticism of defense theories and tactics is a proper 

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subject of closing argument.” United States v. Sayetsitty, 107 F.3d 1405, 1409 (9th Cir. 1997); cf. 

United States v. Frederick, 78 F.3d 1370, 1379-80 (9th Cir. 1996) (prosecutor's back-handed 

compliment to defense lawyer for confusing witness, which appeared to imply that his methods 

were somewhat underhanded and designed to prevent truth from coming out, was improper but not 

alone reversible error). Here, the prosecutor’s comment suggested the defense was false in its 

attempt to show sympathy with the victim’s family when defense counsel had faced the family and 

made certain comments that appeared sympathetic to the victim’s family. Before the prosecutor 

made her challenged comment, Mike Titlow’s attorney had argued that he (i.e., Mike Titlow’s 

attorney) “cannot even begin to imagine the pain, the frustration, the emotional rollercoaster that 

Mr. and Mrs. Colina are going through at the loss of their son” and Chuck Titlow’s attorney had 

told the jurors that they might have an “automatic response . . . to want to bring comfort to the 

family, to the parents, to gratify the parents.” RT 3497, 3537. The prosecutor indicated that the 

two defense attorneys had faced the victim’s family in the gallery as they began their closing 

argument with their purportedly sympathetic comments, see RT 3627, and Mike Titlow does not 

disagree that the defense attorneys had turned to face the victim’s family when making their 

comments. The fact that the prosecutor’s comment contravened the court’s order not to mention 

the family does not clearly establish a due process violation, particularly given that the comment 

was made in response to the efforts of defense counsel efforts to show sympathy to the victim’s 

family in the courtroom.6See Darden, 477 U.S. at 181-82.

The California Court of Appeal reasonably determined that this comment by the prosecutor 

did not make the trial fundamentally unfair. The comment reasonably was viewed as a fair 

response to defense counsels’ comments and conduct that preceded the prosecutor’s comment, and 

the trial court promptly reminded the jurors that “sympathy and passion are not to be considered as 

factors in this case.” It was not an unreasonable application of Darden for the California Court of 

Appeal to reject this prosecutorial misconduct claim.

 

6

In ruling that there should not be a mention of the victim’s family, the court stated: “I don’t think 

there’s any – there isn’t generally a need to identify the family members in court. [¶] If there’s a 

reason to do so, we can talk about it. I’m going [to] grant the reference [sic] to family members in 

court unless there’s a specific need to do so.” RT 1076. 

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2. Comment On Voluntary Manslaughter

Mike Titlow argues that the prosecutor misstated the law of voluntary manslaughter in her 

discussion of voluntary manslaughter based on an unreasonable defense of another. 

The prosecutor argued: 

It has to be imminent danger that has to be dealt with at that 

moment. And it has to be deadly force. It can’t be an assault with 

fists to justify the use of a gun. [¶] So there’s just absolutely no 

evidence in this case to support that conclusion. The only thing 

that’s even around Ricardo Colina after he’s killed is his red cell 

phone.

RT 3484-85. 

Mike Titlow contends that this misstates the law because the “danger does not have to be 

deadly force, it can be imminent great bodily injury. Also, fists can create the provocation that 

would justify the use of deadly force.” Docket No. 1 at 100-01 (citations omitted). 

The California Court of Appeal rejected this claim of prosecutorial misconduct. The court 

found that the claim had been forfeited because counsel had failed to raise a timely objection and 

request an admonition.” People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *20. The court also rejected 

Mike Titlow’s effort to blame his attorney for the default created by the failure to object. 

“[D]eciding whether to object is inherently tactical, and the failure 

to object will rarely establish ineffective assistance.” (People v. 

Maury (2003) 30 Cal.4th 342, 419.) Mike now argues the 

prosecutor misstated the law because “a blow with the fist may be 

sufficient to justify the use of deadly force.” At trial, however, 

Mike's attorney may have decided that objection was unnecessary 

because Mike's theory of unreasonable defense of others was not 

based on a belief that Chuck was in imminent peril from Colina 

using his fists. Rather, the defense theory may have been that Mike 

shot Colina because he had an honest but unreasonable belief that 

Colina was armed.

Further, any error was harmless. The jury was properly instructed 

on unreasonable defense of another. The court also instructed, “If 

anything concerning the law said by the attorneys in their arguments 

or any other time during the trial conflicts with my instructions on 

the law, you must follow my instructions.” “When argument runs 

counter to instructions given a jury, we will ordinarily conclude that 

the jury followed the latter and disregarded the former, for ‘[w]e 

presume that jurors treat the court's instructions as a statement of the 

law by a judge, and the prosecutor's comments as words spoken by 

an advocate in an attempt to persuade.’” (People v. Osband (1996) 

13 Cal.4th 622, 717.)

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People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *20 (alterations in original).

Under the instructions given, a killing would be voluntary manslaughter rather than murder 

if the killing occurred “in the actual but unreasonable belief in the necessity to defend another 

person against imminent peril to life or great bodily injury.” CT 653 (CALJIC 8.40); see also CT 

657 (CALJIC 5.17 (“A person who kills another person in the actual but unreasonable belief in the 

necessity to defend his son against imminent peril to life or great bodily injury, kills unlawfully 

but does not harbor malice aforethought and is not guilty of murder.”). The prosecutor’s argument 

regarding voluntary manslaughter based on an unreasonable defense of another was legally 

incorrect because she said that only “deadly force” and not “an assault with fists” could support 

voluntary manslaughter. RT 3484. Under CALJIC 8.40, an assault with fists could support 

voluntary manslaughter if that assault with fists amounted to deadly force or if Chuck Titlow was 

in imminent peril of death or great bodily injury.

Here, the misstatement of law was on a point that was not critical to the defense; indeed, 

Mike Titlow did not even argue unreasonable defense of others in his closing argument. Instead, 

he tried to cast doubt that he or his truck were even present or that the gunshot wound could have 

been inflicted from a weapon fired from inside his truck. Mike Titlow did not argue that he shot 

the victim upon perceiving a threat of great bodily harm or death to Chuck Titlow. The evidence 

showed that Mr. Colina had only struck a blow over Chuck Titlow’s eye with his fist, and had 

done so only after Chuck Titlow had chased him. The evidence was that Chuck Titlow was the 

aggressor in the fight and had summoned several friends (who were present or en route) to help 

him if he got into difficulty when he went to fight Mr. Colina. As the prosecutor argued, there 

was no shortage of muscle power available from his friends if Chuck Titlow got into trouble with 

the man he chased down. Chuck Titlow went to the location for the purpose of getting in a fight 

with Mr. Colina, and Mike Titlow had brought a gun to that location for the fight. As the 

prosecutor pointed out, there was nothing in the victim’s hands when he was shot and the jury had 

“heard nothing in this case about Mike Titlow perhaps saying after the killing, ‘Oh, my goodness. 

I thought Chuck was going to be killed and so I had to act immediately.’” RT 3484. 

The prosecutor’s misstatement was harmless error at most, as the California Court of 

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Appeal reasonably determined. “[A]rguments of counsel generally carry less weight with a jury 

than do instructions from the court. The former are usually billed in advance to the jury as matters 

of argument, not evidence, and are likely viewed as the statements of advocates,” whereas the 

latter “are viewed as definitive and binding statements of the law.” Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 

370, 384 (1990) (citation omitted). Here, the trial court instructed the jury on voluntary 

manslaughter, CT 653, 657, and those instructions are unchallenged. The court also instructed the 

jury that it “must accept and follow the law” as stated by the court; “[i]f anything concerning the 

law said by the attorneys in their arguments or at any other time during the trial conflicts with my 

instructions, you must follow my instructions.” CT 586. Mike Titlow has provided no reason to 

depart from the normal presumption that jurors follow the court's instructions. See Francis v. 

Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 324 n.9 (1985). He is not entitled to relief on this prosecutorial 

misconduct claim.

3. Argument About Mr. Stonebraker

Mike Titlow argues that the prosecutor committed misconduct by arguing that Mr. 

Stonebraker implied that Mike Titlow was the shooter. 

In her closing argument, the prosecutor reviewed several witnesses’ statements and urged 

that the Titlows had conspired to intimidate witnesses. She discussed Messrs. Petruzzelli, Nazari 

and Milhollin, and then turned her attention to Mr. Stonebraker. The following argument and 

objections took place: 

[THE PROSECUTOR:] Justin Stonebraker, who goes to – he has 

started to tell the truth, and when he’s confronted with, “Who was 

out there with you guys?” he won’t even say Mike Titlow’s name. 

[¶] He goes through this elaborate detail with Detective Meth, 

“What’s your name?” [¶] “Mike. [¶] Okay. And we’re repeating 

Mike Meth –

MS. CLARK [COUNSEL FOR MIKE TITLOW]: I’m going to 

object. I don’t believe there’s any testimony about that in the 

record.

MS. MONT [COUNSEL FOR CHUCK TITLOW]: Join.

MS. CLARK: Assumes facts not in evidence.

THE COURT: I don’t recall that portion of the recordings being 

made, do you?

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[THE PROSECUTOR:] Oh, we didn’t play his interview, but he 

testified to his interview.

MS. CLARK: Your Honor, I’m going to object. I don’t believe that 

there was any testimony or recordings played regarding this portion 

of Ms. Knox’s closing.

MS. MONT: I will join.

THE COURT: Okay. It’s the jury’s recollection of what the 

testimony was, and whether any argument by counsel is supported 

by the evidence that your heard. So that will be the jury’s call.

[THE PROSECUTOR:] And writing the name Mike Titlow and 

then tearing up the note into little tiny pieces –

MS. CLARK: Your Honor, my objection is continuing just for the 

record.

THE COURT: Okay.

MS. MONT: There was no evidence of this, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Again, that’s going to be for the jury to decide.

RT 3475-76.

The California Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the foregoing showed 

prosecutorial misconduct and found instead that it appeared to be innocent misrecollection by the 

prosecutor as to which witness had made the statements:

Mike claims the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by misstating the 

evidence, and the trial court compounded the error by suggesting 

there was evidence the jury did not see that supported the 

prosecutor's statement. It appears, however, that the prosecutor was 

simply mistaken about which witness had gone into “elaborate 

detail” to avoid saying Mike's name. Milhollin's taped interview 

showed that, when Meth asked him who could have done it, he 

responded “I forgot your name,” and Meth said, “Mike.” Milhollin 

also referred to writing it down on a piece of paper. Under these 

circumstances, the prosecutor's mistaken reference to Stonebraker 

rather than Milhollin did not constitute deceptive or reprehensible 

methods, and, further, her misstatement was harmless. As the 

Attorney General argues, the challenged comments did not cause 

unfairness because evidence showed that a witness behaved in the 

manner described by the prosecutor.

People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *19.

The California Court of Appeal did not unreasonably apply Darden in determining that this 

statement by the prosecutor did not render the trial fundamentally unfair. As the state appellate 

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court noted, the prosecutor simply mixed up the witness to whom the evidence pertained. The 

prosecutor may have been wrong about which witness named Mike Titlow in the manner she 

described, but there was a witness who did identify him this way, i.e., by indirectly naming him 

and by writing his name down on a piece of paper. Giving the wrong name for this witness – i.e., 

saying it was Mr. Stonebraker when in fact it was Mr. Milhollin – did not cause fundamental 

unfairness at the trial. It was not an unreasonable application of clearly established law from the 

Supreme Court for the California Court of Appeal to conclude that the mistaken reference to Mr. 

Stonebraker rather than Mr. Milhollin did not violate due process. 

4. Argument About Chuck Titlow’s Statement to Mr. Nazari

Mike Titlow argues that the prosecutor misstated the facts when she argued that Chuck 

Titlow told Mr. Nazari that he (Chuck Titlow) had found the “two black guys” who pulled the gun 

on him. RT 3609. 

The California Court of Appeal rejected the prosecutorial misconduct claim, first 

explaining what had transpired, and then concluding that the prosecutor had promptly corrected 

her misstatement. 

In rebuttal, the prosecutor argued, “Chuck Titlow told Kareem 

Nazari, ‘The two black guys that I saw walk in Tara Hills that pulled 

a gun on me, I found them.’ [¶] If you have any question about 

that, please have Kareem Nazari's interview—” Chuck's attorney 

objected that “Chuck never called Kareem.” The trial court stated, 

“Again, I'm going to—I'm going to have to defer to the jury to make 

the findings in this case.”

The prosecutor corrected herself: “Kareem Nazari talked to Chuck 

Titlow on Tuesday before Ricardo's murder on Wednesday. [¶] 

Kareem Nazari talked to him, and Chuck told him that two black 

guys had pulled a gun on him.” There was no objection. 

Mike asserts the prosecutor misstated the facts and introduced “a 

racial overtone into the case that was not present in the evidence.” 

Following Chuck's objection, however, the prosecutor correctly 

described what Chuck told Nazari the day before the shooting,10 and 

her argument was fair comment on the evidence. There was no error.

[Footnote 10:] In an excerpt of Nazari’s August 26, 2009, 

interview, he said that Milhollin told him, “We got to go, 

Charles is about to fight at Nation’s” Meth asked what his

understanding was of who Chuck was going to fight. Nazari 

answered, “All I know it was two black kids that live in Tara 

Hills.” Meth asked, “When did you hear that?” Nazari 

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answered, “Tuesday night he told me about it.” He 

confirmed it was Chuck who told him about the road rage 

incident.

People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *19.

The California Court of Appeal’s rejection of this claim was not an unreasonable

application of clearly established law from the U.S. Supreme Court. When defense counsel 

objected that “Chuck never called Kareem” in response to the prosecutor’s argument that Chuck 

Titlow told Mr. Nazari that he was going to fight two black kids that lived in Tara Hills, the 

prosecutor changed her wording slightly and urged that the two had talked the day before the 

murder, and that Chuck Titlow had told Mr. Nazari “that two black guys had pulled a gun on 

him.” RT 3609. This was a fair comment on the evidence, which was that Mr. Nazari had been 

asked what was his “understanding of who Charles was supposed to fight prior to you going?” and 

Mr. Nazari responded, “All I know is it was two black kids that live in Tara Hills.” CT 1197-98. 

Mr. Nazari also told the detective that Chuck Titlow told him that on Tuesday night. The evidence 

lined up with the prosecutor’s argument. Contrary to Mike Titlow’s assertion, the prosecutor did 

not inject any race issue into the case when she identified the victim and his friend as “two black 

kids” because that was how they had been identified by Mr. Nazari. There was no due process 

violation, as the California Court of Appeal reasonably determined. 

5. Statement That Mike Titlow Hired A Lawyer For Others

Mike Titlow argues that the prosecutor argued facts not in evidence when she argued that 

Mike Titlow hired an attorney for two people involved in the case. 

The prosecutor argued that Mike Titlow had taken various steps after the crime to avoid 

being held responsible for the killing, such as crafting an alibi and fabricating a story to explain 

the gunshot residue in the truck’s cab. She also argued that Mike Titlow took steps to ensure that 

the witnesses did not speak against him. The prosecutor argued, among other things, that Mike 

Titlow told Mr. Milhollin to “take this to [his] grave” the information he had about the shooting. 

RT 3455. Then the prosecutor said: 

So now he has Richie under control. He’s hired a lawyer to 

represent both Kellen and Chuck Titlow in custody. [¶] And while 

it may not be immediately obvious to lay people, he’s hired a lawyer 

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to represent his son and Kellen Horn. Interesting. [¶] He doesn’t 

hire him to represent himself. He hires them to represent Chuck and 

Kellen so that he’ll have access to the investigation as it unfolds so 

he’ll know whether or not Chuck and Kellen are talking. 

RT 3455.

The California Court of Appeal rejected this claim of prosecutorial misconduct. That court

found that Mike Titlow had “forfeited any challenge to the prosecutor's statement because his 

attorney failed to object and request an admonition.” People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *19. 

Further, the court determined that, even if the claim was not forfeited, there was no prejudice from 

the argument because of the jury instructions. “The trial court instructed the jury to ‘determine 

what facts have been proved from the evidence received in the trial and not from any other 

source.’ (CALJIC No. 1.00) The jury was also told, ‘Statements made by the attorneys during 

trial are not evidence.’ (CALJIC No. 1.02). We presume the jury followed these instructions.” 

People v. Titlow, 2016 WL 5121799, at *20.

The prosecutor’s statement did not make the trial fundamentally unfair. The prosecutor 

suggested to the jury that Mike Titlow was paying for lawyers for his son and Kellen Horn so he 

could keep track of any developments that might be adverse to him (i.e., Mike Titlow). Mr. Horn 

testified that Mike Titlow had offered to provide an attorney for Mr. Horn and Chuck Titlow, 

although he did not testify that an attorney actually was hired. Mr. Horn had testified: “I think 

Mike may have said something about us having a lawyer, or his lawyer would help us out if need 

be. . . . He never said that he was getting one. He said that if we needed one that there was one 

that he could get.” RT 1697. The prosecutor’s point was that Mike Titlow was doing things to 

protect himself – either by keeping witnesses quiet or by learning what they were saying to police. 

It was a fair inference that that goal would be promoted by hiring an attorney to represent potential 

codefendants, as well as by offering to hire an attorney for them or offering to share an attorney 

with them. “The prosecutor may argue reasonable inferences from the evidence presented.” 

Menendez v. Terhune, 422 F.3d 1012, 1037 (9th Cir. 2005). The prosecutor’s misstatement that an 

attorney actually was hired was a minor inaccuracy – Mr. Horn testified Mike Titlow offered to 

get him a lawyer, not that Mike had actually hired one – that did not make the trial fundamentally 

unfair. A misstatement of fact in the prosecutor’s closing argument will not violate due process if 

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it is minor or ambiguous and the jury has been instructed that arguments by attorneys are not 

evidence. Trillo v. Biter, 769 F.3d 995, 999-1000 (9th Cir. 2014). Mike Titlow is not entitled to 

habeas relief on this claim. 

D. Cumulative Error Claim

In some cases, although no single trial error is sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal, 

the cumulative effect of several constitutional errors may still prejudice a defendant so much that 

his conviction must be overturned. See Alcala v. Woodford, 334 F.3d 862, 893–95 (9th Cir. 2003) 

(reversing conviction where multiple constitutional errors hindered defendant's efforts to challenge 

every important element of proof offered by prosecution). Here, there were not multiple federal 

constitutional trial errors to accumulate. Mike Titlow therefore is not entitled to relief under the 

cumulative error doctrine.

E. No Certificate of Appealability

A certificate of appealability will not issue. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c). This is not a case in 

which “reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims 

debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). Accordingly, a certificate of 

appealability is DENIED. 

VI. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for writ of habeas corpus is DENIED on the merits. 

The clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 1, 2019

______________________________________

EDWARD M. CHEN

United States District Judge

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