Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-00514/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-00514-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Dang Liem
Petitioner
Kathy Mendoza-Powers
Respondent

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DANG LIEM,

 Petitioner,

 v.

KATHY MENDOZA-POWERS, Warden, 

 Respondent.

 /

No. C 05-0514 CW

ORDER DENYING

PETITION FOR WRIT

OF HABEAS CORPUS

Petitioner Dang Liem (Dang), an inmate incarcerated at Avenal

State Prison in Avenal, California, petitions for a writ of habeas

corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Respondent Kathy Mendoza-Powers,

warden of Avenal State Prison, opposes the petition. Petitioner

did not file a traverse. The Court DENIES Dang's petition for a

writ of habeas corpus.

BACKGROUND

 On October 1, 2001, Dang was charged by information with two

counts of aggravated sexual assault on a child in violation of

California Penal Code § 269 and one count of committing a forcible

lewd or lascivious act on a child in violation of California Penal

Code § 288(b)(1). Clerk's Transcript (C.T.) 77. On May 2, 2002, a

jury found Dang guilty on the § 288(b)(1) charge and not guilty on

the § 269(a)(2) charge of rape of a child. The jury could not

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reach a verdict on the remaining § 269 charge. C.T. 246-49. Dang

was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. The California Court of

Appeal affirmed the conviction in an unpublished written opinion on

October 16, 2003, and the California Supreme Court denied Dang's

petition for review on January 14, 2004. Dang did not seek other

state post-conviction relief. He filed his federal habeas corpus

petition on January 7, 2005.

The following facts are taken from the California Court of

Appeal's unpublished opinion ruling on Dang's Direct Appeal. 

At the time of the events alleged in the

information (July through October 1998) the victim was

six years old. Victim's father and mother were

divorced. Victim lived with her mother during the week

and stayed with her father on the weekends.

Defendant was victim's father's cousin's husband,

although victim referred to him as her uncle. During

the relevant time period defendant and his wife lived in

the second-floor bedroom of a two-story house. They

rented the rest of the house to other people. Victim's

father rented the converted garage. Defendant moved out

of the upstairs bedroom in 1999 and thereafter stayed at

the house off and on, sleeping on the couch in the

living room whenever he did so. 

On January 6, 2000 victim told her mother that

sometimes when she visited her father's house defendant

would try to put his 'weewee' in her 'weewee.' Victim

said that she was really scared and did not want to go

to her father's house because 'she was threatened.' 

Victim's mother called the police department and Officer

Cassondra Lansberry arrived and interviewed victim.

Victim explained to Lansberry that sometimes when

she was visiting her father he would be called in to

work. On those occasions he left victim in the care of

defendant. Victim said that whenever this happened

defendant 'tricked' her by calling her upstairs to his

bedroom to play a video game but when she went upstairs

defendant would put a 'suck movie' in the video player. 

Victim explained that a suck movie was one where the boy

did 'bad things' and put his 'dick' on the girl's

'thingy.' After the movie defendant would put his

'dick' on victim's 'thingy' then in her 'thingy.' 

Sometimes he would touch her genitals with his fingers. 

Sometimes the touching was over the clothes, sometimes

on her bare skin. She reported that the touching hurt,

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that it was hot and it burned, like hot water.

Officer James Hunt interviewed victim at the

children's interview center. The jury viewed the taped

interview during trial. In the course of the interview

victim repeated her allegation that defendant 'put the

dick on me' after he showed her the 'suck' movie. 

Victim again reported that her uncle had 'tricked' her

into coming up to his room and that this happened when

nobody else was home. Victim said she asked defendant,

'Uncle Liem, what the heck are you doing on me?' She

said that these things happened 'a lot.' Each time Hunt

encouraged the victim to explain what her uncle had done

to her she cried. When Hunt first asked victim to tell

him what defendant had done she began to sob and said

she did not want to talk about it. She then said 'If I

don't, if I don't get my mom back from me, how can I,

uh, what do, I want your umm, people to get my uncle,

because he's a bad bu-, guy.' When Hunt asked victim

why she was afraid of defendant victim responded, 'He's

gonna do the suck thing on me.'

Victim gave similar testimony at trial. She said

that when her father left her in defendant's care

defendant would call her up to his room to play video

games, that he would put '[b]ad movies' in the video

player, and that he would touch her 'private.' The

touching hurt and she did not like it. When defendant

played the video she covered her eyes and ran downstairs

and locked herself in her father's room.

Defendant told victim '[a] lot of times not to tell

anybody what he did to her. Victim was unable to say

what, if anything, would happen if she did tell. 

However, victim also testified that she did not reveal

defendant's conduct any sooner than she did because she

was 'scared that I was going to go away from my mom and

I cannot see her.' The reason victim finally chose to

reveal the conduct was because 'I couldn't stand it and

my head was like getting exploded and my face was

getting red. And when I tried to do my math I can't do

it and I keep on getting it wrong . . . I always hear my

teacher say when you have something that what happened

you cannot hold it you have to tell an adult.'

Victim's father's testimony established that he

indeed had left victim in defendant's care on several

occasions between July and October 1998. The sexual

assault examiner conducted a physical examination of

victim on January 10, 2000, a few days after victim

first disclosed the molestation and over a year after

the conduct is believed to have occurred. The examiner

could not find any definite physical evidence of

penetrating trauma but could not rule out the

possibility of sexual contact in the past.

 Respondent's Exhibit H at 2-4.

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1As Respondent notes, Petitioner does not include a factual

basis to support his claims. However, the Court assumes, as did

Respondent, that Petitioner intends to make the same arguments he

advanced on direct appeal before the state court.

2 Both prongs of § 2254(d)(1) apply to questions of law and

mixed questions of law and fact. Van Tran v. Lindsey, 212 F.3d

1143, 1150 (9th Cir. 2000), overruled on other grounds, Lockyer v.

Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 70-74 (2003).

4

Dang now challenges his conviction on two grounds, both of

which he raised in his state court appeal: (1) prosecutorial

misconduct which deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to

confrontation and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and

(2) insufficient evidence to sustain the conviction under Penal

Code § 288(b), in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.1

LEGAL STANDARD

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act

(AEDPA), a district court may grant a petition challenging a state

conviction or sentence on the basis of a claim that was reviewed on

the merits in state court only if 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;2 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). 

"Clearly established federal 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, 402-04, 412 (2000). A state court decision

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may not be overturned on habeas review simply because of a conflict

with circuit-based law. Duhaime v. Ducharme, 200 F.3d 597, 600

(9th Cir. 2000). However, circuit court decisions may be

persuasive authority to determine whether a particular state court

holding is an "unreasonable application" of Supreme Court precedent

or to assess what law is "clearly established." Id.; see also

Clark v. Murphy, 331 F.3d 1062, 1070-71 (9th Cir.), cert. denied,

124 S. Ct 446 (2003); Moore v. Calderon, 108 F.3d 261, 264 (9th

Cir. 1997).

A state court's decision is "contrary to" Supreme Court law if

the state court "arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached

by [the Supreme Court] on a question of law," or reaches a

different conclusion based on facts indistinguishable from a

Supreme Court case. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412-13. A state court's

decision constitutes an "unreasonable application" of Supreme Court

precedent if the state court "either (1) correctly identifies the

governing rule but then applies it to a new set of facts in a way

that is objectively unreasonable, or (2) extends or fails to extend

a clearly established legal principle to a new context in a way

that is objectively unreasonable." Id. at 407. An “unreasonable

application” of federal law is different from an incorrect or

erroneous application of federal law. Id. at 412. Accordingly, 

"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. The reasonableness inquiry under the

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“unreasonable application” clause is objective. Id. at 409. 

DISCUSSION

I. Prosecutorial Misconduct

A defendant's due process rights are violated when a

prosecutor's misconduct renders a trial "fundamentally unfair." 

Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986); Smith v. Phillips,

455 U.S. 209, 219 (1982). Claims of prosecutorial misconduct are

reviewed "on the merits, examining the entire proceedings to

determine whether the prosecutor's remarks so infected the trial

with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due

process." Johnson v. Sublett, 63 F.3d 926, 929 (9th Cir.)

(citation omitted), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1017 (1995). 

 A court may take into account the following factors in

determining whether misconduct rises to a level of a due process

violation: (1) the weight of evidence of guilt, United States v.

Young, 470 U.S. 1, 19 (1985); United States v. Schuler, 813 F.2d

978, 982 (9th Cir. 1987); (2) whether the misconduct was isolated

or part of an ongoing pattern, Lincoln v. Sunn, 807 F.2d 805, 809

(9th Cir. 1987); (3) whether the misconduct related to a critical

part of the case, Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154

(1972); and (4) whether a prosecutor's comment misstated or

manipulated the evidence, Darden, 477 U.S. at 182.

During cross-examination of one of the detectives who worked

on the case, defense counsel established that the officers never

searched the house where Dang and the victim's father lived or

entered any pornographic material into evidence. Reporter's

Transcript (R.T.) 96. During her closing argument, defense counsel

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again noted that no pornographic materials were ever recovered from

the home. R.T. at 464-65. In rebuttal, the prosecution argued,

"The police can't go out and just randomly search the houses. She

[defense counsel] knows that they need a search warrant." R.T.

507. Defense counsel objected, and the trial court overruled the

objection finding that the prosecution's argument was in response

to the defense's argument. Id. 

The prosecution went on to argue, 

I don't presume to be an expert in search warrants, one

of the requirements for an officer to get a search

warrant is that they have to have relatively recent

knowledge. They have to say, gee, within typically

about the last 10 days, fresh knowledge, we have reason

to believe we might find pornography there. In this

case . . . my recollection of the evidence is that the

defendant had long since moved out of the house. And he

may have left some belongings behind, but chances are he

knew what he'd been doing, he wasn't going to leave

behind pornography. It's the kind of thing[] you don't

advertise to other members of the household. You don't

leave it out in a public place. When he left he

probably would have taken it.

R.T. 507-08.

On appeal, Dang argued that this argument was inappropriate

because the prosecutor improperly asserted personal knowledge,

misrepresented the truth, improperly vouched for the victim's

credibility, and the prosecutor "in the guise of closing argument

told the jury what the testimony of an uncalled witness would have

been." Respondent's Exhibit C at 10-12. 

Dang argued that the prosecutor asserted personal knowledge

that the officers would not have been able to get a search warrant

and that they would not have found any pornography anyway. 

Similarly, Dang argued that the prosecutor misrepresented the truth

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by suggesting that it would have been difficult for the police to

obtain a warrant to search his home and inappropriately bolstered

the credibility of the victim's testimony by offering a reason that

no pornographic materials were introduced into evidence. The state

court rejected these arguments, finding that the prosecutor was

simply responding to defense counsel's argument and appropriately

offering an alternative explanation for why no pornographic

evidence had been entered into evidence. Prosecutors are given

significant leeway in their closing argument to offer alternate

theories of the evidence presented. See United States v.

Necoechea, 986 F.2d 1273, 1276 (9th Cir. 1993) ("Prosecutors must

have reasonable latitude to fashion closing arguments, and thus can

argue reasonable inferences based on the evidence."). 

Dang also argued that the prosecutor's closing was

inappropriate because it "told the jury what the testimony of an

uncalled witness would have been and violated [Dang's] Sixth and

Fourteenth Amendment rights to confront and cross-examine the

uncalled prosecution witness." Petitioner's Exhibit C at 12. 

However, the prosecutor did not assert that her argument was based

on any information that she had gleaned from an uncalled witness. 

As stated above, she only provided an alternate theory for the

defense's theory that the victim must have been lying about the

pornographic movies because the movies were never admitted into

evidence. This claim does not provide grounds for granting the

petition. 

II. Sufficiency of the Evidence

The Due Process Clause "protects the accused against

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conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every

fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." 

In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970). However, a federal court

reviewing a habeas petitioner's claim that the evidence was not

sufficient to support the state court conviction does not determine

whether it is satisfied that the evidence established guilt beyond

a reasonable doubt. Payne v. Borg, 982 F.2d 335, 338 (9th Cir.

1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 843 (1993). Rather, the federal

court "determines only whether, 'after viewing the evidence in the

light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact

could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a

reasonable doubt.'" See id. (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S.

307, 319 (1979)). Only if no rational trier of fact could have

found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is the evidence

insufficient to support the conviction. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at

324; Payne, 982 F.2d at 338; Miller v. Stagner, 757 F.2d 988, 992-

93 (9th Cir.), amended, 768 F.2d 1090 (9th Cir. 1985), cert.

denied, 475 U.S. 1048, and cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1049 (1986);

Bashor v. Risley, 730 F.2d 1228, 1239 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469

U.S. 838 (1984). 

Circumstantial evidence and inferences drawn from that

evidence may be sufficient to sustain a conviction. Walters v.

Maass, 45 F.3d 1355, 1358 (9th Cir. 1995). Moreover, if

confronted by a record that supports conflicting inferences, a

federal habeas court must presume that the trier of fact resolved

any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution and must defer to

that resolution. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326. 

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On direct appeal, Dang argued that there was insufficient

evidence to support his conviction under California Penal Code 

§ 288(b), which requires a finding that the lewd or lascivious act

was accomplished "by use of force, violence, duress, menace, or

fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or

another person." Cal. Penal Code § 288(b). The California courts

define "duress" as "a direct or implied threat of force, violence,

danger, hardship or retribution sufficient to coerce a reasonable

person of ordinary susceptibilities to (1) perform an act which

otherwise would not have been performed or, (2) acquiesce in an act

to which one otherwise would not have submitted." People v.

Schultz, 2 Cal. App. 4th 999, 1005 (1992). The totality of the

circumstances are considered, including the age of the victim, the

familial relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, and

the disparity in size between the victim and the perpetrator. 

People v. Cochran, 103 Cal. App. 4th 8, 14 (2002).

At the time of the offense, the victim was six years old, and

considered Dang to be her uncle. Dang was given authority over the

victim when she was left with him. The victim testified that she

was afraid of Dang and that he told her many times to keep secret

what happened in his room. She also testified that she feared

being taken from her mother if she told anybody what had happened.

The victim's mother testified that her daughter told her that she

didn't want to go to her father's house because she felt

"threatened." Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found that the

victim's acquiescence was due at least in part to an implied threat

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of force, violence, danger, hardship or retribution. This claim

does not provide grounds for granting the petition.

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, the Court DENIES Dang's petition for a

writ of habeas corpus. Judgment shall enter accordingly.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 4/20/07 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

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