NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ERIC WRIGHT, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

 v. 

KRISTIN K. MAYES,

* Attorney General for 

the State of Arizona, et al., 

Respondents-Appellees.

No. 22-15654 

D.C. No. 2:21-cv-01754-SPL 

MEMORANDUM**

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Steven Paul Logan, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 6, 2024

Phoenix, Arizona

Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and HAWKINS and JOHNSTONE, Circuit 

Judges.

Eric Wright appeals the district court’s order denying his habeas corpus 

petition, which argued that during his trial, the prosecutor improperly used a 

preemptory challenge in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). We 

* Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), Kristin K. 

Mayes is substituted for her predecessor, Mark Brnovich, as Attorney General for 

the State of Arizona. ** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

FILED

FEB 27 2024

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

While this court reviews de novo the district court’s denial of habeas corpus 

relief, Hoyos v. Davis, 51 F.4th 297, 305 (9th Cir. 2022), the standard of review 

applied by a federal habeas court to a state appellate court’s denial of relief 

depends on whether the claim was “adjudicated on the merits” by the state 

appellate court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). If a claim was not adjudicated on the merits, 

the federal habeas court applies de novo review. Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449, 472 

(2009). But if a claim was adjudicated on the merits, the Antiterrorism and 

Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) imposes a deferential standard of 

federal review. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

Here, the Arizona Court of Appeals adjudicated Mr. Wright’s Batson claim 

on the merits. When a petitioner presents a federal claim “to a state court and the 

state court has denied relief,” we presume 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). “This 

presumption applies even when the state court resolves the federal claim in a 

different manner or context than advanced by the petitioner so long as the state 

court ‘heard and evaluated the evidence and the parties’ substantive arguments.’” 

Patsalis v. Shinn, 47 F.4th 1092, 1098 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Johnson v. 

Williams, 568 U.S. 289, 302 (2013)), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 107 (2023). Here, 
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Mr. Wright argues the Arizona Court of Appeals inadvertently failed to address his 

actual claim. We disagree. The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a reasoned 

opinion specifically discussing and rejecting the substance of his Batson claim.

We therefore find that Mr. Wright has not sufficiently rebutted this presumption, 

and that the claim was adjudicated on the merits. 

Because the Arizona Court of Appeals adjudicated Mr. Wright’s claim on 

the merits, AEDPA imposes a deferential standard of review that requires federal 

courts to deny habeas relief unless the state court’s decision was (1) “contrary to, 

or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as 

determined by the Supreme Court,” or (2) “was based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); 

see also Sifuentes v. Brazelton, 825 F.3d 506, 517 (9th Cir. 2016). When the 

highly deferential AEDPA standard combines with the deference already afforded

“to the trial court’s determination of the prosecutor’s credibility” on direct review, 

“we end up with a standard of review that is ‘doubly deferential.’” Sifuentes, 825 

F.3d at 518 (quoting Briggs v. Grounds, 682 F.3d 1165, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012)). 

This standard is met when the record “compel[s] the conclusion that the trial court 

had no permissible alternative but to reject the prosecutor’s race-neutral 

justifications” and find a Batson violation. Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 341 

(2006); see also Briggs, 682 F.3d at 1170 (explaining that federal courts must 
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uphold the state court decision “unless the state appellate court was objectively 

unreasonable in concluding that a trial court’s credibility determination was 

supported by substantial evidence”). 

Here, Mr. Wright argues that the district court’s denial of habeas relief on 

his Batson claim was erroneous because it was based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts under Section 2254(d)(2). But Mr. Wright cannot 

overcome AEDPA’s high standard. The prosecutor proffered two race-neutral 

reasons for the strike. The trial court’s rejection of the Batson objection implicitly 

recognized that these reasons given by the prosecutor were not pretextual. While 

Mr. Wright has identified non-Black jurors who were not stricken, the record does 

not show that the comparator jurors were so similar to the stricken juror as to 

compel the conclusion that the trial court erred in overruling the Batson challenge. 

See Jamerson v. Runnels, 713 F.3d 1218, 1231 (9th Cir. 2013) (finding that the 

prosecutor’s “failure to exercise peremptory strikes against other non-black jurors 

who shared weak parallels with [the struck] juror . . . ultimately does little to 

undermine the stated justification”). The Arizona Court of Appeals engaged in a 

substantive analysis of the issue, and its decision was not based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). Therefore, the district 

court did not err in denying Mr. Wright’s habeas corpus petition. 

AFFIRMED.