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10- 0060- pr G ib b s v . D o n n e lly UN ITED STA TES C OU RT OF AP P EA LS F OR THE SE CO ND CI RC UI T 

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R U LI NGS BY S UM M ARY ORDE R DO NOT HAVE PR E CE DE NT I AL E FF E CT . CI T AT I ON TO A S UM M ARY OR D E R F I L E D ON OR A F T E R J A N U A R Y 1 , 2 0 0 7 , I S P E R M I T T E D A N D I S G OV E R N E D B Y F E D E R A L R U L E OF A PPELLA TE PRO C EDU R E 32 . 1 AN D TH I S C O U R T’ S LO C A L RUL E 3 2 . 1. 1. W H EN C I TI N G A S U M M A R Y O R D ER I N A D OC U M E N T F I L E D WI T H T HI S C OU R T , A P A R T Y M U S T C I T E E I T HE R T HE F E D E R A L A P P E N D I X OR AN E L E CT RONI C DAT ABAS E ( W I T H T HE NO T AT I ON “ S UM M ARY ORDE R” ) . A P ART Y CI T I NG A S UM M ARY O R D ER M U ST SERV E A C O PY O F I T O N AN Y PAR TY N O T REPR ESENTED BY CO U N SEL. 1 At a stated te rm of the United States Court of A ppeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 2 Daniel Patric k Moy nihan United States Courthouse, 500 Pear l Street, in the City of Ne w York, 3 on the 22 day

of Nove mber, two thousand a nd ten. nd 4 5 PRES ENT: 6 7 AMALYA L . KEARSE, 8 J OSEPH M. M C L AUGHL I N, 9 DEB RA ANN L I VI NGSTON, 10 11 Circuit Judges

. 12 13

_______________________________________________ 14 15 DOMI

NI C GI BB S, 16 17 Petitioner-Appellant , 18 19 v. No. 10-0060-pr 20 21 ED WARD DO NN EL L Y, Sup e ri nte nd e nt, 22 23 Respondent- Appellee

. 24

______________________________________________ 25 26 27 H I L L AR Y K. G RE EN , Fe dera l Publi c De fende r, B uffa lo, New 28 York, for Petitioner-Appellant

. 29 302 1 G EO F F R EY K AEUPER , Assistant District Attorney for 2 Monroe County , Michae l C. Green, D istrict Attorney for 3 Monroe County , Rochester , New Y ork, for Re sp on de nt4 Appellee

. 5 6 U PO N D U E CO N SI D E RA T I O N , it is h e r e b y O RD E RE D , A D JU D G E D , an d DECREED 7 that the judg ment of the district cour t be AF FI RMED. 8 Petitioner-Appellant Dominic Gibbs (“G ibbs”) appeals fr om a Dec ember 8, 2009 judgme nt 9 of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Arca ra, J. ), de nyinghis 10 petition for a wr it of habea s corpus, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Gibbs challeng es his conviction on one 11 count of sec ond deg ree (intentional) murde r, N.Y. Pena l L aw § § 2 0

. 0 0, 125.25(1), in Ne w York 1 2 S u

p r e m e C o urt , M o n r o e C o un ty. Gibbs was convic ted as a n acc omplice and se nten ce dto the 1 3 s tatuto r

y maxim u m t e r m o f 2 5 y e ar s to li f

e in p r is on. On direc t appea l, the Appellate D ivision 14 aff

irmed Gibbs’s convic tion on September 28, 2001, and the New Y ork Court of A p p ea ls denied 15 leave to appea l on J anuar y 15, 2002. People v . Gibbs , 286 A.D.2d 865 (N.Y. A pp. Div. 4th Dep’t 16 2001), lv. denied, 97 N.Y.2d 704 (N .Y. 2002). The dist ri ct court g rante d a Certific ate of 17 Ap pe a la

bil ity on the iss ue of

“ wh e the r t

he tr ia l c ourt ’s de nia l of a jur y ins tr uc tio n o n s e lf

-d e fe ns e 18 or j ustification amounted to a violation of petitioner’ s fede ral c onstitut ional rig hts.” We a ssume the 1 9 p art i e s ’ f

am i l i ar i ty w i thth e un d e r l yi n gf a c t s an d p r o c e d ur a l h i s t o r

y. 20 We r e vie w a dis tr ic t c ourt ’s de nia l of

a pe tit ion fo r h a be a s c or pu s de novo , and i t s fac tual 21 finding s for c lear err or. Hemstree t v. Greine r , 49 1 F .3 d 84 , 8 9 ( 2d Cir . 2 00 7) ; Anderson v. Miller , 22 34 6 F .3 d 3 15 , 3 24 (2 d Ci r. 20 03 ). B e c a us e Gi bb s c ha lle ng e s a c la im a dju dic ate d on the me ri ts i n 23 state court, we apply the defere ntial standard of revie w codified in the Antiterror ism and Effe ctive 24 Death Pena lty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) (“A EDPA”). Se e Do lph yv . M an te llo , 552 F.3d 236,3 1 23 8 ( 2d

Cir . 2 00 9) . U nd e r A ED PA, a fe de ra l c ourt

may g ra nt a wr it o f h a

bea s c or pu s to a state 2 prisoner on a claim that was adjudicate d on the merits in state cour t only if the state c ourt’s dec ision 3 was “ contra

ry to, or i n v o l v ed an unrea sonable a pplication of, cle arly

established F eder al law, a s 4 de te rm ine d b y

the Sup re me Court

of the Un ite d St ate s. ” 28 U. S.C. § 2 25 4( d) (1 ); Dolphy , 552 F.3d 5 at 238. The state court’s a pplication of clearly established law “must be objec tively unrea sonable,” 6 not merely

incorre ct or e rrone ous. Lockye r v. Andrade , 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003). The Supreme Court 7 has i nstructed that this is “a substantially highe r t hreshold” than mere err or. Schriro v. Landrigan , 8 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007). 9 Gibbs argues that the state tr ial court violated his due pr ocess r ights by denying him a jury 10 instruction on “vicar ious” justification. InCu p p v . Na ug

hten , 41 4 U. S. 1 41 (1 97 3) , th e Sup re me 11 Court held t hat a fede ral court may overturn a s tate court conviction on the ground of an er roneous 12 instruction only

wher e the instruction complaine d of “ s o i nfec ted the entire trial that the re sulting 13 conviction vi olates due pr ocess.” Id. at 147. Consistent with Cupp , we have held that “ [i ]n order 14 to obtain a writ of ha beas c orpus in fede ral c ourt on the g round of er ror in a state cour

t’s instructions 15 to the jury

on matters of state law, the petitioner must show not only that the instruction misstated 16 state l aw but also that the error viol ated a rig ht gua rante ed to him by

fede ral law .” Davis v. Strack, 1 7 2 7 0 F. 3 d 1 1 1 , 1 2 3 (2 d C i r. 2 0 0 1 ) ( qu o t i n g Cas illas v . S c ull y , 76 9 F .2 d 6 0, 63 (2 d Ci r. 19 85 )) ; see 18 also Blazic v. Hende rson , 900 F.2d 534, 541 ( 2d Cir. 1990) (“Amere err or of state law does not de ny 19 a def

endant his rig ht to due proce ss.”). 20 We note at the outset that both parties, a s w el l as t he state a nd district courts, conc ur that 21 there are no published case s sugg esting that a def endant c harg ed as an acc omplice under New Y ork 22 law may

claim self- defe nse whe re the alleg ed princ ipal applied dead l y p h y s ical for ce. Even4 1 a ssumin gthat st ate law e nti tle d Gi bb s to a “ vic ari ou s” jus tif ic atio n ins tr

uc tio n of the so rt

he ur g e s, 2 howeve r, we never theless agree with the di strict court that the failure to g ive such instruction did not 3 re su lt i n a

de nia l of du e pr oc e ss. 4 We have de clined to find a violation of due pr ocess whe re a justification char g e would not 5 have a ffe cted the jur y ’s ver dict. Blaz ic , 900 F.2d at 542-43. I n Blaz ic , we a cknowledg ed that Ne w 6 York lawrequire s a jury to “deter mine[ whether] the People have established all of the e lements of 7 the crime [char g ed],” and upon such de termination, to “then tur n to c on sid e r h is d e fe ns e kn own in 8 law as ‘justification.’” Id. at 542 n.4 (quoting1 Criminal Jury Instructions, New Y ork 867 (1983)) 9 (empha sis in Blaz ic ) (inter nal quot ation marks omi tted). We then not ed that a jury “would have had 10 to r e

je c t si g nif

ic ant a sp e c ts o f” the de fe nd ant’ s te sti mony “ to f ind tha t th e pr os e c uti on

me t it s 11 burden” of establishingall the eleme nts of the cr ime. Id. at 543. Fr om these obser vations, we 1 2 co n cl u d edth at “i f a j ury re j ec t ed th e m aj o ri ty o f [ th e d ef en d an t ’s ] t es t i m o n y , a j u s t i fi ca t i o nch ar ge 1 3 wo u l d

n o th av e a ff

ec t edth e j ury ’s v er d i cts i n ce h i s t e s t i m o n y wa s th e o n l y

ev i d en ce s u

p p o rt i n g a 14 justification claim.” Id. 15 Gi bb s’ s te sti mony wa s the on ly e vid e nc e that e ve n a rgua bly su pp or te d a jus tif ic atio n d e fe ns e 16 as t o the allege d principal he re. Th e jur y , h ow e ve r, ne c e ssa

ri ly re je c te d G ibb s’ s v e rs ion

of the e ve nts 17 in d e te rm ini nghe wa s guil ty a s an a c c omp lic e to t

he c ri me of

se c on d d e g re e mur de r. A “ vic ari ou s” 18 justification char g e would thus not have chang ed the jury ’s verdict. Moreove r, even if the jury wer e 19 t o h ave a ssumed the truth of Gibbs’s testimony , Gibbs’s ac count of the moments just befor e the 20 shooting wa s merely that he hea

rd some arguing and then a “ pop.” Unde r these c ircumstance s, we 21 find that the state trial c ourt’s re fusal to g rant a “vica rious” jury

instruction did not deprive Gibbs 22 of a “hig hly cre dible defe nse” on which he had a “sig nificant possibili ty of pre vailing.” Da v is , 2705 1 F.3d at 131-32. 2 Alternatively , Gibbs argues that he w as enti t l ed to an or dinary justification instruction, on 3 the theory

that he himself committed a de adly act in self- defe nse. Gibbs, howeve r, neve r re quested 4 such an instruc tion at trial and ra ises this argument for the f irst time on appeal f

rom t h e denial of 5 habea s relief

. I t is therefor e not prope rly befor e this Court. See Teaguev. Lane , 489 U.S. 288, 308 6 (1 98 9) ; see also N.Y. Crim. Proc. L aw §§ 440.10( 2)(c ), 470.05(2) ; People v . Cuadrado , 9 N.Y.3d 7 36 2, 36 4- 65 (N .Y . 2 00 7) ; People v . Cona , 49 N.Y.2d 26, 33 (N .Y. 1979). 8 We h ave c on sid e re d a ll of Gi bb s’ s conte nti on s on app e a l and fi nd the m to be wi tho ut m e ri t. 9 For

the fore g oing r easons, the judg ment of the district cour t is AFF I RMED. 10 11 FOR THE COURT: 12 Catherine O ’Ha g an Wolfe, Clerk

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