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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JOHN B. TIDWELL,

Petitioner,

v.

RONALD DAVIS,

Respondent.

Case No. 17-cv-00903-EMC 

ORDER OF DISMISSAL

I. INTRODUCTION

John B. Tidwell, an inmate at San Quentin State Prison, filed this pro se action seeking a 

writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. His petition is now before the court for 

review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2243 and Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the 

United States District Courts. 

II. BACKGROUND

In 1978, Mr. Tidwell was convicted in Orange County Superior Court of first degree 

murder, with use of a shotgun. Docket No. 2 at 5. Mr. Tidwell reports that he was sentenced to an 

indeterminate sentence of seven years to life in prison. Docket No. 1 at 12. Mr. Tidwell was 26 

years old when he committed the murder. Id. at 12. 

On June 11, 2015, the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) granted Mr. Tidwell parole. On 

October 23, 2015, Governor Brown reversed the decision of the BPH. Docket No. 2 at 2-4; see 

generally Cal. Const., Art. V, § 8(b) (granting Governor the power to review the parole board‟s 

decisions regarding parole for murderers). In this action, Mr. Tidwell challenges the decision of 

Governor Brown that resulted in the denial of parole for him. Mr. Tidwell alleges that he filed 

unsuccessful habeas petitions in the California courts before he filed this action.
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United States District Court

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III. DISCUSSION

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). A 

district court considering an application for a writ of habeas corpus shall “award the writ or issue 

an order directing the respondent to show cause why the writ should not be granted, unless it 

appears from the application that the applicant or person detained is not entitled thereto.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2243.

Mr. Tidwell contends that his continued incarceration -- now 39 years into his 7-to-life 

sentence -- violates his rights under the U.S. Constitution‟s Eighth Amendment and under state 

law. He also contends that the denial of parole violated his right to due process under the U.S. 

Constitution‟s Fourteenth Amendment.

Eighth Amendment Claim: The Eighth Amendment‟s “Cruel and Unusual Punishments 

Clause prohibits the imposition of inherently barbaric punishments under all circumstances.” 

Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 59 (2010). “For the most part, however, the [Supreme] Court‟s 

precedents consider punishments challenged not as inherently barbaric but as disproportionate to 

the crime.” Id. The Eighth Amendment contains a “narrow” proportionality principle – one that 

“does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence,” and forbids only “extreme 

sentences that are „grossly disproportionate‟ to the crime.” Id. at 59-60. “[O]outside the context 

of capital punishment, successful challenges to the proportionality of particular sentences [will be] 

exceedingly rare.” Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 289-90 (1983); see also Crosby v. Schwartz, 678 

F.3d 784, 795 (9th Cir. 2012) (“Circumstances satisfying the gross disproportionality principle are 

rare and extreme, and constitutional violations on that ground are „only for the extraordinary 

case‟”). Only in that rare case where a comparison of the gravity of the offense and the severity of 

the sentence leads to an inference of gross disproportionality does the court compare a petitioner‟s 

sentence with sentences for other offenders in the jurisdiction, and for the same crime in other 

jurisdictions, to determine whether it is cruel and unusual punishment. Graham, 560 U.S. at 60. 

A sentence of life in prison (or 25-years-to-life) for a murder does not lead to an inference 
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of gross disproportionality and therefore does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment 

forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. See United States v. LaFleur, 971 F.2d 200, 211 (9th Cir. 

1991) (“Under Hamelin [v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991)], it is clear that a mandatory life 

sentence for murder does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment”); cf. Solem, 463 U.S. at 

290 n.15 (discussing earlier case in which it had found the death penalty to be excessive for felony 

murder in the circumstances of a particular case; “clearly no sentence of imprisonment would be 

disproportionate” for the felony murder of an elderly couple). Lengthy sentences for crimes less 

serious than murder also have been upheld by the Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit. See e.g., 

Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11, 29-31 (2003) (upholding sentence of 25-years-to-life for 

recidivist convicted most recently of grand theft); Locker v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 76 (2003) 

(upholding sentence of two consecutive terms of 25-years-to-life for recidivist convicted most 

recently of two counts of petty theft with a prior conviction); Hamelin, 501 U.S. at 996 (upholding 

sentence of life without possibility of parole for first offense of possession of 672 grams of 

cocaine); Nunes v. Ramirez-Palmer, 485 F.3d 432, 439 (9th Cir. 2007) (upholding sentence of 25-

years-to-life for the underlying offense of petty theft with a prior conviction after finding 

petitioner's criminal history was longer, more prolific, and more violent than the petitioner's in 

Andrade, who suffered a harsher sentence); Cacoperdo v. Demosthenes, 37 F.3d 504, 508 (9th 

Cir. 1994) (sentence of ineligibility for parole for 40 years not grossly disproportionate when 

compared with gravity of sexual molestation offenses).

Here, even if Mr. Tidwell must spend the rest of his life in prison as a result of the 

Governor‟s decision -- which is a doubtful proposition, given that the Governor did not determine 

that Mr. Tidwell shall never receive parole and given that Mr. Tidwell will have another parole 

hearing in 15 years or less -- Mr. Tidwell‟s continued imprisonment would not run afoul of the 

Eighth Amendment. Life imprisonment for first degree murder committed by an adult is not so 

disproportionate to the crime that it could be said to amount to cruel and unusual punishment 

under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Eighth Amendment claim is 

dismissed. 

State Law Claim: Mr. Tidwell also urges that the Governor‟s decision was erroneous 
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under state law. A “federal court may issue a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner „only on the 

ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United 

States.‟” Swarthout v. Cooke, 562 U.S. 216, 219 (2011) (citations omitted.) Federal habeas relief 

is not available for state law errors. See id. Thus, Mr. Tidwell‟s claims for violations of any of his 

state law rights must be dismissed. 

Due Process Claim: Mr. Tidwell contends that the Governor‟ s decision violated his right 

to due process. For purposes of federal habeas review, a California prisoner is entitled to only 

“minimal” procedural protections in connection with a parole suitability determination. The 

procedural protections to which the prisoner is entitled under the Due Process Clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are limited to an opportunity to be heard and a 

statement of the reasons why parole was denied. See Cooke, 562 U.S. at 220-21.

1

 Here, the 

record demonstrates that Mr. Tidwell was provided the two procedural protections required to 

satisfy his federal due process rights. Mr. Tidwell had an opportunity to be heard at his parole 

hearing (and did speak at it), and the Governor provided a statement of reasons for his decision to 

reverse the BPH‟s order granting parole. See Docket No. 2 at 2-4 at 8-17. “Because the only 

federal right at issue is procedural, the relevant inquiry is what process [the prisoner] received, not 

whether the state court decided the case correctly.” Cooke, 562 U.S. at 222. The Court explained 

that no Supreme Court case “supports converting California‟s „some evidence‟ rule into a 

substantive federal requirement,” id. at 220, and the Ninth Circuit erred in holding otherwise. In 

light of the Supreme Court‟s determination that the constitutionally-mandated procedural 

protections do not include a requirement that the parole denial decision be supported by some 

evidence (or any other quantum of evidence), Mr. Tidwell‟s federal due process claim must be 

 

1 No additional procedural protections are required by the circumstance that the prisoner was 

initially granted parole, and later had that parole decision reversed by the California Governor. 

The Cooke court had before it two prisoners, one of whom had been denied parole by the parole 

board and the other of whom (like Mr. Tidwell) had been denied parole because the Governor 

reversed the parole board; yet the court drew no distinctions in the procedural protections required 

for those prisoners as a matter of federal constitutional law. See Cooke, 562 U.S. at 217-19. The 

Ninth Circuit later made explicit that which was implicit in the Cooke decision: “we now hold 

that the Due Process Clause does not require that the Governor hold a second suitability hearing 

before reversing a parole decision.” Styre v. Adams, 645 F.3d 1106, 1108 (9th Cir. 2011). 
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dismissed. 

A certificate of appealability will not issue because Mr. Tidwell has not made “a 

substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). 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). 

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for writ of habeas corpus is DISMISSED. The 

Clerk shall close the file.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 9, 2017

______________________________________

EDWARD M. CHEN

United States District Judge