Filed 7/5/24 In re Jenkins on Habeas Corpus CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on 

opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 

8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for 

purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

In re JASMINE JENKINS

on Habeas Corpus.

 B301638

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. BA467828)

Habeas proceedings after a judgment of the Superior Court 

of Los Angeles County, Lisa B. Lench, Judge. Petition denied.

Rudolph J. Alejo, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Petitioner.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief 

Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Senior 

Assistant Attorney General, Seth K. Schalit and Amit Kurlekar, 

Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondent.

____________________
2

After her conviction for manslaughter in 2018, Jasmine 

Jenkins petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that 

the prosecution violated Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83 by 

failing to disclose that the victim and her sister, a main

prosecution witness, had been adjudicated responsible as 

juveniles for aggravated assault against three people in 2006. 

We issued an order to show cause (OSC) on the issue but 

concluded that even if the prosecution failed to disclose 

exculpatory evidence, it is not reasonably probable the evidence 

was material. Accordingly, we denied the petition and 

discharged the OSC. (People v. Jenkins (Jan. 22, 2021, B294747, 

B301638) [nonpub. opn.].)

Our Supreme Court granted review on the sole issue of 

whether the prosecution had disclosure obligations related to 

petitioner’s Brady claim. The high court held that the 

prosecution does have such obligations and remanded with 

directions to discharge those obligations. The Court did not 

address our materiality holding, instead directing us to 

reevaluate the materiality of undisclosed evidence in light of the 

entire record. (In re Jenkins (2023) 14 Cal.5th 493.)

Respondent complied with his discovery obligations on 

remand, and Jenkins reaffirmed her original petition, arguing 

that undisclosed evidence of prior violent assaults committed by 

both the victim and the main prosecution witness materially 

affected the trial, rendering the trial unfair and the verdict 

unworthy of confidence.

We have reexamined the record as a whole in light of the 

new evidence that Jenkins and the main prosecution witness 

committed three violent assaults in 2006. We conclude the 
3

prosecution’s failure to disclose the evidence did not undermine 

the verdict. Accordingly, we deny habeas relief.

BACKGROUND

I. Trial

In the evening of January 19, 2018, Brittneeh Williams

drove to Jenkins’s apartment with her young daughter to allow 

the daughter to visit her father, Kayuan Mitchell, Jenkins’s 

current boyfriend. At the apartment, Williams and Mitchell got 

into a fight that resulted in Mitchell beating Williams and 

causing her to bleed from her forehead.

Jenkins arrived in her car, with her young son by Mitchell 

in the backseat, and taunted Williams. Mitchell got into

Jenkins’s car and they drove away but Williams, who had by now 

called her sister, Sade Williams, gave chase, sometimes driving 

erratically.

Mitchell instructed Jenkins to pull into a gas station, where 

Williams followed. Williams left her car, approached Jenkins’s 

car, and shouted at Jenkins and possibly punched her through 

the open window. Mitchell exited Jenkins’s car and tried to 

restrain Williams but had difficulty doing so, in part because 

Jenkins taunted Williams from her car.

Sade Williams arrived, and after back-and-forth scuffles 

between Mitchell and Williams, Jenkins exited her car with a 

large kitchen knife and stabbed Williams, killing her.

Jenkins was charged with murder. (Pen. Code, § 187).1

A. Prosecution Evidence

At trial, Ajay Panchal, a deputy medical examiner for the 

Los Angeles County Coroner, testified that Williams suffered 

1 Unspecified statutory references are to the Penal Code.
4

three stab wounds to her chest and abdomen, any of which would 

have been fatal. Panchal opined that a person suffering these 

injuries could still stand up and run for a very short period of 

time. 

The prosecution presented security camera video 

recordings depicting the fight. They revealed that the skirmish 

outside Jenkins’s car between Williams on one side and Jenkins 

and Mitchell on the other lasted about a minute and involved 

three discrete encounters between Jenkins and Williams, the 

first two occurring at the gas pumps and the last at a bus stop on 

the sidewalk. The footage is of poor quality making it difficult to 

identify either the individuals or their acute actions without an 

accompanying narrative, but it appears to depict the following: 

Mitchell threw Williams violently to the ground; Williams popped 

up and charged Jenkins and attacked her, but was driven off and 

held by Mitchell at the bus stop; Jenkins approached the pair at 

the bus stop, and while Mitchell restrained Williams, attacked 

her. The poor quality and limited coverage of the videos makes it 

impossible to see when Williams was actually stabbed.

Sade Williams testified that Jenkins walked up to Williams 

and stabbed her while Mitchell held her in a bear hug. Sade 

yelled either, “You stabbed my sister,” or “She stabbed my sister.” 

Jenkins walked back toward her car and said, smirking and 

smiling, “No I didn’t,” or “Ha, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do 

nothin’.” Sade saw that Jenkins held an approximately 10-inchlong knife, which she swung at Sade. Mitchell pushed Williams

back toward a nearby bus stop, where she fell to the ground, then 

he and Jenkins drove away. 
5

Sade testified that Williams was a non-violent person and 

was not a bully. Trial counsel declared Sade was particularly 

emotional during this portion of her testimony. 

A.V., a 10-year-old who was with her mother at the bus 

stop, testified that Jenkins followed Williams to the bus stop, 

took a six-inch knife from her back pocket, said, “This is gonna be 

real scary,” and stabbed Williams. A.V. testified that Jenkins 

was smiling and angry, “like a psychopath.”

B. Defense Evidence

For the defense, Jenkins testified about three previous 

incidents in which Williams attacked her: During her son’s 

birthday party in 2015; two months later; and in 2016, after 

which Jenkins called the police and Williams was arrested. As a 

result of this fight, Williams was ordered to attend anger 

management classes. 

Jenkins testified that while she sat in her car outside her 

apartment on January 19, 2018, Williams approached, looking 

angry. Jenkins locked the car doors but Williams tried to open 

one and began hitting a window, telling Jenkins, “Bitch, get out 

the car.” Mitchell distracted Williams for a moment, got in the 

car and told Jenkins to drive away. As he was getting in, 

Williams ran up to the car and beat on the car window as they 

drove away. 

As they drove, Jenkins saw Williams follow them in her car

and swerve into another lane to try and drive parallel to her. 

Both cars sped up for a distance, and Jenkins eventually pulled 

into a gas station. Mitchell got out of the car and yelled at 

Williams about driving recklessly when children were in both

cars. Jenkins taunted Williams, and Williams got out of her car

and ran to Jenkins’s window and punched her. Mitchell pulled 
6

Williams back, causing her to fall to the ground. Thinking 

Williams was going to attack her in her car with her son 

watching, Jenkins took a green kitchen knife from a pocket in the 

driver’s side door and exited the car. 

Jenkins testified that she walked toward Williams as 

Mitchell pushed her toward the bus stop and asked her why she 

was so mad. Williams responded by “jumping up and down like, 

‘you’re a buster. You’re scared. You’re scared. You’re a buster.’ ” 

Jenkins backed up as Sade Williams ran to her sister and told 

Mitchell to also back away.

When Mitchell let Williams go, she charged Jenkins and 

started hitting her. Jenkins retreated and waved her knife at 

Williams but fell backward, and Williams fell on top of her. 

Jenkins testified variously that she stabbed Williams only once, 

stabbed her three times, and had no idea that she had stabbed 

her. Mitchell and Sade lifted Williams off Jenkins, and Mitchell 

got back in the car and they left. 

Breyan Sims, Jenkins’s friend, testified about a previous 

incident in which Jenkins and Williams got into a physical 

altercation at Jenkins’s son’s birthday party. When Jenkins 

asked Williams to leave, Williams punched her in the face, and 

they fought until Mitchell pulled Williams off Jenkins. 

Williams’s friends arrived at the party later and threatened to 

beat up Jenkins. 

C. Argument

The prosecution argued Jenkins stabbed Williams during 

the first and possibly third encounters at the gas station, when 

Williams first approached Jenkins and when Mitchell pushed her 

to the bus stop, but not the second, when Williams fell on top of 

Jenkins. 
7

The defense theorized that Jenkins stabbed Williams only 

during the second encounter, doing so to lawfully defend herself 

against Williams’s attack. 

D. Verdict

The jury was instructed on murder, on the full justification 

theory of self-defense, and on the lesser included offenses of 

voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. With respect to 

voluntary manslaughter, the jury received instructions on both 

heat of passion and imperfect self-defense. 

The jury deliberated for nine and a half hours and 

requested a readback of Sade’s testimony before acquitting 

Jenkins of murder but convicting her of voluntary manslaughter. 

The court sentenced Jenkins to 11 years in prison.

II. Brady Material

During pretrial discovery, the prosecution disclosed that 

both Brittneeh and Sade Williams had prior juvenile and 

criminal records, but material from a 2006 juvenile adjudication 

was not disclosed.

In 2006, the Williams sisters, both juveniles, were declared 

wards of the court due to their having committed three hatecrime assaults with force likely to produce great bodily injury. 

(People v. Emerald R. (Mar. 4, 2010, B196643), Lexis 1567, 

[nonpub. opn.].) The prosecutor failed in her duty to disclose this 

fact before trial. (In re Jenkins, supra, 14 Cal.5th 493.) (The 

juveniles in People v. Emerald were referred to as “Brit. W.” and 

“Sade W.,” which Respondent initially contended failed to 

establish they were the Williams sisters here. In the prior 

proceedings we held this was a fair point but assumed for present 

purposes that Brit. W. and Sade W. were Brittneeh and Sade 

Williams. Respondent now acknowledges they were.) The 
8

prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Lisa Kassabian, declared in 

these habeas proceedings that she was unable to obtain further

information regarding the disposition of Sade’s 2006 detention 

due to the passage of time and the fact that it was adjudicated as 

a juvenile matter. Kassabian declared that had she learned of 

any further information, she would have forwarded it to defense 

counsel. 

The prosecution did provide evidence that in 2015 and 2016 

Brittneeh Williams had committed battery on Jenkins, a matter 

that was disclosed and explored at trial. 

The prosecution also provided Sade’s RAP sheet, as follows: 

“Juvenile arrest-10/31/06 arrest for PC 212.5(c), PC 245(a)(l), PC 

422.7(a), PC 242 with Long Beach PD- no dispo stated or charges

filed[;] 12/21/07 arrest for PC 487(8)(3) with Lakewood PD; 

convicted PC 487(a) on 02/25/08, case number 8BF00075; 

03/07/13 conviction set aside and dismissal granted PC 1203.4.” 

III. Habeas Proceedings

Jenkins appealed her conviction and filed the instant

habeas petition on October 22, 2019, contending the prosecution’s 

failure to disclose the Williams sisters’ 2006 adjudications 

undermined the verdict. We issued an order to show cause and 

Respondent filed a return.

We affirmed the judgment on direct appeal and denied the 

habeas petition.

In ruling on Jenkins’s habeas claims, we assumed that 

“Brit. W.” and “Sade W.” from the Emerald R. opinion were 

Brittneeh and Sade Williams, that “[i]n 2006, the Williams 

sisters, both juveniles, were declared wards of the court due to 

their having committed three hate-crime assaults with force 

likely to produce great bodily injury,” that “the prosecutor should 
9

have disclosed the 2006 adjudications to the defense,” and that 

“had Jenkins known of the 2006 adjudications, she would have 

been able to get them before the jury.” (People v. Jenkins, supra,

B294747, pp. 11-13.)

“Even given these . . . assumptions,” we held, there was no 

“reasonable probability that disclosure of the 2006 adjudication 

would have altered the outcome of the trial” because the jury 

already knew from other evidence that Williams was an

especially violent person, particularly toward Jenkins. (People v. 

Jenkins, supra, B294747, p. 13.) Williams had attacked Jenkins 

three times in the past few years, chased Jenkins in her car, and 

attacked her at the gas station. Knowing this, the jury still 

convicted Jenkins of manslaughter. We concluded there was no 

reasonable probability the jury would have considered the 12-

year-old assaults to be the final straw entitling Jenkins to an 

acquittal. (Id. at p. 14.)

As to Sade Williams, we held that the 2006 juvenile 

adjudication could have been used to impeach her testimony, but 

“the only material part of Sade’s testimony was to the effect that 

Jenkins was not acting in self-defense when she stabbed 

Williams.” (People v. Jenkins, supra, B294747, p. 14.) We held 

that impeachment of Sade on this fact would have been 

immaterial because the fact “was corroborated by A.V., who

testified Jenkins followed Williams to the bus stop to stab her.” 

(Ibid.) 

Our Supreme Court granted review, reversed the denial of 

habeas relief, and remanded for further proceedings. 

The Court held that “[i]n light of the Attorney General’s 

admittedly deficient litigation practices in the Court of Appeal, as 

well as [the high court’s] clarification of the Attorney General’s 
10

disclosure duties,” we should reconsider the petition upon a more 

complete record “prepared in accordance with the principles . . . 

outlined in [the Supreme Court’s] opinion.” (In re Jenkins, supra, 

14 Cal.5th at p. 528.) In remanding, however, the Court 

“express[ed] no opinion on the merits of [the] petition for writ of

habeas corpus,” and made no comment on our materiality 

analyses. (Ibid.)

After remand, Jenkins chose not to amend her original 

petition, and we issued a new order to show cause on that 

petition.

DISCUSSION

Jenkins contends the prosecution violated her due process 

rights by suppressing material exculpatory evidence, i.e., the 

2006 adjudication that Williams and Sade committed three 

violent assaults. Jenkins argues the evidence would have 

supported her self-defense claim and impeached Sade’s 

credibility.

A. Pertinent Law

“Under Brady . . . and its progeny, the prosecution has a 

constitutional duty to disclose to the defense material exculpatory 

evidence, including potential impeaching evidence. The duty 

extends to evidence known to others acting on the prosecution’s 

behalf, including the police. [Citations.] The duty to disclose 

‘exists even though there has been no request by the accused.’ 

[Citations.] For Brady purposes, evidence is material if it is 

reasonably probable its disclosure would alter the outcome of 

trial. [Citations.] [¶] ‘There are three components of a true 

Brady violation: The evidence at issue must be favorable to the 

accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is 

impeaching; that evidence must have been suppressed by the 
11

State, either willfully or inadvertently; and prejudice must have 

ensued.’ ” (People v. Superior Court (Johnson) (2015) 61 Cal.4th 

696, 709-710 (Johnson).)

“Materiality . . . requires more than a showing that the 

suppressed evidence would have been admissible [citation], that 

the absence of the suppressed evidence made conviction ‘more 

likely’ [citation], or that using the suppressed evidence to 

discredit a witness’s testimony ‘might have changed the outcome 

of the trial.’ ” (People v. Salazar (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1031, 1043.) 

“A defendant instead ‘must instead show a “reasonable 

probability of a different result.” ’ ” (Ibid.)

Prosecutorial misconduct constituting federal 

constitutional error is subject to harmless error analysis under 

the standard of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24: 

the Attorney General has the burden of proving beyond a 

reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. 

(People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 534.)

B. Analysis

1. Evidence of Self-Defense

Here, nothing in the record suggests that a 12-year-old 

assault against strangers would show Williams was the initial 

aggressor against Jenkins more compellingly than other evidence 

already before the jury. The jury already knew that Williams 

attacked Jenkins three times in the three years leading up to the 

final incident and was arrested for one of the attacks and ordered 

to complete anger management classes. Several sources—

Mitchell, Jenkins, and video evidence (to a limited extent)—

showed that Williams attacked Jenkins in her car outside her 

apartment, chased the car on foot and pounded on the car as 

Jenkins drove away, pursued in her own car, driving erratically 
12

with children in both cars, and followed Jenkins to a gas station, 

where she punched Jenkins through the open window before 

Mitchell pulled her away. After Mitchell released her, Williams 

again charged Jenkins and knocked her down and started hitting 

her, and again had to be restrained by Mitchell.

The jury thus knew—indeed it was undisputed—that 

Williams attacked Jenkins three times in 2015 and 2016, and 

four times on January 19, 2018, overcoming distance and 

physical barriers to do so. We see no reasonable probability that 

knowledge of the 12-year-old attacks toward other parties would 

have shed more light on Williams’s propensity for violence than 

was already apparent from other, multifarious evidence. (See 

United States v. Agurs (1976) 427 U.S. 97, 113-114 [no Brady

violation where evidence of prior adjudications was largely 

cumulative of evidence already presented at trial of the victim’s 

violent nature].)

To entirely acquit Jenkins the jury would have had to find 

that her stabbing Williams was objectively reasonable. (See 

People v. Stitely (2005) 35 Cal.4th 514, 551 [“a homicide is 

justifiable and noncriminal where the actor possessed both an 

actual and reasonable belief in the need to defend”].) In deciding 

whether a homicide is reasonable, a jury must “consider what 

‘would appear to be necessary to a reasonable person in a similar 

situation and with similar knowledge.’ ” (People v. Humphrey

(1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073, 1082-1083.)

Accordingly, the jury was instructed with CALCRIM No. 

505, which provides: “When deciding whether the defendant’s 

beliefs were reasonable, consider all the circumstances as they 

were known to and appeared to the defendant and consider what 
13

a reasonable person in a similar situation with similar knowledge 

would have believed.” 

But evidence of the 2006 assault would have had no 

bearing on the subjective reasonableness of the stabbing because 

no evidence suggested Jenkins knew about the assault. Thus, it 

is not reasonably probable the evidence would have made the 

difference between a manslaughter conviction and an acquittal. 

We conclude, therefore, that beyond any reasonable doubt, the 

prosecution’s Brady error did not contribute to the verdict. 

Jenkins argues this was a close case, as evidenced by the 

jury’s long deliberations and its request for a readback of Sade’s 

testimony. Perhaps, but nothing indicates where the closeness 

lay. The jury might have struggled over the difference between 

manslaughter and acquittal, but it equally might have struggled 

over the difference between murder and manslaughter.

2. Impeachment

Jenkins argues that evidence of the Williams sisters’ 2006 

adjudication could have impeached Sade’s testimony. We 

disagree.

Jenkins’s theory is not that Sade’s history of violence, 

which had no element of deceit, indicated she was an untruthful 

person, but that Williams’s violent history indicated Sade was 

untruthful when she testified Williams was nonviolent. If the 

jury had known Sade lied about that, Jenkins argues, it likely 

would have disbelieved her other testimony that Jenkins stabbed 

Williams twice, once when she faced no danger.

For reasons discussed above concerning Williams’s seven 

attacks on Jenkins in 2015, 2016 and 2018, the jury had ample, 

uncontradicted evidence that Williams was violent.
14

In any event, A.V. corroborated Sade’s testimony about the 

stabbing. Impeachment evidence is generally material where the 

witness “ ‘ “supplied the only evidence linking the defendant(s) to 

the crime,” [citations], or where the likely impact on the witness’s 

credibility would have undermined a critical element of the 

prosecution’s case [citations]. In contrast, a new trial is generally 

not required when the testimony of the witness is “corroborated 

by other testimony.” ’ ” (People v. Salazar, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 

1050.) 

Here, Sade testified that Jenkins was not acting in selfdefense when she stabbed Williams. This fact was corroborated 

by A.V., who testified Jenkins followed Williams to the bus stop 

to stab her, after the Williams’s initial attack and after Jenkins 

was out of danger. Mitchell had pushed Williams to the bus stop 

while Jenkins was still near her car. In light of A.V.’s 

corroboration, it is not reasonably probable that the 2006 juvenile 

adjudication would have “put the whole case in such a different 

light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.” (Kyles v. Whitley

(1995) 514 U.S. 419, 435.)

We conclude that undisclosed information concerning the 

Williams sisters’ 2006 juvenile history would not have 

undermined Sade’s credibility regarding Jenkins’s self-defense 

claim, and therefore beyond any reasonable doubt, did not 

contribute to the verdict. It might have undermined Sade’s 

testimony that her sister was nonviolent, but the jury already 

knew that was not true from the evidence admitted at trial

regarding three more recent attacks by Williams on Jenkins.

3. Other Claims

Jenkins alleged in her petition, but supports the allegations 

with no briefing, that: (1) “Evidence of Brittneeh’s prior assault 
15

constitutes ‘new evidence’ within the meaning of” section 1473; 

(2) Jenkins received ineffective assistance of counsel; and (3) the 

trial was infected with cumulative prejudice.

We reject the contentions. To support a claim for relief 

based on new evidence, the evidence must be “sufficient[ly]

material and credible [such] that it more likely than not would 

have changed the outcome of the case.” (§ 1473, subd. 

(b)(1)(C)(i).) As we explain above, it is not reasonably probable

that evidence of the Williams sisters’ juvenile adjudication would 

have changed the outcome of the trial. 

Similarly, Jenkins’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim 

fails because the prejudice standard for such a claim mirrors the 

materiality standard of a Brady claim. (See Kyles v. Whitley, 

supra, 514 U.S. at p. 436 [the Brady “formulation of materiality” 

was “later adopted as the test for prejudice” for an ineffective 

assistance claim].) 

Finally, petitioner’s cumulative prejudice claim fails 

because Jenkins alleges only one error—failure to disclose the 

2006 adjudication—albeit sounding in different theories—that 

the evidence would have both supported her self-defense claim 

and impeached Sade’s credibility. Prejudice accumulates from 

multiple errors, not multiple theories.
16

DISPOSITION

The writ is denied and the order to show cause discharged.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

CHANEY, J.

We concur:

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

BENDIX, J.