Opinion ID: 2789470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the orange county petition

Text: Prior to his jury trial in Orange County, Medina moved for a competency hearing, at which lay witnesses, various psychiatrists, psychologists, and other experts testified about his violent behavior, attempted suicide, possible schizophrenia, and inability to cooperate with counsel. Medina I, 799 P.2d at 1288. The testimony of the five psychological and psychiatric experts was contradictory: some doctors concluded that Medina was competent to stand trial and others opined that he was not. Id. The mental health professionals also provided markedly different diagnoses—some found him schizophrenic, while others doubted that diagnosis or concluded that Medina was malingering. Following the competency hearing, the jury concluded that Medina was competent to stand trial. Id. At trial, Medina asserted an insanity defense. During the sanity phase, various mental health professionals again testified, to much the same effect. Id. Medina and a number of lay witnesses also testified about Medina’s background, “including his prior offenses and convictions, prison terms, drug use, violent and aberrant behavior, attempted suicide, confinement in a state mental hospital, and attempted escape therefrom.” Id. The jury found Medina legally sane at the time of the charged offenses. Id. MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 9 After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the penalty phase commenced. Defense counsel called four mental health experts who had previously testified. Their testimony was consistent with testimony adduced at the sanity and competency phases. Id. at 881. Medina’s father testified that Medina sniffed glue as a child, that Medina’s brother, John, committed suicide, that Medina had been hit by a car while delivering newspapers, and that Medina’s behavior had been strange when he was driving back to California after his release from prison in Arizona. On December 3, 1986, after deliberating for seven and a half hours, the jury concluded that the appropriate penalty was death. On February 26, 1987, Medina was sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court affirmed Medina’s convictions and death sentence on direct appeal. Medina I, 799 P.2d at 1310. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine the constitutionality of California Penal Code § 1369(f), which placed the burden on the defendant to show by a preponderance of the evidence his competence to stand trial. See Medina v. California, 505 U.S. 437 (1992). The Court upheld the statute and affirmed the California Supreme Court’s decision. Id. at 452–53. Medina filed his habeas petition in federal court on October 2, 1995, and, after returning to state court to exhaust several claims, he filed an amended petition on November 19, 1997. The district court granted an evidentiary hearing on several claims, and received evidence including declarations, deposition transcripts, and exhibits. 10 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL On June 5, 2003, Medina filed a state court petition arguing that he was mentally retarded and as such, under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), could not be executed. The California Supreme Court denied the petition, and the district court granted Medina’s motion to amend his federal habeas petition to include his Atkins claim. On June 16, 2008, the district court denied federal habeas relief on all claims presented in Medina’s petition. On January 23, 2009, the district court entered final judgment. Because Medina filed his federal habeas petition in the Orange County case before the effective date of AEDPA, its substantive provisions do not apply. See Phillips v. Ornoski, 673 F.3d 1168, 1178–79 (9th Cir. 2012). “We therefore review de novo questions of law or mixed questions of law and fact decided by the district court or by the state courts.” Id. at 1179. “We review the district court’s factual findings for clear error, and accord state court factual findings a presumption of correctness.” Id. We review counsel’s conduct in a capital sentencing proceeding under the same standards used for judging ineffective assistance at trial. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686–87 (1984). To prevail, Medina must first show that “counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Id. at 688. In making this determination, we “must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the defendant must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy.” Id. at 689 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, Medina “must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 11 to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.” Id. at 687.
Evidence Medina argues that his trial counsel in the Orange County case rendered ineffective assistance by failing to properly investigate Medina’s childhood. According to Medina, such a failure meant that his counsel lacked information that could have been used in mitigation during the penalty phase. Because counsel lacked sufficient knowledge, argues Medina, he could not have made a reasoned tactical decision about what to present at the penalty phase. We disagree, and conclude that counsel’s performance was not deficient. Counsel has a duty to investigate, but this duty is not without limits. Strickland clarified that “counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments.” 466 U.S. at 691. We “conduct an objective review of [counsel’s] performance, measured for reasonableness under prevailing professional norms, which includes a context-dependent consideration of the challenged conduct as seen from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 523 (2003) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). As the district court correctly concluded, Medina’s defense team conducted a thorough investigation of his childhood and family background—actions that stand in 12 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL sharp contrast to the conduct of defense counsel in cases relied upon by Medina in support of his ineffective assistance argument. In Ainsworth v. Woodford, 268 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2001), for example, trial counsel’s “preparation” for the penalty phase proceedings consisted of interviewing one defense witness for ten minutes on the morning she was to testify, and failing to examine Ainsworth’s employment, medical, prison, probation, or military records, all of which were readily available. Id. at 874. In Silva v. Woodford, 279 F.3d 825 (9th Cir. 2002), we concluded that counsel’s complete abandonment of all investigation into Silva’s background was not objectively reasonable when Silva instructed counsel simply that he did not want his parents used as witnesses and that he preferred they be left alone. Id. at 838. In Libberton v. Ryan, 583 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2009), we found ineffective assistance at the penalty phase where defense counsel failed to interview any witnesses for trial and only a very few for sentencing. Id. at 1169. In the Orange County case, the district court credited counsel’s declaration that his investigator interviewed family members and briefed him regarding the interviews, and that counsel had questioned the family members himself. In crediting counsel’s declarations, the district court relied upon billing records and trial documents showing the amount of time investigators spent speaking with witnesses and conferring with counsel. Given the supporting evidence, the district court did not clearly err by crediting counsel’s declaration. Nor does counsel’s failure to uncover Medina’s childhood abuse render his performance deficient. The district court credited counsel’s sworn statement that neither Medina nor his family members divulged to counsel the abuse to which MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 13 he was subjected, and Medina does not directly challenge this finding. As Medina argues, “counsel has a duty to investigate, even if his or her client does not divulge relevant information.” Vega v. Ryan, 757 F.3d 960, 969 (9th Cir. 2014). Our decision in Vega does not, however, impose upon counsel a duty to conduct a perfect investigation that reaches every recess of a client’s mind. “A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effect of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. Unlike the situation in Vega, Medina’s counsel conducted an adequate investigation of his client’s history. The evidence counsel sought and reviewed suggested that Medina experienced an average childhood. Prison records, Medina’s own testimony under oath, and discussions with Medina’s family members,2 all indicated that Medina’s childhood was relatively unremarkable. Medina nonetheless asserts that counsel’s investigation was unreasonable because he failed to ask the “right questions.” Medina’s sisters claim that no one ever explained to them what sort of evidence could be considered in mitigation. Medina’s trial counsel, however, reported that he supervised the investigators who questioned Medina’s family and ensured that the family was informed of the defense team’s needs. Counsel’s assessment is corroborated by billing records, credited by the district court, that showed the 2 Trial counsel’s billing records further reflect a six-hour period in which he spoke with Medina’s sister early in the case on February 9, 1985. During that six-hour time-frame, counsel discussed several matters including the “bizarre behavior of Medina during the time period [in] which these incidents took place.” 14 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL amount of time the defense team spent with Medina’s family and the quantity of evidence the team gathered. “[A]pplying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,” id. at 691, we cannot conclude that counsel’s performance was deficient. Medina also relies on a letter to counsel, dated September 4, 1985, from Dr. Klatte, a psychiatrist who evaluated Medina’s mental health prior to trial, to argue that counsel possessed information that “would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further” into Medina’s childhood. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 527. But, this letter’s “tantalizing indication” that not all was as it seemed consists of two inapposite passages. The first mentions that Medina loved his father, but also feared him when he would get drunk and chase the kids out of the house.3 The second recounts a bizarre memory Medina has of his mother, but it is a memory completely devoid of any indication of abuse.4 3 “[Medina] recalls as a child feeling his father was a superman. He loved him but feared him when he would get drunk and chase the kids out of the house.” 4 “[Medina] describes a very complex and pathological relationship with his mother. On the one hand he indicates he was very close to her and she was a very loving maternal woman. On the other hand his most vivid memory from childhood still haunts and upsets him, bringing tears to his eyes as he recounts it. He was about 7 to 9 years of age, he went to his mother’s bedroom and saw her lying on her bed. They looked at each other and ‘she looked like a smiling conniving harlot as described in the old testament.’ She then said ‘I prayed to the Virgin Mary for a homosexual.’ Suddenly he started crying and got angry, screaming at his mother ‘I’m going to go straight to hell for that.’ He then ran out of the room. He now does not know what he meant by what he said.” MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 15 By contrast, in Wiggins, ample evidence in records available to counsel indicated that further investigation would very likely have unearthed mitigating evidence. The Department of Social Services’ records and the pre-sentence report demonstrated that Wiggins’s mother was an alcoholic who left him and his siblings alone for days without food on at least one occasion, and that Wiggins went from foster home to foster home where he displayed emotional difficulties and had frequent long absences from school. 539 U.S. at 525. The Court concluded that counsel unreasonably ceased its investigation and failed to pursue mitigating evidence. Here, counsel interviewed Medina’s family members but found no evidence of physical abuse. The investigation was adequate and thorough. Counsel’s decision not to interview additional family members was also reasonable. In Bobby v. Van Hook, 558 U.S. 4 (2009) (per curiam), the Supreme Court reversed a grant of habeas relief based on an ineffective assistance claim at the penalty phase in a pre-AEDPA case, holding that counsel had reached that point at which “evidence from more distant relatives can reasonably be expected to be only cumulative, and the search for it distractive from more important duties.” Id. at 11. So too here. The vague allusions to dysfunctional familial relationships related in Dr. Klatte’s letter did not alert counsel that he should conduct more interviews and further investigation, particularly when Medina himself reported an unremarkable childhood. In addition, while not foundational to our analysis, it is nevertheless significant that counsel originally intended to call more family members at the penalty phase, but Medina refused to allow counsel to call any family members other 16 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL than his father. While a defendant’s refusal to allow a witness to testify does not excuse counsel from interviewing that witness as part of a reasonable investigation into possible mitigating evidence, Stankewitz v. Wong, 698 F.3d 1163, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012) (noting that “supposed opposition to mitigating evidence” does not end the inquiry into the adequacy of counsel’s performance), here counsel did thoroughly interview other family members despite Medina’s refusal to allow them to testify. Nor has Medina established prejudice, i.e., “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. To evaluate whether Medina was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to investigate, if any, we “reweigh the evidence in aggravation against the totality of available mitigating evidence.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 534. In mitigation, Medina’s father testified that Medina was hit by a car while riding a bicycle as a child and was exposed to glue fumes when he built model airplanes, and about an incident in which Medina pulled out all of his eyelashes. He also testified that Medina had been close to his now-deceased mother, that Medina’s brother had used drugs heavily after his divorce and was in and out of mental hospitals before finally committing suicide, and that Medina behaved strangely upon his release from prison in Arizona. Medina offered testimony from Richard Negrete, his parole officer, and from James Hicks, an employee of the Orange County District Attorney’s office, who had prosecuted a defendant for stabbing Medina approximately twenty-eight times. Medina also presented the testimony of several mental health experts. Dr. Pierce testified that Medina did poorly on MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 17 cognitive tests, that he was not malingering, and that although sane, he suffered from a mental impairment. Dr. Sharma testified that Medina was suffering from symptoms indicating mental problems, and he noted four possibilities: schizophrenia, “organic brain disorder due to the use and abuse of mind-altering drugs he had used in the past, including, for example, cocaine and PCP,” epilepsy caused by a short circuiting of the brain tissue, or antisocial personality disorder. He further testified that he saw mitigation in Medina’s mental problems. Dr. Sakurai testified that Medina had been placed in the rubber rooms in the Orange County jail several times, that Dr. Sakurai had met with Medina on thirty to forty occasions, and that he had prescribed Medina medication. Finally, Dr. Klatte testified that Medina was a disturbed person with a diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, and noted that Medina “had a brother who suicided and had a well- established diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.” Declarations from Medina’s family members obtained by habeas counsel describe additional mitigating evidence that could have been, but was not, presented to the jury during the penalty phase of the Orange County trial. As detailed in Part I, these declarations from family members describe physical abuse that Medina suffered growing up. This potentially mitigating evidence, while substantial, was not overwhelming. The abuse Medina suffered as a child falls short of the horrific violence and deprivation that courts have recognized as convincing mitigation evidence. Compare Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 535–36 (holding that counsel’s failure to investigate and present evidence of petitioner’s “physical torment, sexual molestation, and repeated rape” established prejudice), with Samayoa v. Ayers, 649 F.3d 919, 929 (9th Cir. 2011) (observing that petitioner’s evidence of “harsh 18 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL discipline, poverty, drug abuse, and violence and sexual abuse among extended family members” was “not so dramatic or unusual” that it would have affected the death penalty verdict). Moreover, unlike in Stankewitz v. Woodford, where we found prejudice based on counsel’s failure to present evidence that the defendant “suffered from organic brain damage, to the point of being borderline mentally retarded,” 365 F.3d 706, 723 (9th Cir. 2004), there was no strong evidence that Medina suffered permanent brain damage as a result of his childhood head injuries. For its part, the prosecution presented a litany of aggravating factors at the penalty phase. The prosecution relied on Medina’s prior convictions for rape, assault, kidnapping, burglary, and discharging a firearm into an occupied building, as well as Medina’s repeated attacks on other inmates and prison staff while incarcerated. The prosecution also elicited testimony from the victims’ relatives about the victims’ non-violent nature. The mitigating evidence that was presented failed to persuade the jury in light of this strong aggravating evidence. And the potential mitigating evidence was weaker than the array of mitigating evidence actually presented. Reweighing the aggravating evidence against all mitigating evidence, Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 534, we conclude that comparatively weak additional mitigating evidence would not likely have altered the jury’s verdict. Accordingly, Medina was not prejudiced within the meaning of Strickland. 466 U.S. at 694–96. MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 19
Medina alternatively claims that he is entitled to habeas relief because trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at the penalty phase by failing to obtain and present relevant mitigating evidence of Medina’s possible mental and emotional impairments. Specifically, Medina argues that counsel rendered ineffective assistance by: failing to obtain medical records reflecting the hospitalization of Medina’s brother and maternal aunt, which showed that both were hospitalized with diagnosed schizophrenia; failing to provide EEG and CT scan results to an expert who requested them; and failing to retain an expert to explain to the jury the possible mitigating effect of Medina’s exposure to neurotoxins in glue when he was young. At the penalty phase, counsel has “a professional responsibility to investigate and bring to the attention of mental health experts who are examining his client, facts that the experts do not request.” Wallace v. Stewart, 184 F.3d 1112, 1116 (9th Cir. 1999). “Regardless of whether a defense expert requests specific information relevant to a defendant’s background, it is defense counsel’s duty to seek out such evidence and bring it to the attention of the experts.” Hovey v. Ayers, 458 F.3d 892, 925 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). Medina argues that counsel’s failure to obtain his brother’s and aunt’s medical records and subsequent failure to turn them over to the experts who testified during the penalty phase constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Medina asserts that had counsel obtained and relayed this information, it could have strengthened his claim that he, too, was schizophrenic. His argument is unpersuasive. 20 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL First, trial counsel did obtain information about Medina’s brother’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. During the penalty phase, Dr. Klatte testified that Medina’s brother “had a well-established diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.” Although Dr. Sharma testified in a deposition that he was never given information about Medina’s brother’s mental illness as a “confirmed diagnosis,” he was made aware of the mental illness and he “had assumed or inferred from what [he] was told at that time that more likely than not the diagnosis would have been schizophrenic disorder for his brother.” The “failure” to provide Dr. Sharma with the confirmed diagnosis, even if it constitutes deficient performance, certainly does not meet Strickland’s prejudice requirement, given that Dr. Sharma assumed the diagnosis. Second, Medina is correct that his aunt’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia was never provided to Dr. Sharma, but counsel’s failure to provide this information was not deficient performance. The district court credited counsel’s account that he was unaware of the aunt’s mental problems at the time of the penalty phase because neither Medina nor any family member had disclosed the problems. Counsel cannot be faulted for not having information about a second degree relative’s hospital records when his investigation was reasonable and none of Medina’s family members with whom he spoke alluded to the aunt’s mental health problems. See Babbitt v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 1170, 1174 (9th Cir. 1998) (holding that counsel’s failure to discover an alleged family history of mental illness was not unreasonable where counsel spoke with family members and friends who would have such information but none of them indicated there was any history of mental illness). MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 21 Medina argues that counsel’s failure to provide Dr. Sharma with Medina’s EEG and CT scan results despite Dr. Sharma’s requests for them constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Trial counsel should have provided the test results to Dr. Sharma, but his failure to do so did not prejudice Medina under the second prong of Strickland. Dr. Sharma had been made aware that “Mr. Medina had undergone a CAT scan, an EEG, brain x-rays, and a neurological examination yielding results within the normal limits.” Dr. Sharma further stated that he had been relying upon a “broken brain” theory during the penalty phase of Medina’s trial, and he conceded that if he had been shown the test results, which were within the normal range, the results would have the potential to contradict the “broken brain” defense. It is thus unclear how Medina would have benefitted at the penalty phase had Dr. Sharma obtained the test results; if anything, Dr. Sharma’s testimony would have been less helpful to Medina had the results been provided. Finally, Medina argues that counsel performed deficiently by failing to request a neurological examination to assess possible brain damage resulting from years of substance abuse. Counsel was aware of Medina’s use of drugs and history of glue sniffing. The district court credited counsel’s account that he passed on information regarding Medina’s glue sniffing to the doctors. Moreover, counsel intended to follow up on the issue with an expert who would do more testing, but Medina refused to see any more experts. As counsel must respect a defendant’s wishes about whether to undergo additional psychological testing, a failure to conduct additional testing is not deficient performance on the part of counsel in such circumstances. Gerlaugh v. Stewart, 129 F.3d 1027, 1034–35 (9th Cir. 1997). And even if Medina were now to present neurological test results bringing some 22 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL new mental deficiency to light, evidence produced after the fact is not necessarily relevant to whether counsel’s actions were reasonable at the time. See Sims v. Brown, 425 F.3d 560, 584 (9th Cir. 2005), amended by 430 F.3d 1220 (denying habeas relief because “[Petitioner’s] argument turns on a latter-day battle of experts; however, the question is whether counsel did all that he was constitutionally required to do at the time”). Counsel’s investigation into Medina’s brain damage was not deficient.
Medina points to two mistakes made by counsel at the sanity phase involving Dr. Gold’s testimony: counsel’s failure to object to cross-examination of Dr. Gold based on the Rosenhan study,5 and counsel’s failure to adequately prepare Dr. Gold to testify at the sanity hearing. Medina contends that these deficiencies further prejudiced him at the penalty phase, rendering his death sentence unreliable. We have recognized that “prejudice may result from the cumulative impact of multiple deficiencies.” Harris ex rel. Ramseyer v. Wood, 64 F.3d 1432, 1438 (9th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). Trial counsel’s failure to object to the use of the Rosenhan study during the prosecutor’s cross-examination of Dr. Gold was deficient performance. The prosecution’s purpose in 5 In the Rosenhan study, eight individuals who were not suffering from any mental illness visited a mental institution and complained they were hearing voices. D. L. Rosenhan, On Being Sane in Insane Places, 13 Santa Clara Law. 379 (1973). All of them were admitted and diagnosed as schizophrenic or manic-depressive despite their lack of mental illness. Id. at 384. MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 23 mentioning this study was to remind the jury that people are capable of faking schizophrenia and fooling mental health workers into rendering that diagnosis. California Evidence Code section 721(b)(1) prohibits cross-examination of expert witnesses regarding scientific journal articles unless the expert considered or relied upon that article in forming his opinion. California courts have also held that the prosecutor’s reference to the Rosenhan study during cross-examination, specifically, is improper. People v. Visciotti, 825 P.2d 388, 435 (Cal. 1992). Counsel’s failure to object, however, did not prejudice Medina during the penalty phase within the meaning of Strickland. The prosecutor’s reference to the study was only a small piece of the evidence admitted at the competency hearing. Additionally, the prospect that Medina was malingering and had fooled mental health experts was suggested by more than the Rosenhan study. On direct examination at the sanity phase, Dr. Gold stated that many prisoners malinger and, in response to a question about whether Medina was malingering, testified: “It’s possible, but it’s not probable.” Thus, the reference to the Rosenhan study was cumulative of other, more direct evidence of possible malingering and, therefore, was not prejudicial. Medina also contends that counsel’s failure to prepare Dr. Gold to testify at the sanity phase of his trial was deficient performance. In his declaration, Dr. Gold asserts that defense counsel failed to provide him with “relevant medical records and reports relating to petitioner,” and that counsel spent only about an hour with him prior to the presentation of his testimony. However, counsel is entitled to rely upon the opinion of experts, and, outside of the penalty phase, is not 24 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL required to provide experts with relevant information they do not request. See Wallace, 184 F.3d at 1117 (distinguishing between ineffective assistance claims for failure to provide experts with information at the penalty and guilt phases). In sum, although counsel performed deficiently by failing to object to the Rosenhan study, that error was not prejudicial under Strickland during the penalty phase. And counsel’s performance was not deficient with respect to Dr. Gold’s testimony at the sanity phase.
Finally, we affirm the district court’s denial of Medina’s request for a stay of his habeas proceedings due to his incompetency. In Ryan v. Gonzales, 133 S. Ct. 696 (2013), the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 3599(a)(2) does not provide a statutory right to competency during federal habeas proceedings, and the Court constrained the discretion of district courts to issue stays when there is no reasonable hope of a petitioner regaining competence in the foreseeable future. Medina asserts that Gonzales has no applicability to his preAEDPA petition. We disagree. As an initial matter, the Supreme Court’s holding that 18 U.S.C. § 3599(a)(2) does not provide a statutory right to competency in federal habeas proceedings is not limited to post-AEDPA cases. Indeed, Gonzales expressly overruled our decision in Rohan v. Woodford, 334 F.3d 803 (9th Cir. 2003), a pre-AEDPA case in which we held that “‘where an incompetent capital habeas petitioner raises claims that could potentially benefit from his ability to communicate rationally, refusing to stay proceedings pending restoration of competence denies him his statutory right to assistance of MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 25 counsel, whether or not counsel can identify with precision the information sought.’” Gonzales, 133 S. Ct. at 701 (quoting Rohan, 334 F.3d at 819). The pre-AEDPA/post-AEDPA distinction is relevant, however, as to Part III of Gonzales, in which the Court went on to “address only [the] outer limits” “of the district court’s discretion to issue stays.” Gonzales, 133 S. Ct. at 708. This portion of the Court’s opinion relies heavily upon Congress’s intent in enacting AEDPA and the practical consequences of stays for cases subject to AEDPA. See id. at 708–09. Consequently, the Court’s conclusion that “[w]here there is no reasonable hope of competence, a stay is inappropriate and merely frustrates the State’s attempts to defend its presumptively valid judgment,”6 id. at 709, is inapplicable to pre-AEDPA petitions such as this one. But the inapplicability of this portion of the Court’s holding does not aid Medina’s case. As the Court noted, defining the outer limits of district courts’ authority to grant stays does not affect our analysis in those cases, like Medina’s, in which the district court has denied a stay. In such a case, to grant relief, “we would have to conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in denying the stay.” Id. at 707 n.13. The district court did not abuse its discretion here. 6 Although the Court did not cabin its analysis to AEDPA, it roots its analysis in the congressional purpose in enacting AEDPA. Gonzales, 133 S. Ct. at 709 (“Without time limits [on stays], petitioners could frustrate AEDPA’s goal of finality by dragging out indefinitely their federal habeas review.” (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 26 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL Medina claimed that his competent assistance was relevant to his Marsden, court shackling, and ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The district court appropriately concluded that the first two claims were record based, and therefore, even under the statutory right to competence framework, no stay was necessary. See Blair v. Martel, 645 F.3d 1151, 1156 (9th Cir. 2011). With respect to the ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the district court correctly concluded that Medina failed to specify which of his ineffective assistance of counsel claims required his input. Further, Medina finds himself in the same position as the petitioner in Blair. He has not put forth a showing that there was evidence concerning his family background, not already in the record and which he could assist in uncovering if he were competent, that would support his claim that counsel conducted an inadequate investigation at the penalty phase. Thus, although the district court may have acted within its discretion had it issued a stay, it did not abuse its discretion in declining to do so.