Opinion ID: 2826316
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: leon passmore.

Text: The California Supreme Court, over the dissent of Justice Mosk, also upheld the prosecutor’s decision to strike Leon Passmore, primarily because Passmore lived close to the crime scene and may have known trial witnesses. Cummings, 850 P.2d at 32. Passmore testified he had lived in West Lakeview Terrace, near the site of the murder, for eleven or twelve years. He also worked at a local high school and testified that if any students were called as witnesses he might know them. Residency can be a valid reason for exercising a peremptory strike. See Stubbs v. Gomez, 189 F.3d 1099, 1106 (9th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that “residence could be a race-neutral factor when applied to a specific juror’s suitability to sit in a particular case”). But was Passmore’s residency a pretext for discrimination, as Cummings alleges? To support pretext, Cummings points to two venire members who, like Passmore, lived in Lakeview Terrace yet were not struck by the prosecutor. Significantly, the first comparative juror lived in East Lakeview Terrace—“away” from West Lakeview Terrace CUMMINGS V. MARTEL 27 where Passmore lived and the shooting occurred.5 The second venire member, who also lived in Lakeview Terrace, never sat in the jury box, so the prosecutor had no need or opportunity to use a peremptory against her. The California Supreme Court was reasonable in crediting the prosecutor’s residency rationale, given the total lack of proof that similarly situated jurors were treated differently. See Cook, 593 F.3d at 817 (“Because no similarly situated white jurors were permitted to serve, the evidence indicates this justification was legitimate and not pretextual.”). Cummings’s habeas petition under Batson was properly denied. III. THE STRICKLAND CLAIM—CUMMINGS’S COUNSEL. The California Supreme Court summarily denied Cummings’s petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel during the penalty phase of his trial. To prevail under AEDPA, Cummings must demonstrate that there was “no reasonable basis for the state court to deny relief” under the standard set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Harrington, 562 U.S. at 98. Because the California Supreme Court had a reasonable basis to conclude that Cummings was not prejudiced by his lawyers’ presentation of mitigation evidence at the penalty phase, “we [] need not 5 As Cummings acknowledged on appeal, this juror himself may have been black. If true, this is yet another reason why he is not a proper subject of comparative juror analysis. 28 CUMMINGS V. MARTEL reach [Strickland’s] performance prong.” See Wharton v. Chappell, 765 F.3d 953, 975 (9th Cir. 2014).6 In Harrington, the Supreme Court stressed the deference permeating federal habeas review of ineffective assistance claims. It pointed out that “[t]he standards created by Strickland and § 2254(d) are both highly deferential, and when the two apply in tandem, review is doubly so.” 562 U.S. at 105 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The multiple layers of deference create a standard that is “difficult to meet,” and “even a strong case for relief does not mean the state court’s contrary conclusion was unreasonable.” Id. at 102. Rather, a “state court’s determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as ‘fairminded jurists could disagree’ on the correctness of the decision.” Id. at 101 (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). The crux of Cummings’s ineffective assistance claim is that his counsel’s presentation of mitigating evidence during the penalty phase did not adequately detail the difficulties he experienced as a child. During state habeas proceedings, Cummings’s counsel prepared a “social history report” that detailed his abusive upbringing and eventual descent into drug abuse and violent crime.7 Cummings argues that if the 6 In light of this conclusion, we do not address whether Cummings’s alternative request for an evidentiary hearing on his counsel’s performance is barred by Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011). 7 The government asserts we cannot consider this evidence because it was contained in a social history report prepared during habeas proceedings, and the report itself is inadmissible hearsay. The report, however, was not prepared to serve as admissible evidence. Rather, it illustrates what mitigation evidence would have been available to a lawyer CUMMINGS V. MARTEL 29 jury had been exposed to the contents of this report, at least one juror may have been persuaded to choose life over death. The California Supreme Court had a reasonable basis to conclude otherwise. The social history report was largely cumulative of testimony that was introduced during penalty phase proceedings. For example, Cummings asserts that the jury did not learn about the extent of the violence in his household. His brother Darrell, however, testified that Raynard was subject to “extremely hard” beatings involving extension cords and belts. He also told the jury that their parents regularly had “knock-down, drag-out” fights that sometimes ended with their parents beating one another with household objects. The jury likewise heard Darrell testify that their mother had substance abuse issues and spent time in a mental hospital. The social history report contains more extensive recitation of her history of drug use, alcohol abuse, and psychiatric hospitalizations, but these details would not have changed the narrative of Cummings’s upbringing in any meaningful way. To the extent the social history report offered mitigating evidence that was not cumulative, it is not compelling. The report notes that Cummings’s mother drank alcohol while pregnant. Although evidence that a defendant suffers from who conducted a reasonable investigation into Cummings’s life history. Approving of the use of just such a report in Wiggins v. Smith, the Supreme Court instructed that we must “evaluate the totality of the evidence—‘both that adduced at trial, and the evidence adduced in the habeas proceeding[s].’” 539 U.S. 510, 536 (2003) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 397–98). The social history report was properly presented to the California Supreme Court during habeas proceedings, so we consider its contents. 30 CUMMINGS V. MARTEL fetal alcohol syndrome may have a significant mitigating effect, Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 392 (2005), Cummings does not allege that he suffered from this ailment. Cf. Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 480–81 (2007) (describing defendant’s assertion that he was “exposed to alcohol and drugs in utero, which may have resulted in cognitive and behavioral deficiencies” as “weak” mitigation evidence). Cummings also points out that the jury never learned that his brother was sexually abused. While evidence that a defendant was sexually abused can be a “powerful” mitigating factor, Wharton, 765 F.3d at 977, the fact that Cummings’s brother was sexually abused lacks the same force. The report details some evidence that calls into question Cummings’s mental well-being. School records indicate that Cummings exhibited symptoms of trauma in his home. While incarcerated in his early twenties, Cummings exhibited bizarre behavior such as spreading feces on the walls of his prison cell. However, a pre-trial psychiatric evaluation yielded no conclusions that his lawyers saw fit to use as evidence at trial,8 and even at this stage of the proceedings, Cummings does not claim that he suffers from a mental illness. This evidence of mental instability adds little to his claims of prejudice. Even if testimony about certain aspects of the social history report would have had some mitigating effect, this strategy would have triggered overwhelming aggravating evidence. See Wong v. Belmontes, 558 U.S. 15, 26 (2009) (per curiam) (noting that a “reviewing court must consider all the evidence—the good and the bad—when evaluating 8 The notes from this evaluation appear to have been lost. CUMMINGS V. MARTEL 31 prejudice”). Had Cummings’s counsel gone beyond a “sterile” life history presentation, the prosecution could have countered with evidence that Cummings assaulted two prison guards and wrote a letter announcing his intention to shoot “pigs” eighteen months before Verna’s murder. Although the prison assaults are relatively minor aggravating factors, introduction of the letter would have been devastating to Cummings’s defense. Cummings wrote: “[I]f I got to steal or kill for what I want, I will do that . . . I might die, but the pig – one pig or two – is coming with me, and there will be funerals on both sides this time . . . I will always hate pigs, the man, the system, and any White, Black or whatever who is on that side. I have a bullet for that m----- f-----, too, if he gets in my way.” This manifesto would not only have negated sympathy generated by tales of Cummings’s troubled upbringing, it also would have undermined any “lingering doubt” about his willingness to shoot a police officer. The mitigating effect of the evidence that the jury did not hear was limited in scope and would have opened the door to inflammatory and prejudicial aggravating evidence. The California Supreme Court had a “reasonable basis” to conclude that Cummings failed to demonstrate prejudice as a result of his counsel’s penalty phase presentation of evidence. We affirm the district court’s denial of Cummings’s habeas petition as to his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.