Opinion ID: 776960
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Improper Presentation of Testimony

Text: 37 Karis alleges that if Steuben had testified truthfully, her testimony would have been excluded as irrelevant because his statements to Steuben did not refer to the crime for which he was tried. The California Supreme Court concluded that Steuben's testimony was admissible as evidence of Karis' state of mind. People v. Karis, 46 Cal.3d 612, 636-37, 250 Cal.Rptr. 659, 758 P.2d 1189 (1988). Karis maintains that absent prosecutorial misconduct, Steuben's testimony that Karis made general statements would not have satisfied the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule. He further claims that this allegedly improper presentation of testimony to the jury violated due process. 5 Again, even if we assume the truth of this claim of prosecutorial misconduct, Karis' failure to establish prejudice precludes us from granting him relief on this basis. Even assuming the alleged misconduct did occur, such error under the circumstances here is harmless and, thus, cannot warrant habeas relief. Id. 38 Finally, Karis argues that he has alleged such an egregious pattern of prosecutorial misconduct that it cannot be deemed harmless error. In the unusual case such error might be deliberate and especially egregious or so combined with a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct as to infect the integrity of the proceeding[s]. Brecht, 507 U.S. at 638 n. 9, 113 S.Ct. 1710. In making this determination, we must consider whether a combination of misconduct and error so infected the entire proceeding as to destroy its fairness. Hardnett v. Marshall, 25 F.3d 875, 879 (9th Cir.1994). As discussed above, in light of the substantial evidence even without this disputed testimony of identification and premeditation Karis does not present such a case and, thus, we cannot grant his requested habeas petition on this ground.