Opinion ID: 4465387
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Our Colleagues’ Dissent

Text: Our dissenting colleagues make two arguments based on mistakes of law. First, our colleagues argue that we were required to give deference to the prejudice decision of the state PCR judge on the ground that he made the initial sentencing decision. They write: [W]ho better to determine whether the new evidence would have made a difference at 16 KAYER V. RYAN sentencing than the judge who sentenced Kayer to death. Judge Kiger presided over both sentencing and the PCR proceedings, and he concluded the new evidence would have made no difference. His “unique knowledge of the trial court proceedings”—including his front-row seat to the presentation of evidence showing Kayer’s brutal and venal murder—“render[ed] him ‘ideally situated’” to evaluate Kayer’s claim that the introduction of new evidence would have changed the sentencing outcome. Murray v. Schriro, 882 F.3d 778, 821 (9th Cir. 2018) (quoting Landrigan, 550 U.S. at 476). This is not to say that Judge Kiger is entitled to some sort of super-deference simply because he sentenced Kayer to death. But there is something particularly troubling about the panel majority affording no deference whatsoever to Judge Kiger’s PCR court decision, as the last reasoned state court opinion. Dissent at 42–43 (emphasis added). They also write: All this evidence was before the state PCR court, which concluded that Kayer had not been prejudiced by his trial counsel’s failure to introduce this evidence in mitigation and before sentencing. He should know, because in Arizona the same judge who presides over a defendant’s trial and sentencing also presides over the PCR proceeding. Id. at 41 (emphasis added). KAYER V. RYAN 17 In making their “he-should-know” argument, our colleagues ignore clear Supreme Court law to the contrary. Strickland itself—the foundation case—tells us not to give deference to the prejudice determination of the state PCR judge on the ground that he or she was also the sentencing judge. Under AEDPA, we give deference to the decision of the last reasoned state court decision. If that is the decision of the state PCR judge at the trial court level, we of course give deference to that decision. But the fact that the PCR judge was also the sentencing judge is irrelevant to the deference we should give to his or her prejudice determination. The Court wrote: The assessment of prejudice should proceed on the assumption that the decisionmaker is reasonably, conscientiously, and impartially applying the standards that govern the decision. It should not depend on the idiosyncracies of the particular decisionmaker, such as unusual propensities toward harshness or leniency. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695. Our colleagues’ reliance on Murray and Landrigan is misplaced. In Murray, we held only that it does not violate due process to have the same person act as both the trial judge and PCR judge. Murray, 882 F.3d at 820–821. In Landrigan, the Supreme Court held that the PCR judge, who had also been the trial judge, was “ideally situated” to evaluate a factual claim about what had been said during trial in a colloquy between the judge and the defendant. Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 476 (2007). Neither Murray nor Landrigan even remotely support the proposition that we owe 18 KAYER V. RYAN deference to a Strickland prejudice determination by the PCR judge on the ground that he or she was also the trial judge. Second, our colleagues argue that in determining prejudice we should not have looked to precedential decisions of the Arizona Supreme Court. Calling our approach a “stunning error,” they write that the panel majority . . . proposes that the yardstick for whether there is a reasonable probability Kayer would not have been sentenced to death if the new evidence were presented to the sentencing court is whether this case is more like cases in which the Arizona Supreme Court at one point affirmed a death penalty imposed by the trial court on direct de novo review or more like cases in which the Arizona Supreme Court reversed. . . . [This] mode of habeas review of a Strickland claim [] is quite literally unprecedented. Dissent at 44–45 (emphasis in original). As a factual matter, our colleagues are mistaken in saying that this mode of analysis is “quite literally unprecedented.” In White v. Ryan, 895 F.3d 641 (9th Cir. 2018)—another Arizona capital case, which we discussed and applied in our opinion—we spoke directly to this issue. Kayer, 923 F.3d at 720. We wrote in White that an analysis of prejudice at sentencing must look to what the Arizona Supreme Court would likely have done if the evidence has been presented to it on direct appellate review. We faulted the state habeas court for failing to perform this analysis. We wrote, “The KAYER V. RYAN 19 PCR court erred by . . . fail[ing] to consider the probability of a different outcome in the Arizona Supreme Court.” Id. at 671. As we pointed out in our en banc opinion in McKinney v. Ryan, 813 F.3d 798 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc), the Arizona Supreme Court is conscientious in following its own precedents. There, we wrote: [T]he Arizona Supreme Court has a strong view of stare decisis. The Court wrote in White v. Bateman, 89 Ariz. 110, 358 P.2d 712, 714 (1961), for example, that its prior caselaw “should be adhered to unless the reasons of the prior decisions have ceased to exist or the prior decision was clearly erroneous or manifestly wrong.” See also Young v. Beck, 227 Ariz. 1, 251 P.3d 380, 385 (2011) (“[S]tare decisis commands that ‘precedents of the court should not be lightly overruled,’ and mere disagreement with those who preceded us is not enough.” (quoting State v. Salazar, 173 Ariz. 399, 416, 844 P.2d 566 (1992))); State ex rel. Woods v. Cohen, 173 Ariz. 497, 844 P.2d 1147, 1148 (1993) (referring to a “healthy respect for stare decisis”); State v. Williker, 107 Ariz. 611, 491 P.2d 465, 468 (1971) (referring to a “proper respect for the theory of stare decisis”). Id. at 826. As a matter of law, our colleagues are also mistaken. At all times relevant to our decision, the Arizona Supreme Court 20 KAYER V. RYAN reviewed de novo on direct appeal all sentencing decisions in capital cases. The prejudice question is necessarily the following: Is there a reasonable possibility that there would have been a different decision by the Arizona Supreme Court if that court had seen the newly presented evidence on direct appeal? The only way to answer that question is to compare the evidence—including the newly presented evidence—to the evidence in other cases reviewed by the Arizona Supreme Court on direct appeal. Our colleagues write further: The [panel majority’s] rule is as misguided as it is novel. For starters, [its] approach would make federal habeas review of every Strickland claim turn on the state in which the petitioner was sentenced. So U.S. Supreme Court habeas precedents that involve California apparently could be distinguished away in habeas appeals from Arizona, on the sole ground that “we ask what an Arizona rather than a California sentencing court would have done.” [Kayer, 923 F.3d at 724.] The panel majority appears untroubled by this point, but its implications are striking: Their approach—at least for Strickland prejudice—transmutes “clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” into law as determined by state supreme courts. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Dissent at 45–46. KAYER V. RYAN 21 Our colleagues misunderstand the nature of an IAC claim. IAC claims in § 2254 habeas petitions are often—even usually—premised on the law of the particular state in which the petitioner was convicted. If an attorney fails to make what would have been a winning claim under state law, a federal habeas court determines prejudice by asking what the decision under that state law would likely have been if the claim had been made. We do not look to the law of another state or to federal law when the state court would never have applied that law. For example, in an IAC claim where a petitioner argues that counsel should have raised a claim in Arizona state court under Arizona law, we do not ask what California or federal law exists on the point, or what a California or federal court would have done. The IAC claim is based on what the Arizona court would have done under Arizona law had the claim been presented. Our colleagues are right that our approach would often have us look to state law in addressing petitions raising IAC claims. But they are mistaken in contending that the approach is “novel.” On the contrary, it is the normal and uncontroversial approach.