Opinion ID: 3062180
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: issues on which defendant requests a coa

Text: Defendant requests that his COA be modified to cover three additional claims: (1) admission of improper hearsay and bad-acts evidence; (2) ineffective assistance of trial counsel; and (3) cumulative error. A COA will issue “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). This standard requires “a demonstration that . . . includes showing that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, the applicant must show that the district court’s resolution of the constitutional claim was either -48- “debatable or wrong.” Id. For those of Defendant’s claims that the OCCA adjudicated on the merits, “AEDPA’s deferential treatment of state court decisions must be incorporated into our consideration of [his] request for [a] COA.” Dockins v. Hines, 374 F.3d 935, 938 (10th Cir. 2004). We deny the request to modify the COA.
Defendant claims that the trial court violated his constitutional rights when it admitted guilt-phase testimony from Shane McInturff’s friend Brian Brown that (1) McInturff had once said that Defendant owed McInturff $800 for drugs and (2) McInturff had once told Brown that Defendant had fired a gun in the direction of a Ferris wheel. The OCCA held that this testimony was improperly admitted under state law but was harmless. See Dodd, 100 P.3d at 1034–36. Although it did not address Defendant’s constitutional arguments, its analysis of harmlessness is cogent and persuasive. No reasonable jurist could say that admission of the evidence “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Fry, 551 U.S. at 116 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Defendant claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for (1) failing to counter the prosecutor’s sentencing-phase arguments that Defendant had been given the chance to lead a good life; (2) failing to respond effectively to the testimony and argument regarding the windows; and (3) failing to challenge the -49- State’s evidence of his postarrest suicide attempt, then proffering an ineffective jury instruction on the suicide evidence. We deny a COA on all three claims. Because we grant relief from Defendant’s death sentences, the first claim is mooted. The district court held that the second claim was procedurally barred by an adequate and independent state-law rule, and Defendant’s motion to modify the COA does not explain why that decision was debatable. See Banks, 692 F.3d at 1144–47 (Oklahoma procedural bar was adequate and independent). As for the third claim, the district court held that it was procedurally barred in part and that the remainder failed on the merits. Defendant has not shown how the district court’s ruling could be debated by a reasonable jurist.
Finally, Defendant raises a claim of cumulative error. Because we grant relief from his sentences, we need not review this claim as it pertains to the sentencing phase of his trial. And no reasonable jurist could debate whether guilt-phase errors cumulatively deprived Defendant of a fair trial.