Opinion ID: 176680
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fair Trial Claims

Text: In Mr. Gonzales’s last two claims, he argues that he did not receive a fair trial because the trial court denied his challenges for cause with respect to two jurors and because the trial court erroneously admitted hearsay evidence of his prior bad acts of domestic violence against the victim. We agree with the district court’s resolution of these claims. Mr. Gonzales has failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. The district court upheld under AEDPA standards the Colorado Court of Appeals’s rejection of Mr. Gonzales’s juror bias claim. In doing so, the district court concluded that Mr. Gonzales eliminated the potential for constitutional error when he used his peremptory challenges to remove the two allegedly biased jurors from his panel. See Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 86 (1988) (explaining that “[a]ny claim that the jury was not impartial, therefore, must focus . . . on the jurors who ultimately sat”). And Mr. Gonzales’s constitutional rights were not violated because he had to use his peremptory challenges to achieve an impartial jury. See id. at 88 (“[W]e reject the notion that the loss of a peremptory challenge constitutes a violation of the constitutional right to an impartial jury.”). We conclude that reasonable jurists could not disagree with the district court’s 9 resolution of this issue. Finally, Mr. Gonzales argues that he was denied a fair trial because the trial court incorrectly admitted hearsay evidence of prior bad acts. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with the district court’s conclusion that the admission of this evidence did not render his trial fundamentally unfair. As the district court explained: It is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine statecourt determinations on state-law questions. In conducting habeas review, a federal court is limited to deciding whether a conviction violated the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. Therefore, habeas relief may not be granted on the basis of state court evidentiary rulings unless they rendered the trial so fundamentally unfair that a denial of constitutional rights results. R. at 327 (brackets omitted) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). After reviewing the record, it is clear that reasonable jurists could not disagree with the district court’s conclusion that the admission of this evidence did not “fatally infect[] the trial.” Id.