Opinion ID: 3032816
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Silva’s case is before us for the second time. On our first consideration of the case, we remanded for the district court to determine whether there was Brady error: was there a deal such as Silva alleged; if so, did the prosecutor conceal it; and if he did, were the deal and its concealment material under Brady? Silva v. Woodford, 279 F.3d 825, 855 (9th Cir. 2002) (“Silva I”). The district court found that there was a deal and that it was not disclosed, but found that these facts were immaterial to Silva’s conviction. It is this judgment that Silva now appeals. As the facts and procedural background are amply summarized in our prior disposition, we excerpt from that summary as relevant to the issues before us here and add additional details as necessary. Silva stands convicted of the gruesome abduction, robbery and murder of [Kevin] Thorpe in Madeline, California. Thorpe and his girlfriend, Laura Craig, 8620 SILVA v. BROWN were college students returning from winter break when they passed through Madeline on their way to Oregon. On January 11, 1981, Silva and two accom- plices, Joe Shelton and Norman Thomas, kidnaped Thorpe and Craig after spotting the couple at a filling station in town. The three men forced the couple to drive to Shelton’s property and proceeded to take their cash and belongings. Thorpe was then chained to a tree while Craig was taken inside a cabin and repeatedly sexually assaulted. Id. at 828. Thorpe was subsequently shot and killed. Thomas, by his own admission, then dismembered Thorpe’s body with an axe and buried the remains in shallow graves. Craig was later shot and killed by the side of a road. Thomas informed police of the murders later that month after being found in possession of a firearm in violation of his probation. In exchange for turning state’s evidence, murder charges against Thomas were dropped. He was eventually sentenced to eleven years and four months imprisonment for participating in the kidnaping, being an accessory after the fact to murder, burglary, and use of a firearm. Shelton’s trial took place before Silva’s. He was convicted of murdering both Thorpe and Craig and sentenced to life without parole. On direct appeal, he was resentenced to life imprisonment. Because of publicity, Silva’s trial was held in San Bernardino County in January 1982. When called to testify at Silva’s trial, Shelton invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The primary evidence regarding Silva’s role in Thorpe’s death came from Thomas. Thomas testified that both SILVA v. BROWN 8621 Silva and Shelton left the cabin in the morning after the kidnapings, and that Thorpe was murdered while Thomas was having consensual sex with Craig. According to Thomas, Silva then returned to the cabin and forced Thomas to dismember and dispose of Thorpe’s body. Subsequently, the three men were standing over a barrel in which some of Thorpe’s belongings were being burned, when Shelton allegedly proceeded to describe to Thomas how Thorpe had died. Shelton related how he and Silva had unlocked the chain linking Thorpe to the tree and led him terrified and crying up the side of a hill. After leaving briefly to obtain a weapon, Silva then walked up behind Thorpe and shot him up and down his body at close range, using an Ingram M-11 .38 caliber fully automatic pistol equipped with a silencer. Silva then gave the weapon to Shelton, who emptied the rest of the magazine clip into Thorpe’s body. According to Thomas, Silva simply looked on and smiled as Shelton described the slaying to Thomas. Thomas also testified that several days after Craig’s disappearance, a similar conversation took place while the three were gathered on the porch of the cabin, in which Shelton described how Craig had been shot and killed. Once again, Silva allegedly looked on and smiled while Shelton spoke to Thomas. At the conclusion of the guilt phase, the jury deliberated for two days before finding Silva guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Thorpe. However, the jury found Silva not guilty of Craig’s murder. The jury also found Silva guilty of kidnaping and robbing both victims, as well as illegally possessing a machine gun and a silencer. 8622 SILVA v. BROWN Id. at 828-29. At the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death. Silva also received two life sentences for the two kidnaping convictions, along with a variety of lesser sentences for the other convictions. On direct appeal, the state courts substantially affirmed the verdict and the death sentence. After two state habeas petitions were summarily denied, Silva filed a federal habeas petition in 1990 and a second amended petition in 1993. One of Silva’s claims on federal habeas is that the prosecution violated his due process rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by failing to disclose to the defense that the prosecution’s deal with its chief witness Norman Thomas had required that Thomas, who had several years earlier been involved in a motorcycle accident and suffered severe brain damage, not undergo a psychiatric evaluation before testifying against Silva. Silva also claimed, among other things, that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel at the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. In 1999, the district court denied Silva’s petition in its entirety. On appeal, we affirmed the district court in part, reversed in part, and remanded. We held that relief should be granted on Silva’s ineffective assistance claim with regard to the penalty phase, but we rejected Silva’s claims of ineffective assistance with regard to the guilt phase. Silva I, 279 F.3d at 855. With respect to the Brady claim, we determined that Norman Thomas’s credibility was “a critical issue, given that he was the only witness who could identify Silva as the trigger man in Thorpe’s murder.” Id. at 854-55. Had the prosecution’s deal prohibiting a psychiatric examination of Thomas been presented to the jury, we concluded, the very fact of the deal (if true) “could by itself have undermined Thomas’s credibility” by making the jury aware of “the potentially devastating fact that the state itself doubted Thomas’s mental competency.” Id. at 855. We therefore remanded the case for an evidenSILVA v. BROWN 8623 tiary hearing as to the veracity of Silva’s allegations regarding the prosecution’s secret deal with Norman Thomas. In accordance with our disposition of Silva’s penalty phase ineffective assistance claim, we ordered that Silva be resentenced following the exhaustion of the current habeas petition. Id. at 856. On remand to the district court, Silva’s allegations regarding the undisclosed deal were established as true. Thomas’s attorney, Rex Gay, stated in his declaration that at the time of Thomas’s arraignment, he had imminent plans to have Thomas psychiatrically evaluated, because he believed Thomas “was either unable to cooperate in his own defense, or insane.” Gay made his plans known to the district attorney, who agreed with Gay that Thomas’s testimony would be necessary to convict Silva (and Shelton), and that having Thomas psychiatrically evaluated would “supply ammunition to the defense.” Gay and the district attorney then struck a bargain under which Thomas would not be psychiatrically examined, and in return the district attorney would drop the murder charges in exchange for Thomas’s testimony. Silva’s trial counsel, Thomas Buckwalter, stated in his declaration that, during his representation of Silva, he was never informed of Thomas’s agreement to refrain from undergoing a psychiatric evaluation; Buckwalter did not learn of the agreement until after the trial ended. As the state submitted no evidence contradicting the Gay and Buckwalter declarations, the district court found that the evidence compels a finding that the prosecutor reached an agreement with Thomas prior to Silva’s trial according to which Thomas would refrain from being psy- chiatrically examined and would testify at Silva’s trial, in exchange for not being charged with murder and receiving a total sentence of not more than eleven years and four months . . . . [T]he aspect of the agreement concerning postponing any psychiat8624 SILVA v. BROWN ric examination of Thomas was neither revealed to the defense nor disclosed to the jury. The district court nonetheless rejected Silva’s Brady claim. First, the district court found that Thomas’s testimony had already been adequately called into question on crossexamination because Thomas had told the jury he would be receiving a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony, then admitted on cross-examination that murder charges could still be filed against him if he did not cooperate and that Shelton had told him to place all the blame on Silva. According to the district court, the jury’s decision to acquit Silva for the murder of Laura Craig — in spite of Thomas’s testimony implicating Silva for her murder as well as Kevin Thorpe’s — “demonstrates that the jury did not accept all of Thomas’s testimony at face value, but considered it only to the extent that it was corroborated by other evidence at trial.” The district court noted the evidence corroborating significant portions of Thomas’s story: in particular, the authorities found body parts and evidence of the kidnaping where Thomas said they would be, and Silva’s fingerprints were found on ammunition in a trailer on the Shelton property. Finally, the district court found that Silva’s vague and equivocating statements to the police after his arrest provided additional evidence of his guilt. For these reasons, the district court concluded that the prosecution’s failure to disclose its agreement regarding the psychiatric examination of Thomas was not material under Brady. The district court therefore denied relief on this claim.