Opinion ID: 4211658
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ismael Luna’s Allegedly False Testimony

Text: In claim 11, Sanders asserts that Ismael Luna admitted at Freeman’s trial that he testified falsely about his ability to SANDERS V. CULLEN 37 distinguish black people and his ability to identify Sanders. Ismael Luna was a busboy at Bob’s Big Boy, and his father died several months after the crime as a result of injuries he sustained during the robbery. The district court ruled that Luna’s testimony was neither perjurious nor material. We agree with the district court. Luna’s identification of Sanders was always qualified and the jury heard him testify at Sanders’s trial that he had difficulty identifying black people. Luna tentatively selected Sanders from Line 3 at the December 23, 1980 lineup. He wrote on his lineup card, “It seems to be No. 4.” At Sanders’s preliminary hearing, Luna testified that Sanders did not “seem to be” one of the robbers, and that he was “not really sure” whether Sanders was the man he selected at the lineup. He acknowledged that Sanders looked like the man he selected, but with “a little more hair.” At Sanders’s trial, Luna was asked “to look in this courtroom and see if you see one of the two men in this room that was there that night.” Luna responded, “Well, I think he’s there in front of that lady,” and pointed to Sanders. But on crossexamination Luna admitted, “in general, young black men tend to look a lot alike” to him. He said that the man he selected at the lineup looked like the taller robber, while Sanders now looked more like the shorter robber, and he could not say for sure whether Sanders was the same man he selected at the lineup. In her closing argument, defense counsel emphasized that Luna admitted “all black men basically look alike to him.” During Freeman’s trial, Luna was again asked about his selection of Sanders at the lineup. He testified, “it was kind of difficult to identify the black person,” and admitted: “It is very difficult for me to identify black people due to the fact that I don’t live with black people.” Although his testimony 38 SANDERS V. CULLEN at Freeman’s trial more explicitly stated that Luna had trouble identifying black people, it does not demonstrate that the uncertain testimony he gave at Sanders’s trial was false. The state court could have reasonably determined that Luna’s testimony was neither perjurious nor material because he was consistently uncertain. Sanders does not point to any evidence that the prosecution knew or suspected that Luna’s identification testimony was false. Because Sanders failed to prove that any of the eyewitnesses provided material, false testimony or that the prosecution knew they committed perjury, we hold that the state court’s rejection of Sanders’s Mooney-Napue claims relating to Rogoway, Malloy, Robinson, and Luna was neither contrary to clearly established federal law nor objectively unreasonable. We affirm the district court’s denial of Sanders’s habeas petition with respect to these claims. II. Mooney-Napue Claims Relating to Rodell Mitchell and Bruce Woods Sanders also argues that the prosecution knowingly used material, false testimony from two non-eyewitnesses—Rodell Mitchell and Bruce Woods—in violation of Mooney-Napue. This argument encompasses claims 20 and 22. A. Rodell Mitchell’s Allegedly False Testimony Rodell Mitchell was one of the Bob’s Big Boy managers whom Brenda Givens told about her encounter with Stewart at the Los Angeles County Jail. In claim 20, Sanders maintains that Mitchell lied when he claimed that he responded by calling the police and filing an internal incident SANDERS V. CULLEN 39 report. Sanders points to deposition testimony from Detective Stallcup, who participated in the initial investigation of the robbery, and a declaration David Lind gave in Tami Rogoway’s civil suit, to demonstrate that Mitchell’s trial testimony was false. The district court correctly ruled that Sanders’s argument was “conclusory,” and that it did not establish that Mitchell gave false testimony. At Sanders’s trial, Mitchell testified that he called the police after Givens told him about her conversation with Stewart. According to Mitchell, he called the police about fifteen to twenty minutes before the police arrived to ask about a different murder that took place near the restaurant that night. He told the police about his conversation with Givens in his phone call, and pointed out Stewart and Gilcrest to them when they visited the restaurant. Mitchell testified that he called the police more than once and they came to the restaurant multiple times that night. He also said he mailed an incident report to David Lind, head of security for Bob’s Big Boy, sometime after September 27, 1980. David Lind denied receiving such a report. During Rogoway’s civil lawsuit, a police detective testified that he checked logs maintained by the sergeant who served as LAPD Watch Commander on September 27, 1980, and found no record of any report of an impending robbery. He explained that a “robbery call” would have been a “high priority” and “procedure would have been to have something done” such as setting up immediate surveillance of the location and eventually confronting any individuals believed to be involved. 40 SANDERS V. CULLEN The declaration David Lind submitted in the civil suit stated that he had not received an incident report regarding the Stewart robbery threat, and that store manager Kim Clark—as opposed to night manager Rodell Mitchell—would have been the correct employee to file such a report. But according to Lind, this was also not the type of incident that would have triggered a reporting requirement because Bob’s Big Boy only required managers to report incidents occurring on restaurant premises. Stewart allegedly told Givens about her plans to rob the restaurant at the county jail. Neither the detective’s testimony nor David Lind’s declaration show that Mitchell testified falsely at Sanders’s trial. At most, this record demonstrates that the prosecution was aware of Mitchell’s and Lind’s conflicting accounts about the incident report. Nor has Sanders shown how Mitchell’s testimony was material. Givens’s report about her conversation with Stewart at the county jail was corroborated by Givens’s trial testimony and the stipulation concerning what Kim Clark would say if called to testify. Stewart’s visit to the restaurant on the night of September 27 was corroborated by Givens’s and Gilcrest’s trial testimony. Whether Mitchell called the police or filed an incident report were not important facts, and the jury was aware of the inconsistency between Mitchell’s and Lind’s version of events. The state court reasonably denied the Mooney-Napue claim related to Mitchell’s testimony. B. Bruce Woods’s Allegedly False Testimony Bruce Woods was the jailhouse informant who testified at Sanders’s and Stewart’s joint preliminary hearing about Stewart’s August 1980 attempt to solicit their mutual friend to rob Bob’s Big Boy. In claim 22, Sanders contends that SANDERS V. CULLEN 41 Woods provided material, false testimony at Sanders’s trial about statements Sanders allegedly made to Woods in a van after the preliminary hearing, including Sanders threatening Woods’s family. In support of the claim that Woods’s testimony was false, Sanders points to “the grand jury findings about the widespread practice of using jailhouse informants, the sheer improbability that Sanders would have made incriminating admissions to Woods, and the evidence of other misconduct.” The state court reasonably denied this claim because Sanders did not support the claim that Woods lied or that the prosecution knew his testimony was false. We affirm the district court’s denial of Sanders’s habeas petition with respect to the Mitchell and Woods Mooney-Napue claims.