Court Opinion

ID: 9474564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:01:43.390751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:11.077488
License: Public Domain

*986SNEED, Circuit Judge:
This is an appeal from the district court’s denial of Michael Colley’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Colley is presently incarcerated in the Nevada State Prison, where he is serving a twenty-year term of imprisonment and a consecutive life term with the possibility of parole. The district court entered a final judgment on December 24, 1984, and this court has jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.
I.
BACKGROUND
We are not the first court to confront events of the night of March 25, 1979, in which appellant was involved. On that night, Kristine Jensen was admitted to the emergency room at Carson-Tahoe Hospital. She suffered from multiple stab wounds that had caused a loss of one-third of her total blood volume and required prompt surgery to prevent death. When one of the nurses asked Jensen if she knew who her assailant had been, she identified as her attacker the man who had brought her to the emergency room — Michael Colley, the appellant.
He was prosecuted and his first trial ended in a mistrial. In November 1979, Colley was retried in Nevada state court for the crimes of attempted murder and battery with intent to commit sexual assault resulting in substantial bodily harm. At trial, Jensen’s version of the events that occurred on the evening of March 25, 1979, was as follows.
Colley, a casual acquaintance of Jensen, stopped at her home early in the evening and invited her to go out driving with him. Because she wanted to practice on a manual shift car, she agreed. After stopping the car briefly so that Ms. Jensen could talk to two friends she had spotted on the street, Colley drove out of town a couple of mile's on a dirt road. Suddenly, he turned the car off the path, grabbed Ms. Jensen’s neck and began choking her, and said, “I’m going to kill you.” After a struggle, Jensen fell out of the car. Colley got out, and came around to where she lay. He put his hand on her neck and said, “Don’t scream or I won’t do nothing [sic].”
After Jensen agreed not to make noise, Colley began apologizing, saying he didn’t know what he was doing. She steadily moved away from him, but he came after her. In the ensuing struggle he threw her to the ground; she tried to get up, but he started choking her again. He said, “You are so pretty.” When she had a chance, she ran into the bushes. He chased her, pushed her into the dirt, and repeatedly kicked her. She threw sand in his face, after which he retreated to his car. He returned with a knife and began stabbing her and taking off her clothes. After leaving again for a few minutes, Colley came back and said, “We have got to get you to a hospital.” He asked her, “Who did this?” and in order not to enrage him she said, “Steve Walker.” See Reporter’s Trial Transcript on Appeal at 194-221 [hereinafter cited as R.T.] (testimony of Christine Jensen).
Hospital personnel took up the story at that point and testified that Ms. Jensen and Colley arrived at Carson-Tahoe Hospital sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 that evening. Apparently, Colley first came in alone and said, “I have someone out in the car with multiple stab wounds.” He had blood under his fingernails, dirt around his eyes, and twigs or pieces of tumbleweed in his hair and sweater; his face had been scratched. When the hospital personnel brought Jensen in from the car, she was naked from the waist down. While in the waiting room, Colley acted in a violent manner: he punched the doors, threw off the clerk’s hand when she grabbed his arm, and kicked over a standing ashtray. See id. at 307-15 (testimony of Theresa Laird).
After Ms. Jensen’s relatives — not the police — located the scene of the crime on March 26, the police searched at the site and uncovered the victim’s clothing, some blood stains, and a ■ large pocket knife.
Colley’s version of the events of March 25, 1979, contradicted Ms. Jensen’s. In his *987testimony he recounted an evening spent with friends, including his fiancee, Debra Pena. He testified that on his way home from visiting with his friends, he saw a woman staggering along the road (at a place two miles from where the crime occurred). He noticed that she was hurt and he pulled over. Recognizing her as he approached, he laid his hand on her shoulder and began to speak. She screamed and attacked him, scratching him and pulling his hair. He stopped her and told her he was going to take her to the hospital. She resisted at first, but finally agreed. See id. at 572-79 (testimony of Michael Colley). On the way to the hospital, he asked her who her assailant had been. She replied, “Steve.” Id. at 579.
On cross-examination, the prosecution attacked Colley’s testimony regarding his whereabouts at the time of the attack on Ms. Jensen. As required by state statute, Nev.Rev.Stat. § 174.087, the defense had earlier filed a pre-trial Notice of Alibi, naming Colley’s friends who allegedly had seen him on March 17,1979, and March 25,1979. Although the list included his fiancee, Debra Pena, neither the prosecution nor the defense called her to the stand at trial. Nonetheless, Colley mentioned her in connection with his alibi, and during cross-examination the prosecutor asked, “Where is she now?” See R.T. at 584. After Colley replied that she was in Chicago, defense counsel objected to this line of inquiry on grounds of irrelevance. When asked by the court to establish the relevance of the questioning, the prosecution replied, “I believe Debra Pena was originally named as one of the alibi witnesses.” Id. at 585.
At this point defense counsel objected and, after the jury was excused, a motion for mistrial was made. See id. at 585-86. Defense counsel argued that a Notice of Alibi cannot be used by the prosecution in this manner. He contended that the state had, in effect, shifted the burden of proof of innocence to the defendant by requiring him to explain why Ms. Pena had not been called to the stand. See id. at 586-90. The court disagreed and denied the motion for a mistrial. In its view, the introduction of direct testimony concerning Ms. Pena by the defense had rendered her availability as a witness a legitimate topic of inquiry on cross-examination; nor did the court find prejudicial the prosecution’s reference to Pena as a potential alibi witness.
The State in rebuttal called Evelena Hohl to the witness stand. Over the defense’s objections, she testified that Colley had sexually assaulted her just eight days before his alleged attack on Jensen and at almost the same location. Hohl’s testimony described a modus operandi similar in other respects to the one alleged by Jensen. According to Hohl, she saw Colley in a parking lot and asked him for a ride home, to which he assented. When she got home, she filled up an empty beer bottle with whiskey and then asked Colley to take her back to where he had picked her up. He again agreed, but said he needed to stop by his brother’s house first. He drove out of the city for several miles, stopped the car, and turned off the lights. Grabbing Hohl by the hair, he told her to take her clothes off; upon her refusal, he walked around to her side of the car and began to choke her. When she saw that she could neither prevail in a struggle nor dissuade him by pretending unconsciousness, she ceased struggling and allowed him to rape her. On the way home afterward, he kept saying, “Why did I do this? How come you didn’t stop me?” He declared his intention to commit suicide and showed Hohl the knife he claimed he was going to use to take his life. See id. at 627-32 (testimony of Evelena Hohl).
Prior to trial, the defense filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of other crimes committed by Colley. Defense counsel argued that Hohl’s testimony was not necessary to prove intent if the jury believed Colley committed the alleged acts against Ms. Jensen. The prosecution responded by pointing out that intent was placed in issue by Colley’s plea of not guilty and that the alleged prior acts were probative of identity due to their similarity in time and manner. Agreeing with the *988prosecution, the court denied the motion to exclude.
Also before trial, the defense filed a motion to compel both Jensen and Hohl to undergo psychiatric examinations establishing their competency to testify. Defense counsel argued that peculiar circumstances — a history of psychological problems in Hohl’s case and, evidently, the traumatic nature of the attack in Jensen’s — cast doubt on the reliability of their testimony. See Transcript of Proceedings at Arraignment at 23-26. The court denied the motion. It concluded that Nevada law did not compel such examinations, and it stated that it would not order them absent substantial evidence of their necessity.
Following presentation of the evidence and counsel’s closing arguments, the jury was directed to determine in a unitary proceeding both Colley’s innocence or guilt under the attempted murder and aggravated battery charges and the sentence to be meted out if it found Colley guilty of the aggravated battery charge. Under Nevada law, the jury, after such a finding, must mete out either life imprisonment with a chance of parole or life imprisonment with no chance of parole. After a substantial period of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict on both charges and sentenced Colley to life imprisonment with a chance of parole on the battery charge. The trial judge sentenced 'Colley to a consecutive twenty-year term on the attempted murder count.
Colley appealed his conviction to the Nevada Supreme Court. There he presented the same issues that he raises here and his convictions were affirmed. Each of his contentions was rejected. The supreme court held that the prosecutor’s reference to Ms. Pena’s status as a potential alibi witness was not unjustified because Colley himself had injected Pena into his testimony when recounting his alibi on direct examination, and because it was “far more appropriate that she be called by the defense in corroboration than by the state.” Colley v. State, 98 Nev. 14, 16, 639 P.2d 530, 532 (1982).
The court also ruled that the motion for a psychiatric examination of the victim was properly denied because “[h]er testimony was amply corroborated, and her emotional state was not subject to serious attack.” Id. at 17, 639 P.2d at 532. The court further held that although Hohl’s testimony at the preliminary hearing “warranted speculation by the defense that she was emotionally unstable,” the trial judge had not abused his discretion in refusing to order an examination. The court observed that the defense had been able to elicit damaging testimony from Hohl regarding her drug use and past emotional problems, and that the jury had therefore had ample opportunity to assess her credibility. Id., 639 P.2d at 532.
In addition, the court held that Hohl’s testimony about the prior sexual assault was admissible for purposes of proving intent and identity, id., 639 P.2d at 533; that Colley was not subjected to double punishment because the crimes of which he was convicted required proof of different facts and because the evidence supported a conclusion that Colley’s motive had changed during the course of the crime, id. at 17-18, 639 P.2d at 533; and, finally, that the unitary procedure for assessing guilt and determining sentencing did not deprive Colley of effective assistance of counsel, because the defense’s closing argument was predicated wholly on a theory of Colley’s innocence, yet the jury — notwithstanding the defense’s failure to argue for mitigation of sentence — imposed the least severe of the possible punishments for aggravated battery, id. at 18, 639 P.2d at 533.
In denying Colley’s habeas petition, the federal district court essentially agreed with the rulings of the Nevada Supreme Court. We shall address in order the issues pertaining to double jeopardy, admission of evidence of prior bad acts, the demand for psychiatric examinations, the unitary procedure for determining guilt and punishment, and the prosectutor’s comments regarding the absence of an alibi witness.
*989II.
DISCUSSION
A. Double Jeopardy.
The appellant contends that because both the charge of attempted murder and the charge of battery with intent to commit sexual assault causing substantia] bodily harm arose from the same transaction, his prosecution and punishment for both crimes constituted double jeopardy. Appellant raises two separate arguments. First, he claims that because the intentional infliction of substantial bodily harm is one evidentiary basis for inferring an intent to kill, every aggravated battery charge will subject the perpetrator to a charge of attempted murder. In essence, he asserts that attempted murder is a lesser included offense within the greater offense of battery with intent to commit sexual assault causing substantial bodily harm. See Opening Brief of Appellant at 16-18.
We disagree. As the Supreme Court held in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), a single act or transaction may form the basis for the prosecution of two distinct statutory offenses whenever conviction for each offense requires the proof of a fact that the other does not. See id. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182. Moreover, the Block-burger test may be satisfied despite “ ‘a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes.’ ” Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 166, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2226, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977) (quoting Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 785 n. 17, 95 S.Ct. 1284, 1293 n. 17, 43 L.Ed.2d 616 (1975)). The prosecution of Colley did not offend Blockburger. Under Nevada law, conviction of attempted murder requires, among other things, proof of an intent to kill, see Nev.Rev.Stat. §§ 200.010-.020, whereas conviction of battery with intent to commit sexual assault causing substantial bodily harm requires proof of intent to commit sexual assault, see id. § 200.400. Although Colley is correct in observing that intentional infliction of substantial bodily harm is a basis for inferring an intent to kill, an intent to kill is not a necessary element of the aggravated battery offense. It is not a fact that need be proved to secure a conviction for aggravated battery. The two offenses are distinct for double jeopardy purposes.
Colley’s second argument is that the jury could not reasonably have inferred two separate intents (that is, intent to kill and intent to commit sexual assault) from the same act of stabbing. He further contends that, although both the information and the instructions to the jury specified that the attempted murder charge as well as the aggravated battery charge arose out of the stabbing, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the conviction on the mistaken notion that the attempted murder charge stemmed from Colley’s declaration of intent to kill and subsequent choking of the victim. See Reply Brief of Appellant at 1-2; Colley v. State, 98 Nev. 14,17-18, 639 P.2d 530, 533 (1982).
A federal court has a limited role in considering, on habeas review, the sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 326, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2792, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The record demonstrates that a reasonable jury could have inferred from the evidence adduced at trial — particularly the evidence that Colley undressed the victim after announcing his intent to kill her — that in stabbing her he intended both to subdue her for purposes of sexual assault and to kill her. Because such an inference would support Colley’s conviction for two separate crimes, the Nevada Supreme Court’s error was not prejudicial and does not constitute grounds for granting Colley’s writ of habeas corpus. As the Supreme Court stated in Jackson v. Virginia, “[A] federal habeas corpus court faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume — even if it does not affirmatively appear in the record — that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution.” Id. We therefore hold that Colley was not subjected to double jeopardy.
*990B. Admission of Evidence of Prior Bad Acts.
Colley contends that Evelena Hohl’s testimony alleging his commission of a pri- or-sexual assault was irrelevant and highly prejudicial and that its admission warrants habeas relief. It is clear, however, that no such relief can be granted unless admission of the testimony was arbitrary or fundamentally unfair. See Batchelor v. Cupp, 693 F.2d 859, 865 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1212, 103 S.Ct. 3547, 77 L.Ed.2d 1395 (1983).
As all the courts below held, the testimony was relevant to prove both intent and identity — issues that Colley raised by his “not guilty” plea. The testimony was especially probative of identity because, contrary to the defense’s assertions, it did suggest that Colley possessed a unique modus operandi. According to the testimony, Colley took both women out driving, assaulted them in roughly the same place within several days of each other, commenced his attack by choking them, and expressed remorse, distress, and confusion during or after the act. Given these facts, Hohl’s testimony must be deemed relevant evidence; its admission did not deprive Colley of a fair trial.
C. Psychiatric Examinations.
Colley has cited no authority justifying his attempt to compel Jensen and Hohl to undergo psychiatric examinations prior to testifying. Moreover, we conclude that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the appellant’s request. As the Nevada Supreme Court ruled, Jensen’s testimony was amply corroborated and her emotional state was not subject to serious attack. As for Hohl, the defense cross-examined her extensively and was able to elicit damaging testimony regarding her drug use and past emotional problems, see R.T. at 634-44. This provided the jury with an ample opportunity to assess her credibility. In view of federal courts’ “reluctance to encumber criminal proceedings with psychiatric examinations of witnesses,” United States v. Eschweiler, 745 F.2d 435, 438 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 1188, 84 L.Ed.2d 334 (1985); see also United States v. Brown, 770 F.2d 768, 770 (9th Cir.1985) (holding that, on direct appeal, a trial court’s denial of a motion to order psychiatric examinations of witnesses is reviewed for an abuse of discretion), we agree with the Nevada Supreme Court’s conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.
D. Unitary Proceeding for Determining Guilt and Punishment.
Under Nevada law, as already pointed out, the jury selects which of two penalties should be imposed for a conviction of battery with intent to commit sexual assault resulting in substantial bodily harm. See Nev.Rev.Stat. § 200.400(3). Appellant contends that the trial court denied him effective assistance of counsel by ordering that the jury determine in a single proceeding both the question of guilt or innocence and that of punishment. His theory is that such a procedure places a defense attorney in the untenable position of having to argue, on the one hand, for his client’s acquittal and, on the other, for mitigation of the penalty if the jury convicts. Such arguments, he asserts, are at war with each other. To avoid two weak arguments defense counsel must forgo one or the other.
We reject this contention under the circumstances of this case. As the Nevada Supreme Court found and the trial transcript demonstrates, the closing defense argument “was based solely on innocence.” Colley v. State, 98 Nev. at 18, 639 P.2d at 533; see R.T. at 704-15. Because the jury imposed on Colley the more lenient of the two sentencing alternatives, he cannot argue that he was prejudiced by his counsel’s decision not to argue for mitigation of punishment.
E. Prosecutor’s Reference to the Absence of an Alibi Witness.
Colley argues finally that, by referring to the absence of Debra Pena at trial, the prosecution impermissibly shifted its bur*991den of persuasion to him and thus denied him a fair trial.
We disagree. Any constitutional error, the existence of which is doubtful, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (articulating test for harmlessness in cases involving constitutional error). The prosecutor’s reference to Pena’s status as an alibi witness was brief — cut off as it was by the defense’s objection — and we therefore think it highly improbable that the jury members were aware of the comment’s intended significance. Moreover, any negative inferences that the comment might have encouraged could have been drawn independently by the jury. Colley was the first to mention Pena and his relationship to her, and members of the jury were likely to note her absence and speculate on its ramifications. Finally, the evidence against Colley is overwhelming.
AFFIRMED.