Court Opinion

ID: 9951131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 17:01:20.997993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:37:28.886794
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         MAR 15 2024
                                                                       MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                        U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHARLES EDWARD LUCKETT,                          No.    21-15391

                Petitioner-Appellant,            D.C. No. 4:18-cv-07670-HSG

 v.
                                                 MEMORANDUM*
ROBERT NEUSCHMID, Warden,

                Respondent-Appellee.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of California
                 Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., District Judge, Presiding

                     Argued and Submitted February 15, 2024
                            San Francisco, California

Before: S.R. THOMAS, BEA, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.

      Habeas petitioner Charles Luckett appeals the district court’s order which

denied his petition for habeas corpus. Because the parties are familiar with the facts,

we do not recount them here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and

2253(a). We review the district court’s denial of habeas relief de novo. Avena v.

Chappell, 932 F.3d 1237, 1247 (9th Cir. 2019). We affirm.

      *
          This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      1. The California Court of Appeal adjudicated Luckett’s federal claim “on the

merits,” such that deference to the state court’s decision is warranted under the Anti-

Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”).1 See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

Even when a state court does not explicitly address the federal claims raised by a

defendant, a federal habeas court must “presume (subject to rebuttal) that the federal

claim was adjudicated on the merits.” Johnson v. Williams, 568 U.S. 289, 293

(2013); see Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 99–100 (2011). We hold that Luckett

has not rebutted that presumption.

      The presumption applies here because the California Court of Appeal rejected

Luckett’s federal claim without expressly addressing it as a federal claim. Luckett

claimed that his right to present a complete defense under federal and state law was

violated because the state trial court excluded evidence relating to Luckett’s brother.

According to a police report, Luckett’s brother was detained in a police perimeter

near the crime scene shortly after the murder, but he was released after witnesses

were unable to identify him. The California Court of Appeal rejected Luckett’s

argument that this evidence should have been admitted to prove third-party

culpability, because the evidence did not satisfy California’s rule for the admission

1
  Because the California Supreme Court denied Luckett’s direct appeal without
explanation, we “look through” to the California Court of Appeal’s decision, as it is
the “last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale.” See
Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018).

                                          2
of third-party culpability established in People v. Hall, 718 P.2d 99 (Cal. 1986).2

The court also rejected Luckett’s argument that the evidence should have been

admitted so that he could challenge the prosecution’s DNA and eyewitness

identification evidence. Without citing federal authority, the court held the evidence

was too speculative to warrant its admission for those purposes, and that its exclusion

did not implicate the due process right to present a defense. Accordingly, we must

presume that Luckett’s federal claim was adjudicated on the merits.

      The presumption of adjudication on the merits may be rebutted by showing

that the state court relied on a state standard that is less protective than the federal

standard. Williams, 568 U.S. at 301–02. But Luckett has not shown that California’s

Hall standard for the admission of third-party culpability evidence is less protective

than the federal standard. Luckett has not identified a Supreme Court precedent that

contradicts Hall. See Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 8 (2002) (per curiam) (holding

that state courts need not cite Supreme Court cases “so long as neither the reasoning

nor the result of the state-court decision contradicts them”). Furthermore, the

2
  In Hall, the California Supreme Court held that, to introduce evidence of third-
party culpability, a defendant must proffer “direct or circumstantial evidence linking
the third person to the actual perpetration of the crime.” 718 P.2d at 104. The
evidence must “be capable of raising a reasonable doubt of defendant’s guilt,” such
that its probative value is not substantially outweighed by its adverse effects. Id. And
under Hall, “evidence of mere motive or opportunity to commit the crime in another
person, without more, will not suffice . . . .” Id. In sum, California does “not require
that any evidence, however remote, must be admitted to show a third party’s possible
culpability.” Id.

                                           3
Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Hall standard and similar third-party

culpability rules that require a sufficient connection between the third person and the

crime “are widely accepted.” Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 327, 327 n.*

(2006).

      Luckett also argues the presumption has been rebutted because the California

Court of Appeal did not cite, discuss, or acknowledge federal law when it held that

the exclusion of evidence for purposes other than third-party culpability (i.e., to

undermine the prosecution’s DNA and eyewitness identification evidence) did not

implicate his due process right to present a defense. But in holding that the evidence

was inadmissible to undercut the prosecution’s DNA evidence, the court cited

People v. Babbitt, a California Supreme Court case which relied on United States

Supreme Court caselaw to hold the exclusion of speculative evidence did not violate

a defendant’s due process right to present a complete defense. 755 P.2d 253, 264–

65 (Cal. 1988) (first citing Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 (1967); then citing

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973); and then citing Crane v. Kentucky,

476 U.S. 683 (1986)). We find it “difficult to imagine any panel of appellate judges

reading [Babbitt] and passing on the propriety of” excluding the evidence relating to

Luckett’s brother “without realizing that such situations also bear on the federal

constitutional right to [present a complete defense].” See Williams, 568 U.S. at 305.

      Moreover, in holding that the evidence was inadmissible to undercut the

                                          4
prosecution’s identification evidence, the California Court of Appeal relied on

general principles of relevance. California’s rules of evidence “subsume[] the federal

standard,” see id. at 301, because the California and federal definitions of relevance

are nearly identical. Compare Cal. Evid. Code § 210, with Fed. R. Evid. 401. The

sole difference is that California additionally requires evidence to be relevant to a

“disputed fact,” but that distinction is irrelevant here, where the court’s decision did

not rest on whether the underlying fact was disputed.

      Hence, the presumption that Luckett’s federal claim was “adjudicated on the

merits” is not rebutted, and so the California Court of Appeal’s decision is entitled

to AEDPA deference under § 2254(d).

      2. The California Court of Appeal’s decision to exclude Luckett’s evidence

was not “contrary to, or an unreasonable application of,” clearly established

Supreme Court precedent. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). First, Luckett argues that the

Supreme Court has clearly established that “arbitrary” evidentiary rules may

unconstitutionally burden the right to present a complete defense. E.g., Holmes, 547

U.S. at 324–31. According to Luckett, California’s Hall standard is an arbitrary

evidentiary rule. An arbitrary rule is one that “excluded important defense evidence

but that did not serve any legitimate interests.” Id. at 325. On the other hand, a state

does not violate a criminal defendant’s right to present a defense when it imposes

“established rules of procedure and evidence designed to assure both fairness and

                                           5
reliability in the ascertainment of guilt and innocence.” Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302;

see United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308 (1998) (“[R]ulemakers have broad

latitude under the Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal

trials.”).

       As noted above, the Supreme Court has already determined that third-party

culpability rules which require a sufficient connection between the third person and

the crime do serve a legitimate purpose: “to focus the trial on the central issues by

excluding evidence that has only a very weak logical connection to the central

issues.” Holmes, 547 U.S. at 330. Holmes held that a different third-party culpability

rule was “arbitrary” and therefore violated the defendant’s right to present a

complete defense, because it required exclusion of such evidence, regardless its

probative value, whenever the prosecution’s evidence strongly supported a guilty

verdict. Id. at 331. But in so holding, the Court distinguished “widely accepted,”

“well-established rules of evidence”—including Hall itself—that exclude third-

party culpability evidence that “does not sufficiently connect the other person to the

crime, as, for example, where the evidence is speculative or remote . . . .” Id. at 327

(quotation omitted), 327 n.*. Hence, Hall is not an arbitrary evidentiary rule.

       Further, the record does not support a conclusion that the state court applied

Hall “mechanistically”—i.e., that the Hall standard does not serve a legitimate

purpose in this case. See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302. Given that Luckett’s counsel

                                          6
represented to the trial judge that he had “no information that [Luckett’s brother]

committed this crime,” one could reasonably conclude that the third-party

culpability evidence “has only a very weak logical connection to the central issues,”

as Holmes contemplates is a permissible ground for exclusion. See 547 U.S. at 330.

      Second, Luckett argues that improper exclusion of critical defense evidence

is always unconstitutional. In addition to proving third-party culpability, Luckett

argues that the evidence was critical to challenging the prosecution’s DNA and

identification evidence. For this argument, Luckett relies on general propositions

about the right to present a complete defense. But general propositions are not

enough under AEDPA; a Supreme Court decision must “‘squarely address[] the

issue in th[e] case’ or establish a legal principle that ‘clearly extend[s]’ to a new

context . . . .” Moses v. Payne, 555 F.3d 742, 754 (9th Cir. 2009) (alteration in

original) (quoting Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120, 123, 125 (2008)); see also

Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000) (“[T]he phrase ‘clearly established

Federal law’ . . . refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of th[e] [Supreme]

Court’s decisions . . . .”). Most of the Supreme Court cases Luckett cites hold that a

defendant has the right to present reliable, directly exculpatory evidence. E.g.,

Chambers, 410 U.S. at 294–303. These cases do not “squarely address” Luckett’s

right to present evidence about his brother, which is not directly exculpatory. See

Ayala v. Chappell, 829 F.3d 1081, 1114 (9th Cir. 2016) (denying habeas relief where

                                          7
the excluded evidence “supported defendant’s theory of the case, [but] was not

directly exculpatory like the confession in Chambers”). Luckett’s other cases either

involve an arbitrary rule, e.g., Holmes, 547 U.S. at 324–31, or hold that the exclusion

of the evidence in question was not unconstitutional, e.g., California v. Trombetta,

467 U.S. 479, 485–91 (1984).

      In sum, the Supreme Court has not clearly established that the exclusion of

the evidence at issue resulted from the application of an arbitrary evidentiary rule or

otherwise violated Luckett’s right to present a complete defense. Hence, the state

court’s decision was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly

established United States Supreme Court precedent.

      AFFIRMED.

                                          8