Court Opinion

ID: 9487344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:14:19.964153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:11.898004
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I dissent from the majority opinion on the issues discussed in this opinion. As to its other determinations, I concur.
A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel.
I do not agree that an evidentiary hearing regarding ineffective assistance of counsel is required in this case. As I see it, Siripongs wants to have the district court and us engage in the kind of hindsight that the Supreme Court has warned against. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689-90, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065-66, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
Counsel viewed the state’s case as a chain of circumstantial evidence. His strategy was to break the chain by showing that there was a reasonable doubt as to several of the links. That was for the purpose of showing that Siripongs was not even at the scene of the killing; that he, a non-violent, prayerful monk, was not a part of the robbery itself. The evidence developed at trial lent some support to that theory. That certainly appears to be reasonable under the circumstances and does not demonstrate ineffective assistance. But, says Siripongs, there was another strategy that was so superior that it should have been used. I do not agree.
The evidence against Siripongs was powerful; it resulted in a unanimous affirmance of his conviction and sentence by the California Supreme Court. People v. Siripongs, 45 Cal.3d 548, 247 Cal.Rptr. 729, 754 P.2d 1306 (1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1019, 109 S.Ct. 820, 102 L.Ed.2d 810 (1989). Still, he now claims that despite the fact that his hands were cut, that clothing was found which was covered with blood which may have been his and that of a victim, that he had the stolen jewelry, that he had the victim’s credit cards, and that he was trying to hide evidence, there might have been an accomplice, who really committed the murder. He says that counsel should have vigorously pursued that possibility. Of course, he never sought to identify the other supposed culprit (or, by some accounts, culprits) — he still has not identified him. In the face of all of this, and based on a marvelous display of second guessing by “experts,” Siripongs says that there should have been an attempt to push off the actual violent killing on a phantom accomplice. That accomplice would have been the person who did the dirty work while Siripongs, after fighting his violent friend in a vain attempt to save the victims, got to keep the loot. The accomplice defense would have been based upon essentially the same *1324evidence that was developed at trial but would have placed Siripongs at the scene of the killing.
We are also told that there is nothing strange about that story, and that all would come clear if the jury had been told that Siripongs, an admitted participant in a robbery-killing, was simply following Thai culture and religion in not naming his phantom accomplice, who, we must remember, is the supposed killer of the victims. In other words, counsel, without help from his client, was supposed to have admitted that Siri-pongs was at the scene, created a phantom unnamed accomplice, dubbed that accomplice the actual killer, presented Siripongs as an attempted savior of the victims, explained the keeping of the loot and other evidence of the crime, and pointed to the fact that Siripongs was an honorable person bound by his culture and religion to remain silent and stoic. Thus, it is said, Siripongs might have saved his own life. We are also told that when counsel failed to present that story, rather than the one he did, he was constitutionally ineffective. The district court was not impressed by that improbable scenario or by the conclusion which is said to follow from it. Neither am I. Certainly this hindsight defense does not so outstrip counsel’s strategy as to permit a finding of ineffectiveness.
Siripongs’ subsidiary claim that counsel did not understand the nature and possible use of his prior burglary conviction in Thailand is, to my mind, a misstatement of the trial court record. It is perfectly clear that counsel himself convinced the state trial court that the Thai conviction was not a crime of violence. Still, counsel did not want to call family members to attempt to “humanize” Siripongs because counsel wanted no possibility of having the jury discover that there had been a prior conviction of that type. As the district court pointed out, even now the so-called humanizing evidence is “utterly unmoving.” It seems to me that counsel could properly and competently decide that it was well worth excluding that evidence in order to assure the exclusion of references to the prior crime. No evidentiary hearing is needed to demonstrate that.
Finally, Siripongs points to the fact that this was counsel’s first capital case. I fail to see the significance of that, unless we are now supposed to infer that attorneys are incompetent when they try their first capital case, even though they may be otherwise experienced in the law. As it was, Siripongs’ counsel had been a public defender for nine years and had extensive trial experience. He had handled robbery, rape and homicide trials, among others, and was certified as a criminal law specialist. To be precise, he had also taken a murder case to trial, but it had been resolved before the trial was completed.
Thus, the district court was not required to conduct an evidentiary hearing to explore the issues that Siripongs claims show that his attorney was incompetent.1
B. Interpreter Bias.
I also disagree with Siripongs’ contention that there could have been no such thing as a procedural default in California because the default rules were not regularly followed. For that proposition Siripongs relies upon In re Clark, 5 Cal.4th 750, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 509, 855 P.2d 729 (1993), a case where, ironically enough, the California Supreme Court attempted to clear up any doubt about the force of its procedural default rules. The court did so because, as sometimes happens in law, uncertainties and misunderstandings had arisen.
In Clark, after first saying that its practice had been to reject piecemeal habeas corpus petitions, the court did say that procedural bars to second petitions had been “termed” discretionary and that prior cases had “suggested” that the court “may be willing to entertain multiple collateral attacks.” Id. at 768, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d at 520, 855 P.2d at 740. However, the court stated that it had “never condoned abusive writ practice or repetitious collateral attacks on a final judgment.” Id. at 769,21 Cal.Rptr.2d at 521, 855 P.2d at 741. Rather, it had placed restrictions upon repetitive attacks and had condemned them. Id. at 774,21 Cal.Rptr.2d at 525, 855 P.2d at 745. The court did say that there are certain *1325exceptions. It said that it would “not be inflexible” but that absent justification a summary denial of successive petitions would follow if there were not allegations of “facts which, if proven, would establish that a fundamental miscarriage of justice oc-curred_” Id. at 797, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d at 540, 855 P.2d at 760. It then went on to define the standard that a petitioner must meet in order to show a fundamental miscarriage. Id. at 797-98, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d at 540-41, 855 P.2d at 760-61. In fine, Clark certainly does not justify our erasing the effect of California procedural default determinations for all cases prior to Clark. I fear we will live to rue the day that we did so.
Beyond that, it appears to me that California did, indeed, dispose of the interpreter bias claim on the alternative procedural default ground when it denied the petition both for reasons of procedural default and on the merits. I also think that we should respect that decision. See Carriger v. Lewis, 971 F.2d 329, 333 (9th Cir.1992) (en bane) (state court may alternatively deny relief on merits of federal constitutional claim even after dismissing claim on procedural grounds), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 113 S.Ct. 1600, 123 L.Ed.2d 163 (1993); Thomas v. Lewis, 945 F.2d 1119, 1123 (9th Cir.1991) (claim was defaulted when state court found that petitioner had waived all the issues even though state court also discussed merits of claims); cf. Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 264 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 1044 n. 10, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989) (“Moreover, a state court need not fear reaching the merits of a federal claim in an alternative holding. By its very definition, the adequate and independent state ground doctrine requires the federal court to honor a state holding that is a sufficient basis for the state court’s judgment, even when the state court also relies on federal law.”); Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1041, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3476, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983) (“If the state court decision indicates clearly and expressly that it is alternatively based on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds, we, of course, will not undertake to review the decision.”) (emphasis added).
I would uphold Siripongs’ conviction in all respects. I would affirm the judgment of the district court. Thus, I concur for the most part, but dissent in part.

. Also, I do not believe that the alleged instructional error demonstrates counsel's incompetence.