Court Opinion

ID: 9371469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-16 16:00:40.395848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:28.144375
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 22-8049     Document: 010110813811         Date Filed: 02/16/2023       Page: 1
                                                                                      FILED
                                                                          United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                             Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                           February 16, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                                             Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                                 Clerk of Court
  CHARLES ALFRED ARMAJO, JR.,

        Petitioner - Appellant,

  v.                                                           No. 22-8049
                                                      (D.C. No. 2:21-CV-00184-NDF)
  WYOMING ATTORNEY GENERAL;                                      (D. Wyo.)
  STATE OF WYOMING; NEICOLE
  MOLDEN, Warden of WSP,

        Respondents - Appellees.
                       _________________________________

             ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*
                    _________________________________

 Before BACHARACH, BALDOCK, and CARSON, Circuit Judges.
                  _________________________________

        Charles Armajo, Jr., proceeding pro se,1 seeks a Certificate of Appealability

 (COA) to appeal the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition challenging

 his conviction in Wyoming state court for second-degree sexual abuse of a minor. We

 deny a COA and dismiss this matter.

        *
          This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case,
 res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
 consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
        1
         Because Mr. Armajo proceeds pro se, we construe his arguments liberally, but
 we “cannot take on the responsibility of serving as [his] attorney in constructing
 arguments and searching the record.” Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer,
 425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005).
Appellate Case: 22-8049        Document: 010110813811       Date Filed: 02/16/2023        Page: 2

                                      BACKGROUND

        A Wyoming jury convicted Mr. Armajo of sexual abuse of a child in the second

 degree. The victim, ZL, was his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter. Mr. Armajo is a Native

 American. The state alleged Mr. Armajo inappropriately touched ZL in October 2018

 when he performed a ceremony in connection with ZL’s first hunting trip. ZL informed a

 school counselor the day after the ceremony that Mr. Armajo touched her inappropriately.

 The school counselor reported this information to law enforcement, which opened an

 investigation ultimately leading to the criminal proceedings against Mr. Armajo. At trial,

 the state’s evidence included testimony from ZL, her mother, the school counselor, and

 the investigating officers.

        The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed Mr. Armajo’s conviction on direct appeal.

 See Armajo v. State, 478 P.3d 184, 196 (Wyo. 2020). Mr. Armajo pursued state habeas

 relief before the Wyoming Supreme Court, which denied his petition. He filed his § 2254

 petition in the District of Wyoming and amended that petition twice.

        In his second amended petition, Mr. Armajo brought four claims: (1) violation of

 his First Amendment rights to practice his religion (i.e., ceremonial/healing rites),

 (2) ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) at trial, (3) IAC on appeal, and (4) denial of

 his right to exercise his religion under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act

 (AIRFA), 42 U.S.C. § 1996. The district court concluded a state procedural bar—

 Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-14-103—applied to claims (1), (2), and (4) because Mr. Armajo did

 not raise them on direct appeal in his state appellate proceedings. The district court

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 further concluded the bar was adequate and independent because it was firmly established

 and regularly followed.

        As to claim (3)—ineffective assistance of state appellate counsel—the court

 analyzed it both as a freestanding habeas claim and as a potential basis to overcome the

 state procedural bar to his other three claims. But the court concluded the claim failed

 because Mr. Armajo did not allege any sufficiently prejudicial errors by counsel.

 Although Mr. Armajo asserted his state appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to

 “present four specific errors that should have been raised,” R. at 109, he never articulated

 what those errors were. This foreclosed him from showing that his counsel’s

 performance was constitutionally deficient or that it resulted in prejudice. The court

 concluded the detailed testimony of ZL and her mother, alone,

        was more than sufficient for a jury to find . . . beyond a reasonable doubt
        that [Mr. Armajo] was guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor
        under Wyoming law. This is true regardless of whether his trial counsel
        failed to raise a Brady violation, the privilege against evidence of spousal
        communications, other allegedly exculpatory evidence from a cell phone
        that was not made available for trial, and inconsistencies among the
        testimony and police reports.

 R. at 210. The court further rejected any IAC claims in connection with appellate

 counsel’s failure to raise issues related to either the First Amendment or AIRFA.

 As the court noted, “[s]tate ‘laws burdening religion are ordinarily not subject to

 strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause so long as they are neutral and

 generally applicable.’” R. at 211 (quoting Fulton v. City of Philadelphia,

 141 S. Ct. 1868, 1876 (2021)). And it explained Mr. Armajo failed to “point to

 any lack of neutrality, lack of general application, or lack of rational relationship

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 to a legitimate government interest in protecting children” in Wyoming’s statute

 prohibiting sexual abuse of a child. Id. And the court further explained that

 AIRFA “is simply a policy statement and does not create a cause of action or any

 judicially enforceable individual rights.” R. at 212 (internal quotation marks

 omitted). Because the First Amendment and AIRFA claims failed as a matter of

 law, the district court concluded Mr. Armajo’s counsel was not ineffective for not

 raising them on appeal.

        The district court therefore denied Mr. Armajo’s petition with prejudice and

 denied a COA.

                                        DISCUSSION

        To appeal the denial of his § 2254 petition, Mr. Armajo must obtain a COA by

 “showing that reasonable jurists could debate whether . . . the petition should have been

 resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve

 encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)

 (internal quotation marks omitted). Mr. Armajo seeks a COA to raise three issues on

 appeal. In the first issue, he presses his IAC claim as to state appellate counsel. In the

 second, he argues the trial court erroneously instructed the jury. In the third, he asserts

 the district court misapplied AIRFA. No reasonable jurist could debate the district

 court’s resolution of these issues.

        As to the first, although Mr. Armajo now appears to articulate the four issues he

 alleges his appellate counsel missed, he does not show where he did so before the district

 court. And ordinarily “we do not consider an issue that was not adequately raised in the

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Appellate Case: 22-8049      Document: 010110813811           Date Filed: 02/16/2023      Page: 5

 federal district court.” Goode v. Carpenter, 922 F.3d 1136, 1149 (10th Cir. 2019).

 Further, to establish IAC, Mr. Armajo must show that “there is a reasonable probability

 that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been

 different.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). Here though, the district

 court concluded Mr. Armajo could not make this showing in light of the detailed

 testimony of ZL and her mother. Mr. Armajo offers no basis to reject this conclusion.

 Moreover, Mr. Armajo’s representations to the state habeas court indicate his state

 appellate counsel did raise issues related to his motion for acquittal, sufficiency of the

 evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. The Wyoming Supreme Court rejected these

 arguments, but Mr. Armajo has not demonstrated that rejection was due to ineffectiveness

 of appellate counsel. We therefore deny a COA as to this issue.

        The second issue for which Mr. Armajo seeks a COA—jury instructions—does

 not appear to bear any relation to the arguments he raised before the district court. We

 therefore do not consider it for the first time on appeal. See Goode, 922 F.3d at 1149. To

 the extent we could look past the preservation issue and construe this argument as an

 extension of his IAC claim as to state appellate counsel, 2 it still fails for want of

 prejudice. To establish entitlement to habeas relief based on a jury instruction, “it must

 be established not merely that the instruction is undesirable, erroneous, or even

 universally condemned, but that it violated some right which was guaranteed to the

        2
          The district court considered the jury-instructions issue in connection with
 Mr. Armajo’s IAC claim as to state appellate counsel, noting also that Mr. Armajo failed
 to identify the allegedly erroneous instruction in his second amended petition.
 See R. at 212–13.

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 defendant by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146 (1973)

 (internal quotation marks omitted). Mr. Armajo does not even identify the allegedly

 defective jury instruction, so he falls well short of showing a Fourteenth Amendment

 violation. We therefore deny a COA as to this issue.

        Finally, although Mr. Armajo includes a challenge to the district court’s rejection

 of his AIRFA argument in his listing of issues on appeal, he does not develop this

 argument in his brief. He has therefore waived it, and we deny a COA as to this issue.

 See Utahns for Better Transp. v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 305 F.3d 1152, 1175

 (10th Cir. 2002), as modified on reh’g, 319 F.3d 1207 (10th Cir. 2003) (“[I]ssues will be

 deemed waived if they are not adequately briefed. We do not consider merely including

 an issue within a list to be adequate briefing.” (citation omitted)).

                                       CONCLUSION

        We deny a COA and dismiss this matter. We deny Mr. Armajo’s motion to

 proceed in forma pauperis for failure to show “the existence of a reasoned, nonfrivolous

 argument on the law and facts in support of the issues raised on appeal.”

 DeBardeleben v. Quinlan, 937 F.2d 502, 505 (10th Cir. 1991). We deny Mr. Armajo’s

 motion for discovery.

                                                Entered for the Court

                                                Joel M. Carson III
                                                Circuit Judge

                                               6