Court Opinion

ID: 9363273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-13 18:58:31.661838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:30.254167
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       DEC 16 2022
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

KASHARD O. BROWN,                               No.    21-16668

                Petitioner-Appellant,           D.C. No.
                                                2:11-cv-01058-JCM-DJA
 v.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, Warden; CATHERINE MEMORANDUM*
CORTEZ-MASTO,

                Respondents-Appellees.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                            for the District of Nevada
                    James C. Mahan, District Judge, Presiding

                    Argued and Submitted November 17, 2022
                            San Francisco, California

Before: McKEOWN and PAEZ, Circuit Judges, and SESSIONS,** District Judge.

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
              The Honorable William K. Sessions III, United States District Judge
for the District of Vermont, sitting by designation.
      Kashard Brown seeks review of a district court judgment denying his petition

for a writ of habeas corpus. The district court certified for appeal the question of

whether Brown’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim was procedurally

defaulted. Brown moves to expand the certificate of appealability to his claims that

he was denied due process by incorrect jury instructions and exclusion of lay opinion

testimony. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We review de

novo a district court’s denial of a habeas petition. Ford v. Peery, 999 F.3d 1214,

1224 (9th Cir. 2021). Where the state court declined to hear a federal claim because

the prisoner failed to meet a state procedural requirement, the state judgment rests

on adequate and independent state grounds that we do not review. Coleman v.

Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729–30 (1991). We affirm the denial of Brown’s petition.

      After Brown failed to timely present his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

claim—based on his trial counsel’s failure to inform the firearms expert about the

faulty pistol stock on Brown’s shotgun and to call that expert to testify as to the effects

of that stock—during his first state habeas proceeding, Brown presented the claim as

part of a second or successive state habeas petition. The Nevada district court found

this petition to be procedurally defaulted and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed.

      Brown has not demonstrated cause to overcome this procedural default under

Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), because he fails to establish that his appellate

counsel was ineffective under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). See

                                            2
Martinez, 566 U.S. at 14.       Strickland requires a showing that “the deficient

performance prejudiced the defense.” 466 U.S. at 687; see also id. at 692. Brown

does not show such prejudice because he does not establish that, had he presented

his ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim to the Nevada state courts in

compliance with state procedural rules, there is a reasonable probability the courts

would have granted his first habeas petition. See id. at 694. We therefore deny

Brown’s petition on the certified issue.

        We also deny Brown’s request to expand the certificate of appealability to his

due process claims. See Ninth Cir. R. 22-1(e). On both claims, the Nevada Supreme

Court concluded that the trial court erred, but the errors were harmless. Brown has

not made a “substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right” on either

issue. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). Given the other evidence supporting that the shooting

was not an accident, reasonable jurists could not debate whether the petition should

have come out differently on the harmless error questions. See Miller-El v. Cockrell,

537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003).

        AFFIRMED.1

1
    We grant Brown’s motion to expand the record (Dkt. No. 36).

                                           3