Holley v. Yarborough

• Decision Date: 16 June 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-15104.,08-15104.
• Citation: 568 F.3d 1091
• Parties: Jon Eric HOLLEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael YARBOROUGH, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

568 F.3d 1091

Jon Eric HOLLEY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael YARBOROUGH, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 08-15104.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted April 13, 2009.

Filed June 16, 2009.

Suzanne Adele Luban, Oakland, CA, for the petitioner-appellant.

Edmund G. Brown Jr., Dane R. Gillette, Michael P. Farrell, Brian G. Smiley, and Tami M. Warwick, Office of the California Attorney General, Sacramento, CA, for the respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Ralph R. Beistline, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-02-00310-RRB/ JFM.

Before THOMAS G. NELSON, ANDREW J. KLEINFELD, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge:

Petitioner-Appellant Jon Eric Holley appeals the district court's order denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Holley claims that he was denied his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments when the trial court precluded the introduction of impeachment evidence and prevented his cross-examination of the alleged victim about her prior statements, including statements about sex and indications that others had made sexual advances toward her. Holley also claims that he was denied a fair trial, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, by the trial court's admission of evidence that he kept sexually explicit materials in his home, that he owned weapons, and that he battered a prior girlfriend. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2253(a) and 1291. We reverse and remand for issuance of the writ.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 2, 1998, Nicky Van Suydam asked Holley to babysit her two children, Raina and Matthew, who were 11 and 10 years old, respectively, while she worked a double shift at the Killer Chicken restaurant. Van Suydam had become acquainted with Holley almost two years earlier when they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, after which the pair had a brief sexual relationship. Van Suydam's children had been around Holley six or seven times prior to the day in question, and at his house three times. The children liked Holley and at one point told him they wanted him to be their father.

Holley agreed to babysit the children until Van Suydam finished work. He picked the children up from the Killer Chicken and took them to his home. They watched television, played with Holley's dog, and told jokes, one of which made Raina laugh so hard she wet her pants. Holley spoke with Van Suydam on the phone, and then drove Raina and Matthew to their home so Raina could change her clothes.

Raina testified that on this trip, from Holley's home to her own home, she sat on Holley's lap, steering the car while he operated the pedals. She further testified that as she sat on his lap, Holley rubbed her legs and breasts. Holley testified that Raina did not sit on his lap, but rather sat on a towel on the passenger seat (because she was wet) next to him, on his right, and that the only time he touched her was to put his hands on her shoulders when the car was stopped.

At her house, Raina changed from her pants into clean shorts, and then they drove back to Holley's house. Raina again testified that she sat on Holley's lap to steer the car, and that Holley put his hands up the bottom of her shorts and rubbed her legs and breasts. Holley denied touching Raina on this trip as well, except to put his hands on her shoulders when they were at stoplights.

Shortly after returning to Holley's home, the three left again to go to a liquor store, where Holley bought some peppermint schnapps for himself and candy and ice cream for the children. Raina testified that on the way to the store, Raina sat on Holley's lap, steering the car, and Holley put his hands under her shirt, touching her breasts, and under her shorts, touching her buttocks. Holley denied touching Raina except to put his hands on her shoulders at stoplights, so she would believe she was driving the car.

After returning from the store, the children played while Holley watched television, lying on the couch. Raina testified that at one point, she came over to the couch and sat on Holley's stomach. When she tried to get up he put his hands on her legs and held her to him for about a minute, keeping her from getting up. She testified that Holley sometime later asked her to take off her clothes, and that she refused. In response, she claims that Holley pulled his shorts to the side and exposed his testicles to the children. Raina said that she turned away from Holley at that point, but saw in a mirror, which was placed behind a glass cabinet, the reflection of Holley's apparently erect penis coming out of the top of his shorts. Raina also noticed an old gun and some knives in the glass cabinet. Holley denied exposing himself to the children.

The three then went outside and began roughhousing. At one point, Holley picked Raina up and held her horizontally, squeezing her in a way that made it hard for Raina, who has a heart condition, to breathe. The children told Holley to put Raina down, and Matthew called Holley a "motherfucker." Holley got angry about the swearing and drove the children back to the Killer Chicken. Raina testified that on the way Holley said he wanted to kill them, although she interpreted it as a figure of speech. Matthew testified that, although he did not hear Holley threaten them, he was worried that Holley would do something because he had called Holley a bad name. Holley denied threatening the children.

Holley dropped the children off at the Killer Chicken. Raina testified that she told her mother "a little bit" about what happened, then the children went to Trudy's Market to buy some food and wait for Van Suydam's break. Holley also went to Trudy's Market to buy some cigarettes. The children hid from Holley and told the cashier that he had been mean to them. The cashier also testified that the children told her they were mad at Holley for not buying them a pizza, and that they were going to "get even" with him. Holley told the cashier that the children were "rotten little rats."

Van Suydam left work early to drive the children home. She testified that on the way home Raina told her that Holley had fondled her under her clothes. Van Suydam called the police.

Holley was charged with five felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years of age, one felony count of making terrorist threats, two felony counts of child endangerment, two misdemeanor counts of molesting a child, one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and one misdemeanor count of indecent exposure. Following presentation of evidence at trial, the court granted the prosecution's motion to dismiss one count of lewd and lascivious acts, both child endangerment counts, and the count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

During the prosecution's case-in-chief, the defense objected to the presentation of evidence that Holley owned guns and knives. The court ruled that evidence of weapons found in areas where the children might have seen them while at Holley's home that evening was admissible. The defense also objected to the admission of a lewd matchbook and several sexually explicit magazines seized from Holley's bedroom, which were admitted into evidence after both sides had rested their cases, and which were thereafter taken into the jury room for examination by the jurors.

Holley sought to impeach Raina's credibility by presenting testimony of two neighborhood children, Scott and Christa Westfall, that Raina had told them that she had done "weird stuff" in a closet with her boyfriend, a term she also used to describe what Holley had done in rubbing her legs and breasts; that a neighborhood boy wanted to "hump her brains out"; and that her brother Matthew had once tried to have sex with her. The court ruled after a hearing to limit the witnesses' testimony to exclude any references to sex or sexual conduct of others.

After thirteen and a half hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Holley of two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct, two counts of child molestation, and one count of indecent exposure. He was acquitted of the remaining counts of lewd and lascivious conduct and the charge of terrorist threats. The trial court sentenced Holley to a total term of eight years on April 28, 1999.

Holley appealed his conviction, which was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, on October 31, 2000. The California Supreme Court denied Holley's petition for review on January 17, 2001. Holley then filed a habeas petition with the federal district court on February 7, 2002. In September of 2007, the magistrate judge assigned to Holley's case recommended granting habeas relief on the basis of Holley's claims that the trial court had wrongfully limited cross-examination and impeachment of Raina and wrongfully admitted the matchbook and adult magazines. The district court rejected the magistrate judge's recommendation and denied the petition on December 17, 2007. Holley, by then released from prison but facing a lifetime status as a sex offender, appealed to this court.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Federal habeas corpus relief for most state prisoners was established as a statutory remedy in 1867, enabling federal courts to grant a writ of habeas corpus in cases where a person is restrained in violation of the Constitution or federal law. Act of Feb. 5, 1867, Ch. 28, § 1, 14 Stat. 385. Since that time, the power to grant the writ has been adjusted by various congressional acts, although the general requirements for relief have remained the same. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 375, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). The underlying principle is that, while not all constitutional errors are sufficient to entitle the petitioner to a remedy, "errors that undermine confidence in the fundamental fairness of ...