Ayala v. Chappell

• Decision Date: 20 July 2016
• Docket Number: No. 13-99005,13-99005
• Citation: 829 F.3d 1081
• Parties: Reynaldo Medrano Ayala, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Kevin Chappell, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

829 F.3d 1081

Reynaldo Medrano Ayala, Petitioner-Appellant

v.Kevin Chappell, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 13-99005

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted December 10, 2015 San Francisco, California

Filed July 20, 2016

D. Jay Ritt (argued), Ritt, Tai, Thvedt & Hodges, Pasadena, California; Michael R. Belter (argued), Law Offices of Michael R. Belter, Pasadena, California; for Petitioner-Appellant.

Michael T. Murphy (argued) and Robin Urbanski, Deputy Attorneys General; Holly D. Wilkins, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Julie L. Garland, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, San Diego, California; for Respondent-Appellee.

Before: Alex Kozinski, Jay S. Bybee, and Morgan Christen, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

CHRISTEN

, Circuit Judge:

Reynaldo Medrano Ayala appeals from the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under

28 U.S.C. § 2254

. Ayala was convicted of triple homicide in 1988, and he is currently on death row in California. He argues that his trial was fundamentally unfair, and federal habeas relief is therefore warranted, primarily because his lawyer unreasonably failed to impeach the prosecution's key witnesses with evidence that would have undermined their credibility. Ayala also claims that the State concealed evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), that a San Diego police officer threatened and intimidated witnesses, and that the trial court committed several constitutional errors. Because we conclude the California Supreme Court's resolution of Ayala's claims was not contrary to clearly established federal law, we affirm the district court's denial of the petition for writ of habeas corpus.¹

BACKGROUND

I. Facts

On April 26, 1985, Jose Rositas, Marcos Zamora, and Ernesto Dominguez Mendez (“Dominguez”) were murdered execution-style in an auto body shop located on 43rd Street in San Diego, California.² People v. Ayala , 23 Cal.4th 225, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d 3, 11–12 (2000)

. Pedro “Pete” Castillo was shot at the same time, but not fatally. He claimed to have been an intended fourth victim who got away. The 43rd Street body shop was a hub for drug distribution, and Dominguez—the owner of the shop—was an active heroin distributor who may have had connections with heroin suppliers in Mexico. According to Castillo, the 43rd Street murders were a drug robbery gone wrong.

The murders occurred around 8 p.m. Within a few hours, San Diego gang intelligence detective Carlos Chacon urged his counterparts in the San Diego homicide unit to investigate brothers Hector and Reynaldo Ayala and their associate Juan Manuel Meza as potential suspects.³ Two days later, Pete Castillo identified Ayala, Hector, and Joe Moreno as the perpetrators of the triple homicide. Id. , 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 14

.

Ayala was arrested in June of 1985 and charged with three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of robbery, and three counts of attempted robbery. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 187

(murder), 664 (attempt), 211 (robbery). Hector and Joe Moreno were arrested and charged around the same time.

In February 1987, San Diego police officers arrested Juan Manuel Meza for drug distribution. Meza pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine several weeks after his arrest and entered into a plea agreement that provided he would serve four years in prison. Detective Chacon, who knew Meza from childhood, visited Meza in jail several times during the spring of 1987. Meza admitted to Chacon that he helped the Ayalas plan the 43rd Street murders, even though he ultimately did not participate. Meza met with the district attorneys involved in Ayala's case in April or May 1987 and agreed to testify against Ayala, Hector, and Moreno. In the summer of 1987, a district attorney appeared at Meza's sentencing on the drug possession charge. The D.A. asked the judge to sentence Meza pursuant to Cal. Penal Code § 1170(d)

so he could “recall the sentence and commitment previously ordered and resentence the defendant” if Meza testified in court proceedings relating to the 43rd Street murders. Cal. Penal Code § 1170(d)(1)

.

A. Gang affiliation evidence

Ayala and Hector were believed to be members of the Mexican Mafia—or EME—a prison gang with an active street program that operated throughout southern California, but all parties agreed that the 43rd Street murders were not gang related. Ayala's lawyers filed a pretrial motion in limine in which they argued that mention of the Mexican Mafia or Ayala's gang affiliation at trial would be unduly prejudicial and of questionable relevance to the case.

The state trial judge was initially disinclined to rule on the motion. He agreed with the prosecution that it would be difficult to rule on the admissibility of gang affiliation evidence before hearing each witness's testimony. The defense team pursued this pre-trial ruling for months, persistently arguing that, without a ruling, they would not be able to “strategize [and] determine what course of action to take with regard to jury selection and cross-examination.” The judge ultimately relented and ruled as follows:

[G]ang affiliation has nothing to do with motive in terms of this particular case, so there will be no testimony concerning motive dealing with the Mexican Mafia. We know that that's not the case.

Gang affiliation has nothing to do with the identity issue that's presented, so there will be no Mexican Mafia testimony concerning gang affiliation.

...

Let me indicate this: That with reference to credibility, the court's going to require a 403 hearing if, in fact, we're going to have to get into this, the people see that after cross-examination. We'll deal with that on each witness.

If, in fact, the people perceive a need to deal with the credibility issue, then I'm going to do it at side-bar before it goes in front of the jury.

I'm going to further request that the people admonish their witnesses not to voluntarily mention any gang affiliation, that each witness be admonished on that point.... They will be admonished on direct.

The trial judge also said he would instruct witnesses not to mention gangs in their cross-examination testimony, but “if the question calls for that response, then so be it.” As the trial progressed, the court ruled that each witness could mention “group” or “association” if necessary, but not “EME” or “Mexican Mafia.”

B. The State's case

Ayala's trial began in August 1988 and lasted two months.⁴ “The prosecution theorized that the murders resulted from a robbery attempt that failed because it was based on the perpetrators' incorrect speculation that Dominguez had just returned from Mexico with a quantity of narcotics or cash.” Ayala , 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 12

. The State presented minimal physical evidence linking Ayala to the crimes and instead built its case around the testimony of Pete Castillo and Juan Manuel Meza.

Castillo testified that Dominguez and Zamora sold heroin from the shop and that he was also involved in the heroin distribution operation. He described how Ayala and Hector frequented the shop to use and acquire heroin, and told the jury that he saw Ayala, Hector, and Joe Moreno outside of the body shop on the day of the murders, April 26, 1985. Id. 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 13

. At dusk, Castillo looked up from his work on a car and saw Hector pointing a pistol at his head. Id. Hector led Castillo into the shop where Dominguez, Zamora, and Rositas were bound by duct tape. Id. Castillo testified that Ayala demanded $10,000 from the victims, “or someone was going to die.” Id. 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 14. Castillo volunteered that he had some money in his truck, and Ayala agreed to lead him there. Castillo used this opportunity to escape. He lifted the large shop door, slid under it, and let it slam down behind him. As he ran into the street, someone, likely Ayala or Moreno, fired shots at him, and Castillo was wounded in the back. Castillo fell onto 43rd Street, where police officers found him and rushed him to the hospital. Id.

Castillo did not immediately identify the Ayalas or Joe Moreno as the perpetrators of the crime. Rather, “while in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, [he] said he did not know the killers [but] that one of them was wearing a red plaid shirt.” Id. 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 15

. The next day at the hospital, Castillo repeated “that one of the killers was wearing a red Pendleton shirt” when he was interviewed by a detective. Id. But the day after that, Castillo identified the Ayalas and Joe Moreno as the killers and also picked them out of a photo array. Id. 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 14.

In addition to providing an eyewitness account of the crimes, Castillo's testimony corroborated the prosecution's theory of the case: He told the jury that Hector inquired about Dominguez's whereabouts roughly a week before the murders when Dominguez was in jail for minor offenses. Id. 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 682, 1 P.3d at 12

. Pursuant to Dominguez's request, Castillo told Hector that Dominguez was in Mexico rather than revealing that he was in jail. Id.

Juan Meza was also an important witness for the State because he testified that he helped plan the murders before backing out on the day of the crime. Meza told the jury that he and Hector went to the body shop to acquire drugs more than ten times between January and April 1985. He explained that about three weeks before the murders, the Ayala brothers became angry with Dominguez over a drug transaction, and Ayala proposed robbing and killing Dominguez and some of the people who worked with him. Meza testified that in the weeks before the murder, he and the Ayalas talked about Dominguez's trip to Tijuana to buy a large amount of drugs, tying the victims, and the types of guns they would use to commit the crime. Meza also...