Cernas v. Hedgpeth, Case No.: 1:10-cv-02126-AWI-JLT (HC)

• Decision Date: 02 December 2013
• Docket Number: Case No.: 1:10-cv-02126-AWI-JLT (HC)
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
• Parties: HUGO CERNAS, Petitioner, v. ANTHONY HEDGPETH, Respondent.

HUGO CERNAS, Petitioner, v. ANTHONY HEDGPETH, Respondent.

Case No.: 1:10-cv-02126-AWI-JLT (HC)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Dated: December 2, 2013

FINDING AND RECOMMENDATION TO DENY

PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

(Doc. 1)

ORDER DIRECTING THAT OBJECTIONS BE

FILED WITHIN TWENTY-ONE DAYS

Petitioner Hugo Cernas ("Petitioner") is a state prisoner proceeding in propria persona with a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Petitioner is in the custody of the California Department of Corrections ("CDCR"). On March 8, 2005, a jury in the State of California Superior Court, County of Fresno, convicted Plaintiff of the following: (1) one count of willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder (Cal. Penal Code § 187(a)); (2) two counts of attempted murder (Cal. Penal Code § 665/187); and (3) one court of street terrorism (Cal. Penal Code § 186.22(a)). (Doc. 16, p. 9). The Superior Court sentenced Plaintiff to "life without the possibility of parole, plus an additional and consecutive 25 years-to-life term...[and] [] two life terms with the possibility of parole on the attempted murder counts, plus an additional and consecutive 10 year term...on each count." Id. The Court stayed sentencing on Plaintiff's street terrorism conviction. Id.

On January 16, 2007, Petitioner filed a direct appeal to the California Court of Appeals, Fifth Appellate District (the "5^th DCA"). (Doc. 16, p. 10). The appellate court vacated Petitioner's life sentence without possibility of parole and remanded for resentencing on the first degree murder count on December 28, 2006. (Id. at p. 9). Shortly thereafter, both the State of California and Petitioner appealed the 5^th DCA's decision to the California Supreme Court in May of 2007. (Doc. 16, p. 10). After a series of remands and subsequent appeals, on March 27, 2009, the trial court resentenced Petitioner to his original term, except that the trial court stayed the 25-years-to-life sentence. (Doc. 16, p. 11). Petitioner subsequently filed multiple petitions for writs of habeas corpus which resulted in the exhaustion of his claims for relief. (Doc. 16, p. 11).

Petitioner initiated the instant petition on November 15, 2010, at which time he requested that the Court stay proceedings until resolution of his "Brady violation" claim in the state court. (Docs. 1 & 3). On December 14, 2010, the Court denied Plaintiff's motion to stay proceedings as moot because Petitioner's exhaustion requirement was completed on December 1, 2010, when the California Supreme Court denied his "Brady violation" petition. (Doc. 8). Respondent filed his answer on February 11, 2011. (Doc. 16). On April 4, 2011, Petitioner submitted his Traverse to the Court. (Doc. 20). Respondent concedes that Petitioner has exhausted all five claims for relief. (Doc. 16, p. 12).

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The Court adopts the following Statement of Facts as contained in the 5^th DCA's published decision in People v. Ybarra:

"On October 5, 2001, shortly after 7:00 p.m., someone in a BMW yelled out to Ybarra, "What's up Sur?" Ybarra yelled back, "Bulldog." From inside the BMW, someone fired several shots at him from a handgun at point blank range but missed him. Sur is short for Sureños, a rival criminal street gang.

Shortly after 9:30 that evening, Ybarra, Cernas, and another male, all armed with guns, stepped out of a large car "between a gray and a blue" in color, walked toward a house that was "a perceived Sureño location" where Gilbert Medrano, his pregnant niece Mercedes López, and his friend Álvaro Romero were sitting outside talking, and opened fire. Ybarra's father owns a sky blue Lincoln Town Car.

Bullets struck Medrano in the face, López in the leg and stomach, and Romero twice in the back and once in the hip. Medrano survived with a bullet lodged between his cervical vertebrae. López, who had a Caesarian section and a hysterectomy, and her daughter, who was born a month prematurely with a scratch mark from a bullet on her back, both survived. Romero died at the scene. A gang expert characterized both shootings as gang warfare between Bulldogs and Sureños."

People v. Ybarra, 149 Cal. App. 4th 1175, 57 Cal. Rptr. 3d 732, 736 (2007) review granted and opinion superseded, 166 P.3d 2 (Cal. 2007)(Lodged Document ("LD") 4).

DISCUSSION

I. Jurisdiction

Relief by way of a petition for writ of habeas corpus extends to a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court if the custody is in violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 375 n. 7 (2000). Petitioner asserts that he suffered violations of his rights as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The challenged conviction arises out of the Fresno County Superior Court, which is located within the jurisdiction of this court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); 28 U.S.C.§ 2241(d).

On April 24, 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), which applies to all petitions for writ of habeas corpus filed after its enactment. Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320 (1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1008, 118 S.Ct. 586 (1997); Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1500 (9th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1107 (1997), overruled on other grounds by Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320 (holding the AEDPA only applicable to cases filed after statute's enactment). The instant petition was filed after the enactment of the AEDPA and is therefore governed by its provisions.

II. Legal Standard of Review

A petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) will not be granted unless the petitioner can show that the state court's adjudication of the petitioner's claim:

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or

(2) resulted in a decision that "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 70-71 (2003); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 412-413.

A state court decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law "if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court's] cases, or "if it confronts a set of factsthat is materially indistinguishable from a [Supreme Court] decision but reaches a different result." Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141 (2005), citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 326, 405-406 (2000). A state court decision involves an "unreasonable application" of clearly established federal law "if the state court applies [the Supreme Court's precedents] to the facts in an objectively unreasonable manner." Id., quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 409-410; Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24-25 (2002) (per curiam).

Consequently, a federal court may not grant habeas relief simply because the state court's decision is incorrect or erroneous; the state court's decision must also be objectively unreasonable. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 511 (2003) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 409). In Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 770 (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court explained that an "unreasonable application" of federal law is an objective test that turns on "whether it is possible that fairminded jurists could disagree" that the state court decision meets the standards set forth in the AEDPA. If fairminded jurists could so disagree, habeas relief is precluded. Richter, 131 S.Ct. at 786.

As the Supreme Court of the United States has noted, AEDPA's standard of "contrary to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law" is "difficult to meet," because the purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a "'guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,'" and not as a means of error correction. Richter, 131 S.Ct. at 786, (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332, n. 5 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)). The Supreme Court has "said time and again that 'an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.'" Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 1410-11 (2011). Thus, a state prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus from a federal court "must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility of fairminded disagreement." Richter, 131 S.Ct. at 787-788.

Moreover, federal "review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits." Cullen, 131 S.Ct. at 1398 ("This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made. It follows that the record under review is limited to the record in existence at the same time-i.e., the record before thestate court.")

The second prong of federal habeas review involves the "unreasonable determination" clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). This prong pertains to state court decisions based on factual findings. Davis v. Woodford, 384 F.3d at 637 (citing Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322 (2003)). Under § 2254(d)(2), a federal court may grant habeas relief if a state court's adjudication of the petitioner's claims "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. at 520; Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d at 1500 (when reviewing a state court's factual determinations, a "responsible, thoughtful answer reached after a full opportunity to litigate is adequate to support the judgment"). A state court's factual finding is unreasonable when it is "so...