Christian v. Frank

• Decision Date: 19 February 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-17236.,08-17236.
• Citation: 595 F.3d 1076
• Parties: Taryn CHRISTIAN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Clayton FRANK, Director, State of Hawaii Department of Public Safety, Respondent-Appellant, and State of Hawaii Department of Public Safety, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

595 F.3d 1076

Taryn CHRISTIAN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Clayton FRANK, Director, State of Hawaii Department of Public Safety, Respondent-Appellant, and State of Hawaii Department of Public Safety, Respondent.

No. 08-17236.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted October 15, 2009.

Filed February 19, 2010.

Mark Barrett, Esq., Norman, OK, for petitioner-appellee-cross-appellant.

Richard K. Minatoya, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Wailuku, HI, for respondent-appellant-cross-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, David A. Ezra, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 1:04-cv-00743-DAE-LEK.

Before: ROBERT R. BEEZER, SUSAN P. GRABER and RAYMOND C. FISHER, Circuit Judges.

BEEZER, Circuit Judge:

We must decide whether the district court erred in granting habeas relief on behalf of petitioner Taryn Christian.¹ The district court granted Christian's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, holding that the Hawaii Supreme Court unreasonably applied Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We hold that the Hawaii Supreme Court's application of Chambers was reasonable, and we reverse the district court's grant of the petition.

I

The events that led to the instant appeal stem from Christian's alleged involvement in a murder on July 14, 1995. Early that morning, Vilmar Cabaccang and his girlfriend, Serena Seidel, awoke from their slumber due to a noise outside the residence. Seidel looked out the window and saw someone inside Cabaccang's car. Cabaccang and Seidel immediately bolted outside to confront the unidentified intruder. The intruder fled on foot, and both Cabaccang and Seidel gave chase. Seidel stopped briefly to attempt to enlist a friend's help by banging on the door of the friend's residence. When no one answered the door, Seidel resumed her pursuit of the intruder.

Seidel eventually caught up to Cabaccang and the intruder and found the two men engaged in a struggle. Cabaccang warned Seidel that the unknown man had a knife. Undeterred, Seidel attempted to assist Cabaccang, and their eventual combined efforts caused the man to drop the knife and flee. Seidel then observed that there was blood all over the immediate area and that Cabaccang had been stabbed. Shortly thereafter, Phillip Schmidt, a local resident who heard the noise from the struggle, rushed to the scene. Upon seeing Cabaccang's injuries, he called 911. Cabaccang ultimately died from the knife wounds.

The police initially suspected that Hina Burkhart was responsible for Cabaccang's death based on a statement by a friend of Seidel's. The police discarded this theory after two people placed Burkhart in another location at the time of the crime and neither Seidel nor Schmidt identified Burkhart as the perpetrator during police photo lineups.

Three days after the attack, Christian told his former girlfriend that he had killed Cabaccang. His former girlfriend conveyed this information to the police a few days later. Christian was arrested and charged with the murder after the police uncovered further incriminating evidence against him, including photos of Christian wearing a baseball cap identical to that found at the crime scene and identifications by both Seidel and Schmidt during police photo lineups.

At trial, Christian's theory of defense was that he had been misidentified as the perpetrator. In support of this defense, Christian sought to introduce testimony that Burkhart had confessed to the murder on two separate occasions. Burkhart exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and so the court declared him "unavailable," as defined by Rule 804(a) of the Hawaii Rules of Evidence. Unable to question Burkhart directly regarding his alleged confessions, Christian attempted to call the two witnesses who allegedly heard Burkhart confess to the murder.² The trial court conducted a hearing pursuant to Rule 103 of the Hawaii Rules of Evidence to determine whether there was sufficient corroboration of Burkhart's alleged confessions to admit them into evidence.³

The first witness to one of Burkhart's alleged confessions was William Auld. Christian's counsel explained during the Rule 103 hearing that Auld intended to testify that, while sharing a prison cell with Burkhart in late 1995, Burkhart told Auld that he had killed Cabaccang. Auld was prepared to testify that he had believed that Burkhart was telling the truth when he made that statement.

The second witness was Patricia Mullins. According to Christian's counsel, Mullins would testify that, on a previous occasion, "considerably before" the murder in July 1995, she had seen Burkhart pull out a knife during an argument. She was also prepared to testify that several days after the murder, she confronted Burkhart about whether he had killed Cabaccang. Burkhart allegedly responded by stating that he had killed Cabaccang and that he thought he would get away with the murder. Mullins acknowledged, however, that she routinely used drugs with Burkhart and that she did not know if he had been under the influence of drugs at the time of his confession to her. Mullins would also testify that, at a later date, Burkhart allegedly warned her to not talk about his prior confession to the Cabaccang murder.

In an effort to fulfill Rule 804(b)(3)'s trustworthiness requirement, at the Rule 103 hearing, Christian proffered several corroborating details that he intended to offer as evidence. First, Christian alleged that Auld's and Mullins' statements corroborated each other. Second, Christian explained that he would call a witness to testify that Burkhart owned a knife that "could have been" similar to the one used in the murder. Third, Cabaccang's neighbor, Tesha Santana, would testify that she was expecting Burkhart to visit her that night and that he never showed up. Fourth, Christian intended to show that Cabaccang's keys were found at the scene of the murder and that Cabaccang's car showed no signs of forced entry.⁴ And fifth, Christian planned to demonstrate that Seidel acted strangely on the night of the murder and called out to Santana specifically instead of calling for help generally.⁵

The trial court ultimately concluded that this evidence, in the aggregate, was insufficient to corroborate Burkhart's alleged confessions and thus refused to admit Auld's and Mullins' testimony. Christian was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder, attempted third-degree theft and use of a deadly or dangerous weapon in the commission of a crime.

Following his conviction, Christian moved for a new trial. The trial court orally denied Christian's motion. Christian then timely appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, arguing that the district court erred by, among other things, excluding the testimony about Burkhart's alleged confessions. The Hawaii Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's denial of Christian's post-verdict motion for a new trial and also affirmed Christian's convictions for second-degree murder and attempted third-degree theft.⁶ State v. Christian, 88 Hawai`i 407, 967 P.2d 239, 243 (1998). The Hawaii Supreme Court reasoned that the convictions were appropriate because Christian's case was distinguishable from Chambers, and Christian had not suffered any violation of his due process rights. Christian, 967 P.2d at 260-63.

Christian then timely petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. A federal magistrate judge issued 82 pages of findings and recommendations, ultimately recommending that the writ be issued. The federal district court adopted in part and modified in part the magistrate judge's findings and recommendations and, in a 35-page order, granted Christian's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The district court rested its decision on its conclusion that the Hawaii Supreme Court decision affirming the exclusion of the testimony about Burkhart's confessions was an "unreasonable application" of Chambers.

The appeal to this court timely followed.

II

We review de novo a district court's decision to issue a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Lewis v. Mayle, 391 F.3d 989, 995 (9th Cir.2004). The district court's findings of fact are reviewed for "clear error." Mejia v. Garcia, 534 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir.2008), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 941, 173 L.Ed.2d 141 (2009).

Federal courts review habeas corpus petitions from state prisoners under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). Sass v. Cal. Bd. of Prison Terms, 461 F.3d 1123, 1127 (9th Cir.2006). Under AEDPA, a federal court may not grant a habeas corpus petition unless the "last reasoned" state court decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or "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); see also Ylst v Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 804, 111 S.Ct. 2590, 115 L.Ed.2d 706 (1991).

A state court decision is an "unreasonable application of" clearly established federal law if the state court identified the correct governing legal rule but unreasonably applied it to the facts at hand. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 407, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). "Clearly established Federal law" refers to the holdings of the Supreme Court at the time of the relevant state-court decision. Id. at 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495.

The AEDPA standard is "`highly deferential'" and "demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt." Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24, 123 S.Ct. 357, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) (per curiam) (quoting Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333 n. 7, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997)). A federal court...