Dominguez v. Williams
| Decision Date | 06 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: 2:12-cv-01608-JAD-DJA |
| Parties | Demain Dominguez, aka Demian Dominguez, Petitioner v. Brian E. Williams, et al., Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Nevada |
Petitioner Demain Dominguez was found guilty of robbery, burglary, conspiracy to commit robbery, first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, and two use-of-deadly-weapon enhancements in Nevada State Court and sentenced to multiple, consecutive 20-years-to-life sentences.1 In a six-count petition, Dominguez seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 based on claims of insufficient evidence and ineffective trial counsel.2 I now address these claims on their merits. Because I find that habeas relief is not warranted, I deny Dominguez's petition, deny him a certificate of appealability, and close this case.
On January 30, 2007, at 3:39 a.m., Mark Friedman called 9-1-1, reporting that he had been attacked and robbed by numerous individuals upon entering his home. Friedman'sgirlfriend, Lilani Tomines, was allegedly asleep in the home when the attack occurred. Friedman was stabbed three times in the abdomen and kicked repeatedly in the head. He was taken to the hospital where an exploratory laparotomy was done to determine whether any of his vital organs had been injured. Friedman aspirated vomit during the procedure, which resulted in him fatally suffering from asphyxiation due to pneumonia several days later.
Tomines's telephone records revealed that she called Dominguez three times on the night of Friedman's attack. Dominguez originally denied being present at the attack and minimized his relationship with Tomines. He later admitted to being present at the attack, but he claimed that he was there only to speak with Friedman and attempted to defend him during the attack. Dominguez and his brother, whose fingerprint was found at the scene, were both arrested. Tomines was also arrested after it was determined that she owed Friedman a substantial sum of money and fraudulently attempted to cash Friedman's checks.
On July 13, 2009, a jury found Dominguez guilty of conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, burglary, robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, and first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon.4 Dominguez appealed, and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed on December 10, 2010.5 Remittitur issued on January 4, 2011.6 Approximately eight months later, Dominguez filed a state habeas petition.7 The statedistrict court denied the petition, and Dominguez appealed.8 While his appeal was pending, Dominguez filed a second state habeas petition, which the state district court also denied.9
On July 25, 2012, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Dominguez's first state habeas petition, and remittitur issued on August 20, 2012.10 Approximately six months later, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the denial of his second state habeas petition as procedurally barred.11
Dominguez dispatched his federal habeas petition for filing on or about September 6, 2012.12 Dominguez filed a counseled, amended petition on September 26, 2013.13 He then moved for leave to conduct discovery and for a court order to obtain documents, and the respondents moved to dismiss Dominguez's amended petition.14 I denied the respondents' motion to dismiss without prejudice and granted Dominguez's motion for leave to conduct discovery.15
Following the completion of discovery, Dominguez filed a third state habeas petition, which was denied as untimely, successive, and procedurally barred by the state district court.16 The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the denial,17 and remittitur issued on July 19, 2016.18
After seeking leave, Dominguez filed a counseled, second-amended federal petition and then a third-amended federal petition.19 The respondents again moved for dismissal.20 I granted the motion to dismiss in part, dismissing Ground 6.21 The respondents answered the remaining grounds in Dominguez's third-amended petition on May 16, 2018,22 and Dominguez replied on November 28, 2018.23
In Dominguez's remaining grounds for relief, he alleges the following violations of his federal constitutional rights:
If a state court has adjudicated a habeas corpus claim on its merits, a federal district court may only grant habeas relief with respect to that claim if the state court's adjudication "resultedin 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 "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."25 A state court acts contrary to clearly established federal law if it applies a rule contradicting the relevant holdings or reaches a different conclusion on materially indistinguishable facts.26 And a state court unreasonably applies clearly established federal law if it engages in an objectively unreasonable application of the correct governing legal rule to the facts at hand.27 Section 2254 does not, however, "require state courts to extend" Supreme Court precedent "to a new context where it should apply" or "license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error."28 The "objectively unreasonable" standard is difficult to satisfy;29 "even 'clear error' will not suffice."30
Habeas relief may only be granted if "there is no possibility [that] fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court's decision conflicts with [the Supreme Court's] precedents."31 As "a condition for obtaining habeas relief," a petitioner must show that the state-court decision "was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended inexisting law beyond any possibility of fairminded disagreement."32 "[S]o long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision," habeas relief under Section 2254(d) is precluded.33 AEDPA "thus imposes a 'highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court ruling,' . . . and 'demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.'"34
If a federal district court finds that the state court committed an error under § 2254, the district court must then review the claim de novo.35 The petitioner bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he is entitled to habeas relief,36 but state-court factual findings are presumed correct unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.37
The right to counsel embodied in the Sixth Amendment provides "the right to the effective assistance of counsel."38 Counsel can "deprive a defendant of the right to effective assistance[] simply by failing to render 'adequate legal assistance[.]'"39 In the hallmark case of Strickland v. Washington, the United States Supreme Court held that an ineffective-assistance claim requires a petitioner to show that: (1) his counsel's representation fell below an objectivestandard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms in light of all of the circumstances of the particular case;40 and (2) it is reasonably probable that, but for counsel's errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.41
A reasonable probability is "probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome."42 Any review of the attorney's performance must be "highly deferential" and must adopt counsel's perspective at the time of the challenged conduct so as to avoid the distorting effects of hindsight.43 "The question is whether an attorney's representation amounted to incompetence under prevailing professional norms, not whether it deviated from best practice or most common custom."44 The burden is on the petitioner to overcome the presumption that counsel made sound trial-strategy decisions.45
The United States Supreme Court has described federal review of a state supreme court's decision on an ineffective-assistance claim as "doubly deferential."46 So, I "take a 'highly deferential' look at counsel's performance . . . through the 'deferential lens of § 2254(d).'"47 And I consider only the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on its merits.48
Dominguez asserts that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions and his trial counsel was ineffective. I now address these claims in the order in which they were made.49
In Ground 1, Dominguez asserts that he was denied his due-process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because the evidence at his trial was legally insufficient to support his murder, robbery, and conspiracy-to-commit-robbery convictions.50 Dominguez contends with regard to the murder conviction that Friedman's surgery was an intervening event that proximately caused his death—not the stabbing—and that, with regard to the conspiracy conviction, the evidence was far more consistent with an agreement to physically attackFriedman than to rob him.51 The Nevada Supreme Court rejected these theories in Dominguez's appeal of his judgment of conviction based on the evidence:
To continue reading
Request your trial