Ford v. Peery
| Decision Date | 28 September 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 18-15498,18-15498 |
| Parties | Keith Undray FORD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Suzanne M. PEERY, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
In August 2010, Ruben Martinez was shot and killed in Vallejo, California. Keith Ford was charged with first degree murder with three firearm enhancements. Ford was tried in the California Superior Court for Solano County in August 2012.
During closing argument, at the end of his rebuttal, the prosecutor told the jury that the presumption of innocence no longer applied. He said:
This idea of this presumption of innocence is over. Mr. Ford had a fair trial. We were here for three weeks where ... he gets to cross-examine witnesses; also an opportunity to present evidence information through his lawyer. He had a fair trial. This system is not perfect, but he had a fair opportunity and a fair trial. He's not presumed innocent anymore.
(Emphases added.) The defense attorney objected, "That misstates the law." The court overruled the objection. The prosecutor resumed, "And so we're past that point. "
The jury began deliberating later that day, on Tuesday, August 21, 2012. On Friday, August 24, the fourth day of deliberations, the jury reported that it was "hopelessly deadlocked," with one juror holding out for acquittal. The court sent the jury back to deliberate further. The following Tuesday, August 28, the jury returned a unanimous verdict that defendant Ford was guilty of first-degree murder. The jury was still "hopelessly deadlocked" on three firearm enhancements, including an enhancement for "personal use of a firearm during the commission of the crime." The final vote on the "personal use" enhancement was seven to five. The court declared a mistrial as to all three firearm enhancements.
Martinez had been killed with a single shot to his head. The prosecutor had contended that Ford had shot Martinez. The prosecutor had never contended, or even suggested, that anyone other than Ford had fired the shot that killed Martinez.
After exhausting his state-court remedies, Ford sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We answer two principal questions. First, in overruling the objection to the prosecutor's statements that the presumption of innocence no longer applied did the California Superior Court violate due process under Darden v. Wainwright , 477 U.S. 168, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986) ? Second, was the California Court of Appeal objectively unreasonable in holding that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under Chapman v. California , 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) ? We answer "yes" to both questions.
On August 7, 2010, a Saturday evening, Ruben Martinez was killed in his SUV in front of his girlfriend's house on a short block of Beach Street between Benicia Road and Central Avenue in Vallejo, California. At about 10:00 p.m., Martinez had driven his girlfriend Jessica Blanco home so she could use the bathroom, check movie times, and get her jacket. Just before Martinez turned left onto Beach Street from Benicia Road, a white car ahead of them made a U-turn and went back past them the other way on Benicia Road. Blanco later testified at trial that she had not been able to see anyone in the car and that she could not identify the make or model of the car.
When they arrived at her house, Blanco went inside while Martinez stayed in his SUV with the motor still running. Martinez had washed the SUV earlier in the day. Blanco testified at trial that a few minutes after walking into the house, she heard a loud popping noise and the revving of an engine. She "heard a screeching noise, tires peeling, gravel." Blanco went outside and saw that Martinez's SUV had crashed into a neighbor's garage down the street.
A few minutes before Martinez was shot, Bethel Johnson ("Johnson") and two of her children arrived at their house across the street from Blanco's house. When Johnson got out of her car, she saw Martinez sitting in his SUV with the motor running and headlights on, and with the driver's side window rolled up. Johnson testified that she could see through the tinted window that Martinez was looking at his lighted cell phone. She testified that there was a party on Beach Street at a black motorcycle club about half a block away on the other side of Benicia Road. There was a party at the club "almost every Saturday that month." Johnson testified that three young black men were walking up Beach Street toward the party. Two of them were "maybe 16, 17, 18 years old," and the other was "much older," Johnson testified that the older man was "somewhere" between 5'6" and 5'9", that he was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, and that he had dreads.
Johnson's daughter, Tenley Johnson ("Tenley"), got out of the back seat on the passenger side with the family Rottweiler on a leash. Johnson testified that the dog charged the man she had described as older. She called to Tenley, "Control your dog." Johnson testified that the man "said something like, ‘Hi girly,’ and then kind of like turned around away from the dog" and walked in the opposite direction toward Central Avenue, away from the party. She testified that she saw no weapons, and that the man said nothing threatening to Tenley. Between two and three minutes after getting into her house, Johnson heard what sounded like a shot and broken glass. Johnson went outside to check on her car. She found her own car intact and saw no one on the street.
Tenley testified that she, too, had seen Martinez's cell phone light through the window of the SUV. She testified that when she got out of the car, she saw three young black men walking from Central Avenue toward the party on Benicia Road. She described them to a police officer that night as "teenagers." Tenley said her dog "started barking and ... pulling me." The dog pulled her toward a man with "short hair." She said, She testified that the man was "skinny." Tenley is 5'3". She described the man as taller than she was and shorter than a 6'0" police officer who interviewed her. Tenley testified that the man was wearing a blue jacket with one or more white stripes "on the sleeves." She said it was "like a track jacket" and that it did not cover his head. One of the other men had dreads. She did not see any of the men's faces. When later shown six photographs, including a photograph of Ford, Tenley did not identify Ford as one of the three "teenagers" she had seen that night.
Another neighbor, Moises Cervantes, was walking out of his house on Beach Street. His house was between Blanco's house and Central Avenue. Cervantes heard a "pop" and saw Martinez's SUV coming toward him. After the SUV crashed, Cervantes looked up and down the street and saw no one.
Martinez was killed with a single shot. His foot was pressed on the gas pedal, causing the SUV to accelerate down the street until it crashed into the neighbor's garage. The engine continued to run, and the rear wheels to spin, even after the SUV came to a stop. Martinez's cell phone was found on the floorboard of the front passenger seat. The driver's side window was intact and about "a quarter of the way down." The other windows on the driver's side were closed and intact. A photograph introduced into evidence shows two rear side windows on the passenger side that were shattered. At least one of the windows had been broken by first responders.
Five days later, on August 12, two Vallejo detectives lawfully stopped Keith Ford. Ford was twenty-three years old. He is black, is 5'8" tall, and weighs 165 pounds. At the time of the stop, he had short hair. He was driving a white Oldsmobile sedan. The detectives found Ford's cell phone inside his car and discovered six additional cell phones in the center console.
Ford was read his Miranda rights. One of the detectives, Les Bottomley, testified that Ford said that he had "bought [the cell phones] stolen off the street." Later in the same interview, however, Ford told Bottomley he did not know whether they had been stolen. Ford told Bottomley that he was right-handed. Bottomley asked Ford where he had been on the night of August 7. Ford answered that he "was at his mother's home and at that time would have been in bed." Bottomley testified that Ford's mother's house is about three and half miles from Blanco's neighborhood. Bottomley did not ask Ford about Martinez's murder.
When Ford was stopped, he had a jacket in his car. Detective Bottomley testified that he later showed the jacket to Tenley. Tenley told him that it was not the jacket she had seen on the young man with the short hair on August 7.
Ford was arrested on September 26 and charged with having a concealed firearm in his vehicle on that date. It was stipulated to the jury that the firearm was unrelated to Martinez's murder. Ford was held on the charge in the Solano County Jail until December 14. On December 13, Detective Bottomley interviewed Ford again. He asked Ford if he knew Martinez. Bottomley testified that Ford said "he did not think he did." Ford repeated that he had been at his mother's house on the night of August 7 and had spent the night there. Bottomley told Ford that his palm print had been found on Martinez's SUV. Ford replied,
While Ford was in jail on the firearm charge, he spoke to his girlfriend on the telephone. The call was recorded. Ford said:
[L]uckily I ain't in here for murder, that's all I keep thinking about ... oh well I wish it didn't have to happen ... I just [wish] I was at home ... I know I gotta deal with my (unintelligible) it's too late for all that ... to be wishing I was at home ... See I'm disappointed in myself. But [expletive...
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