Gentry v. Grounds

• Decision Date: 10 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 2:13-cv-0142 WBS KJN P,2:13-cv-0142 WBS KJN P
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California
• Parties: JERRY WAYNE GENTRY, Petitioner, v. RANDY GROUNDS, Respondent.

JERRY WAYNE GENTRY, Petitioner, v. RANDY GROUNDS, Respondent.

No. 2:13-cv-0142 WBS KJN P

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

June 10, 2015

FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS

I. Introduction

Petitioner is a state prisoner, proceeding without counsel, with an application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner challenges his 2011 conviction for false imprisonment, criminal threats, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, and sexual battery by restraint. Petitioner was sentenced to 25 years in state prison. Petitioner raises nine claims alleging constitutional error. After careful review of the record, this court concludes that the petition should be denied.

II. Procedural History

"A jury acquitted petitioner of attempted murder but convicted him of six offenses arising from an incident in which he used some 'muscle' over a drug debt." People v. Gentry, 2012 WL 3089829 (Cal. App. 3 Dist., July 31, 2012). On February 1, 2011, a jury found petitioner guilty of false imprisonment, criminal threats, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, battery withserious bodily injury, and sexual battery by restraint. (Clerk's Transcript ("CT") 1151.) On April 22, 2011, petitioner was sentenced to 25 years in state prison. (CT 1391.)

Petitioner appealed the conviction to the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District. The Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction on July 31, 2012.

Petitioner filed a petition for review in the California Supreme Court, which was denied on October 31, 2012. (Respondent's Lodged Documents ("LD") 17.)

Petitioner filed the instant petition on January 24, 2013. (ECF No. 1.)

III. Facts¹

In its unpublished memorandum and opinion affirming petitioner's judgment of conviction on appeal, the California Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District provided the following factual summary:

The principal prosecution witnesses were Michael Ebert (the victim), April Collins, and Devin Chandler (through prior testimony).

Ebert testified that defendant summoned him one night in October 2009 to a rural location known as "the Ranch." Collins and Chandler took him there. Ebert owed defendant money on a methamphetamine deal.

Upon arrival, around midnight, Ebert was greeted with a punch in the mouth by some "bigger" guy, and told to sit in a chair. About 30 minutes later, defendant appeared. Things only went downhill from there.

Defendant, who had apparently just gotten "really high" with Collins, directed someone to get "ties." The "ties" were furnished, in the form of leather straps and a mouth ball. Then defendant, along with another person who had arrived, Jesse Bacon, proceeded to kick, punch, and beat Ebert, at times using a heavy (Maglite) flashlight.

During the lengthy ordeal, defendant, armed with a knife, also threatened to cut Ebert from head to toe, threatened to cut Ebert up and throw him in the woodpile, and, after pulling down Ebert's pants, tried to cut Ebert's penis with the knife and tried to sodomize Ebert with the flashlight. Defendant repeatedly asked Ebert if he wanted defendant to "screw him." At one point, Ebert was stabbed in the elbow with the knife. During the beating, Ebert was knocked out several times.

The beating eventually ended when others on the premises implored defendant and Bacon to stop.

When Ebert was outside leaving, defendant told him if he did not return with the marijuana plants (which Ebert had offered as payment), defendant would find him and kill him.

Collins corroborated much of Ebert's account, but, during her short glimpses into the living room from her position in the kitchen, she never saw a knife or reported defendant with a flashlight (she did hear defendant, however, threaten to cut Ebert open).

After Chandler refused to testify at trial, some of his preliminary hearing testimony was read to the jury. Contrary to what he had told the police, Chandler testified at the preliminary hearing that he never saw anyone use restraints on Ebert, or anyone put a knife to Ebert's penis, or defendant or Bacon hit Ebert with anything.

Around 10 days after the incident, Ebert reported it to Agent Robert Carrell, his contact on the Shasta Interagency Narcotics Task Force (SINTF), for which Ebert had been an informant. And, according to jailhouse Deputy Sheriff Jack McCormick, defendant stated to him after the incident -- perhaps jokingly, while asking McCormick to make photocopies of some police reports in this matter -- that he (defendant) never did anything with a flashlight, but he grabbed the man's genitals and threatened to cut them off with a knife. McCormick did not write a report about this until six months later, and only then at Agent Carrell's prompting.

(People v. Gentry, slip op. at 1-2.)

IV. Standards for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

An application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody under a judgment of a state court can be granted only for violations of the Constitution or laws of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). A federal writ is not available for alleged error in the interpretation or application of state law. See Wilson v. Corcoran, 562 U.S. 1, 4 (2010); Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68 (1991); Park v. California, 202 F.3d 1146, 1149 (9th Cir. 2000).

Title 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) sets forth the following standards for granting federal habeas corpus relief:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the 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).

For purposes of applying § 2254(d)(1), "clearly established federal law" consists of holdings of the United States Supreme Court at the time of the last reasoned state court decision. Thompson v. Runnels, 705 F.3d 1089, 1096 (9th Cir. 2013) (citing Greene v. Fisher, 132 S. Ct. 38 (2011)); Stanley v. Cullen, 633 F.3d 852, 859 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000)). Circuit court precedent "may be persuasive in determining what law is clearly established and whether a state court applied that law unreasonably." Stanley, 633 F.3d at 859 (quoting Maxwell v. Roe, 606 F.3d 561, 567 (9th Cir. 2010)). However, circuit precedent may not be "used to refine or sharpen a general principle of Supreme Court jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that th[e] [Supreme] Court has not announced." Marshall v. Rodgers, 133 S. Ct. 1446, 1450 (2013) (citing Parker v. Matthews, 132 S. Ct. 2148, 2155 (2012) (per curiam)). Nor may it be used to "determine whether a particular rule of law is so widely accepted among the Federal Circuits that it would, if presented to th[e] [Supreme] Court, be accepted as correct. Id. Further, where courts of appeals have diverged in their treatment of an issue, it cannot be said that there is "clearly established Federal law" governing that issue. Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 77 (2006).

A state court decision is "contrary to" clearly established federal law if it applies a rule contradicting a holding of the Supreme Court or reaches a result different from Supreme Court precedent on "materially indistinguishable" facts. Price v. Vincent, 538 U.S. 634, 640 (2003). Under the "unreasonable application" clause of § 2254(d)(1), a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from the Supreme Court's decisions, but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.² Lockyer v.Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003); Williams, 529 U.S. at 413; Chia v. Cambra, 360 F.3d 997, 1002 (9th Cir. 2004). In this regard, a federal habeas court "may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable." Williams, 529 U.S. at 412. See also Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007); Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 75 (it is "not enough that a federal habeas court, in its independent review of the legal question, is left with a 'firm conviction' that the state court was 'erroneous.'"). "A state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 'fairminded jurists could disagree' on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). Accordingly, "[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner 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 for fairminded disagreement." Richter,131 S. Ct. at 786-87.

If the state court's decision does not meet the criteria set forth in § 2254(d), a reviewing court must conduct a de novo review of a habeas petitioner's claims. Delgadillo v. Woodford, 527 F.3d 919, 925 (9th Cir. 2008); see also Frantz v. Hazey, 533 F.3d 724, 735 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) ("[I]t is now clear both that we may not grant habeas relief simply because of § 2254(d)(1) error and that, if there is such error, we must decide the habeas petition by considering de novo the constitutional issues raised.").

The court looks to the last reasoned state court decision as the basis for the state court judgment. Stanley, 633 F.3d at 859; Robinson v. Ignacio, 360 F.3d 1044,...