Hart v. Broomfield

• Decision Date: 05 August 2020
• Docket Number: CASE NO. CV 05-03633 DSF
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: JOSEPH WILLIAM HART, Petitioner, v. RON BROOMFIELD, Acting Warden of California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent.

JOSEPH WILLIAM HART, Petitioner, v. RON BROOMFIELD,¹ Acting Warden

of California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent.

CASE NO. CV 05-03633 DSF

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

August 5, 2020

DEATH PENALTY CASE

ORDER DENYING HABEAS RELIEF

I. INTRODUCTION

Petitioner is a death row inmate at California's San Quentin State Prison. A jury convicted him of first degree murder and sex offenses. On federal habeas review, Petitioner challenges his convictions and sentence. As the Court discusses below, aside from two claims that are unripe for review, Petitioner fails to meet the stringent standard for relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. §2254.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A. State Court Proceedings²

Petitioner was convicted in the Riverside County Superior Court of first degree murder (Cal. Penal Code §§ 187(a), 189), rape (Cal. Penal Code § 261(a)(2)), sodomy (Cal. Penal Code § 286(c)), and forcible oral copulation (Cal Penal Code § 288a(c)). The jury found true special circumstance allegations that Petitioner committed the murder during the commission of, attempted commission of - or immediate flight after committing or attempting to commit - rape and sodomy. (Cal. Penal Code §§ 190.2(a)(17)(C) & (D).) (Reporter's Transcript on Appeal, volume 27 ("27RT") at 3586-89.)

After a bifurcated trial before the same jury to determine the penalty, the jury returned a sentence of death. (41RT at 5285.) The trial court formally imposed that sentence on May 27, 1988. (42RT at 5312-14.)

On automatic appeal, the California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on June 1, 1999. See People v. Hart, 20 Cal. 4th 546 (1999).³ The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on January 10, 2000. See Hart v. California, 528 U.S. 1085 (2000).

On November 6, 1998, Petitioner filed a state habeas petition in the California Supreme Court. The court denied that eleven-claim petition on March 1, 2006. The court rejected the claims on the merits, as well as on multiple procedural grounds. (Dkt. 101-1-101-7, 101-13.)

On June 22, 2005, Petitioner filed a second habeas petition in the California Supreme Court. (Dkt. 98-1-98-5, 102-1-102-9, 103-1-103-3.) Petitioner included his prior state habeas claims and added several others. On March 28, 2007, the California Supreme Court denied the second petition, again both on the merits and various procedural grounds. (Dkt. 98-12.)

On May 22, 2007, after receiving a stay of this federal action (discussed below), Petitioner filed a third state habeas petition. (Dkt. 98-13-98-16, 99-1-99-4.) This "supplemental" exhaustion petition raised three claims. After receiving informal briefing and multiple exhibits, the California Supreme Court denied the petition on September 28, 2011. (Dkt. 99-21.)

B. Pending Proceedings

Petitioner initiated his federal habeas proceedings in a separate action. In case No. CV 00-1021 MMM, the Court appointed counsel for the limited purpose of determining whether the federal action was time-barred, or whether AEDPA's limitations period should be equitably tolled. The Court ultimately granted equitable tolling and found the action timely. The Court then dismissed that limited action and Petitioner commenced the current proceeding on May 16, 2005. (Dkt. 1.)

The original petition was "mixed," containing claims that had been raised in state court, and others that had not. Petitioner sought and received a stay of the case to complete state habeas review. (Dkt. 18, 26.) Petitioner subsequently returned to this Court and filed an amended petition. (Dkt. 38.) Soon thereafter, due to defects in the amended petition identified by Petitioner, he successfully sought leave to file the pending Second Amended Petition ("SAP"). (Dkt. 45, 51-53.) The SAP raises forty-one claims and multiple subclaims.

At the Court's direction, Respondent filed an Answer with a memorandum of points and authorities fully briefing all of the claims and subclaims in the SAP, anddiscussing the applicability of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).⁴ (Dkt. 87, 93.) Subsequently, pursuant to this Court's Order for Briefing, Petitioner filed a "Traverse and § 2254(d) Brief" ("Traverse") responding to Respondent's arguments as to the applicability of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). (Dkt. 106, 130.) Thereafter, Petitioner filed a Notice of Supplemental Supreme Court Authority that directed the Court to a newly-decided Supreme Court case that ostensibly had a bearing on Claims 6 and 14 of the SAP. (Dkt. 133.)

This Court's Order for Briefing advised the parties that "there is no basis for considering a request for discovery or any other form of evidentiary development until Petitioner has established that he can satisfy the threshold showing" under AEDPA, a standard that is discussed fully below. The Briefing Order further directed that "[o]nce Petitioner's Traverse has been filed, the Court will not consider any further briefing until such time as it has made a determination of the merits of claims contained in the SAP." (Dkt. 106 at 3-4.) Based on the Court's analysis below under AEDPA, no further evidentiary development or briefing is warranted and the matter stands submitted for decision.

III. TRIAL FACTS⁵

The evidence at trial established that shortly before noon on March 24, 1986, the murder victim, Diana (known as Diane) Lynn Harper, and her friend, Amy R., each 15 years of age, decided to leave the RiversideCounty high school in which they were enrolled as students, to meet Diane's boyfriend at a local 7-Eleven store. In the parking lot of the store, Diane began conversing with a stranger, who told her that he had found a marijuana patch and needed someone to watch the road while he harvested the plants. He offered the girls $1,000 to serve as lookouts. The girls entered his vehicle, and the man drove them 30 to 40 miles, stopping once to purchase beer, and again to obtain storage bags for carrying the marijuana. At trial, Amy identified the man as defendant.

The car stopped at a dirt road in a rural area. Defendant told Amy to wait by the vehicle, and he and Diane walked up the path and out of Amy's view. Shortly thereafter, defendant returned and asked Amy to help him carry the bags. Amy went with him and saw Diane's partially clothed body lying facedown on the ground. Diane appeared to be dead or unconscious. Amy tried to run away, but defendant caught her, tore her clothes, forced her to orally copulate him, and raped and sodomized her. Amy testified at trial that defendant explained to her: "I'm really sorry I had to do this, but you know, I had a shitty day. . . ."

Defendant informed Amy that "your friend was an asshole, she called me a few names, and I think she's dead." He also told Amy that he planned to hit Amy with a rock to render her unconscious. By misleading defendant into believing that she had been abused as a child, and promising that she would not contact the police, Amy persuaded defendant not to knock her out, and eventually he drove her back to a location near the 7-Eleven store. He gave her a quarter to phone home, and drove away. Amy immediately contacted her sister and, shortly thereafter, spoke with law enforcement officers. Later that evening, Amy directed the officers to the crime scene, where Diane's body was found. The cause of Diane'sdeath was identified as massive cerebral contusions and hemorrhage, caused by external trauma to the head.

Law enforcement investigators recovered evidence indicating that Amy and Diane each had been sexually assaulted. A fingerprint matching that of defendant was recovered from a beer bottle found close to Diane's body. Tire impressions found in the vicinity of the murder scene were consistent with those of defendant's vehicle, which Amy also identified as the one she and Diane had entered. Shoeprints were consistent with a partially burned shoe found in a 55-gallon drum outside defendant's residence. Other physical evidence also connected defendant to the crime scene. Defendant was arrested on May 8, 1986 - five days after the murder of his young niece, Shelah McMahan. In a police lineup, Amy was shown five individuals including defendant, and collapsed upon viewing him; immediately thereafter, she identified defendant as the man who had assaulted her. Defendant's time cards indicated that, on the day the crimes were committed, he worked until 11:30 a.m. on a construction job near the 7-Eleven store where the girls were picked up. A few days later, one of defendant's coworkers observed that defendant had a bandaged hand and that his right arm was in a sling; the physician who treated defendant's injury testified that it was commonly known as a "boxer's fracture," because it typically is sustained by striking a closed-fist blow against a fixed or hard object.

I. GUILT PHASE EVIDENCE

A. The Prosecution's Case

1. Overview

The prosecution's theory of the case was that defendant's effort to entice the girls into his vehicle and drive them to a remote area was part of a premeditated plan to commit rape, and that the murder of Diane wascommitted in the course of perpetrating rape. To establish that theory, the prosecution presented Amy's testimony, and introduced physical and circumstantial evidence linking defendant to the crimes.

2. The Events of March 24, 1986

Amy testified that she and Diane left high school on March 24, 1986, stopping first at a nearby Der Wienerschnitzel restaurant for a soda, then at another restaurant, Don Jose's, where Diane submitted an application for employment. The girls thereafter crossed the street to an area adjacent to a 7-Eleven store to wait for Diane's boyfriend, David Starbuck.

A brown Toyota vehicle entered a nearby driveway, and Diane began conversing with its driver. Amy joined in the conversation. The driver informed the girls that "he had found a marijuana field and he had a lady that was going to go with him and she couldn't make it, and he couldn't take another day off work and . . . I

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