John–charles v. State

• Decision Date: 22 July 2011
• Docket Number: No. 09–16530.,09–16530.
• Citation: 646 F.3d 1243
• Parties: Curtis M. JOHN–CHARLES, Petitioner–Appellant,v.State of CALIFORNIA, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

646 F.3d 1243

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9229

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11,074

Curtis M. JOHN–CHARLES, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.State of CALIFORNIA, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 09–16530.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Nov. 3, 2010.Filed July 22, 2011.

Mark Eibert, Esq., Half Moon Bay, CA, for the petitioner.Barton Bowers, Deputy Attorney General, State of California, Sacramento, CA, for the respondent.Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, Morrison C. England, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:05–cv–00175–MCE–GGH.Before: SIDNEY R. THOMAS and SANDRA S. IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and JANE A. RESTANI, Judge.^*

OPINION

IKUTA, Circuit Judge:

Curtis M. John–Charles appeals the district court's denial of his federal habeas petition. He raises two claims on appeal. First, John–Charles challenges the California Court of Appeal's rulings that he had no absolute Sixth Amendment right to the reappointment of counsel after waiving his right to counsel under Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 807, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), and that the trial court's abuse of discretion in failing to reappoint counsel was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, John–Charles claims that the California court violated his rights under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), when it used a prior juvenile conviction as a “strike” to enhance his sentence. Because neither of these decisions “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” we affirm the district court's denial of John–Charles's habeas petition. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

I

In 2001, the State of California charged John–Charles with robbery, receipt of stolen property, assault with a firearm, acting in concert (with co-defendant Richard Ward) and entering an inhabited structure, personal use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The charges stemmed from a home-invasion robbery allegedly committed by John–Charles, Ward, and two or three other men, against several individuals living in a duplex in Sacramento county.

John–Charles was dissatisfied with his defense attorney during the pretrial stages of his case and accordingly made three unsuccessful motions to substitute different counsel.¹ At a hearing on November 2, 2001, the trial court once again denied John–Charles's motion to substitute different counsel. John–Charles sought to exercise his rights under Faretta v. California, which established the constitutional “right to proceed without counsel when [a defendant] voluntarily and intelligently elects to do so.” 422 U.S. at 807, 95 S.Ct. 2525. The trial court granted John–Charles's request to represent himself after a colloquy in which the trial court ensured his counsel waiver was knowing and intelligent. At the hearing, the trial court acknowledged that under California's speedy trial act, Cal.Penal Code § 1382, John–Charles was entitled to have his trial commence on November 5, 2001, but determined there was good cause to extend the speedy trial deadline to November 27, 2001; the court subsequently extended the deadline to December 26, 2001, and then to January 3, 2002.

On January 3, 2002, the date set for voir dire and the commencement of trial, John–Charles asked the court to reappoint trial counsel, because he was bewildered by the jury selection process and motions arguments. The court denied his request because John–Charles had waited to raise it “until the last minute,” the court did not want to continue the case while John–Charles attempted to find counsel, and the court deemed it impossible for John–Charles to find an attorney who would step in to represent him on such short notice. The court likewise declined to grant John–Charles's request to appoint an attorney to help him with jury selection. Because John–Charles was still dressed in prison garb, the court decided to delay jury selection until John–Charles was dressed appropriately. In light of the speedy trial issue, however, the court ruled that because it had already devoted substantial time and resources to the matter (it had spent the entire day addressing the parties' motions), and both the court and litigants were ready to proceed, the trial of John–Charles and Ward “ha[d] commenced” as of January 3, 2002.

The prosecution filed an amended information on January 4, 2002, adding Count 5 (assault with a firearm), and the trial was continued to January 8, 2002. On January 8, the prosecution filed a second amended information, charging John–Charles with a prior “strike” stemming from a juvenile conviction. On the same day, John–Charles again moved for the appointment of counsel and a continuance. The court again denied his motion. Jury selection commenced later that day. The following day, January 9, 2002, John–Charles made another request for appointment of counsel, which he styled as a Marsden motion, saying, “I want to fire myself,” and explaining that he could not adequately represent himself and intended to seek a continuance. The court again denied his request for counsel and a continuance, explaining:

We are in the process of picking a jury for this [joint] trial[;] [i]t would, in my opinion be extremely disruptive, to—and not in the best interests of the administration of justice, certainly, to in effect grant a severance of these trials with you and [your co-defendant] Ward and that's in effect, what would happen.

John–Charles thereafter continued to represent himself throughout the guilt phase of his trial and was convicted on all charges (as was his represented co-defendant, Ward). At the penalty phase, the trial court found that John–Charles had a juvenile adjudication of guilt for an offense that qualified as a strike under California's three-strikes law. The court accordingly sentenced John–Charles as a second-strike offender.

On direct appeal, John–Charles argued that the trial court's refusal to permit him to withdraw his Faretta waiver violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and that the trial court's use of his prior juvenile adjudication to enhance his sentence violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.

The California Court of Appeal denied his claims. As the court explained, under California Supreme Court precedent, a self-represented defendant who seeks to withdraw his Faretta waiver after commencement of trial does not have an absolute right to reinstatement of counsel. See People v. Gallego, 52 Cal.3d 115, 163–64, 276 Cal.Rptr. 679, 802 P.2d 169 (1990); see also People v. Lawley, 27 Cal.4th 102, 148–49, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 614, 38 P.3d 461 (2002). Rather, the trial court must exercise its discretion based on a range of factors set forth in People v. Windham, 19 Cal.3d 121, 137 Cal.Rptr. 8, 560 P.2d 1187 (1977). Reviewing the trial court's denial of John–Charles's reappointment request under this standard, the California Court of Appeal held that the trial court abused its discretion, because there was no evidence that “the reappointment of counsel would have caused a significant delay or disruption of the trial proceedings.” The court then evaluated the effect of this error. It first noted that it was not clear under California law whether such errors should be reviewed for harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt under the standard set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), or under a less onerous state standard, see People v. Watson, 46 Cal.2d 818, 836, 299 P.2d 243 (1956) (holding that certain trial errors are harmless unless there is a reasonable probability that a different result would have occurred absent the error). The court did not resolve this issue, because it concluded that even assuming the Chapman standard applied, the trial court's error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, given the overwhelming weight of the evidence against John–Charles on the robbery, felon-in-possession, and receipt-of-stolen-property counts,² and because John–Charles's co- defendant, who was represented by counsel, was convicted on the same charges, in the same trial, before the same jury. The California Supreme Court denied review.

John–Charles petitioned for habeas relief in federal court. After the district court denied John–Charles's habeas petition, he timely filed a notice of appeal.

II

We review John–Charles's claims through the lens of AEDPA's extremely deferential standard of review. “Section 2254(d) is part of the basic structure of federal habeas jurisdiction, designed to confirm that state courts are the principal forum for asserting constitutional challenges to state convictions.” Harrington v. Richter, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 770, 787, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011).³

Under § 2254(d)(1), “[f]ederal habeas relief may not be granted ... unless it is shown that the earlier state court's decision ‘was contrary to’ federal law then clearly established in the holdings of th[e Supreme] Court, or that it ‘involved an unreasonable application of’ such law.” ⁴ Id. at 785 (citations omitted).

For purposes of § 2254(d)(1), “a state court decision is contrary to [the Supreme Court's] clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases or if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of th[e] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [that] precedent.” Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 73, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405–06, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)). A state court decision makes an “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court precedent if it “identifies the correct governing legal rule from [the Supreme] Court's cases but unreasonably applies...