Klippenstein v. Fraunheim
Decision Date | 19 March 2021 |
Docket Number | No. 2:21-cv-00086 KJM GGH P,2:21-cv-00086 KJM GGH P |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California |
Parties | RANDY SCOTT KLIPPENSTEIN, Petitioner, v. SCOTT FRAUNHEIM, Respondent. |
Petitioner, a state prisoner proceeding through counsel, has filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The matter was referred to the United States Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 626(b)(1) and Local Rule 302.
Petitioner was convicted of forcible acts of sexual misconduct, and incest, upon his biological daughter. For purposes of this proceeding, petitioner conceded the incest claims, i.e., he had sexual relations with his daughter before she reached the age of 18, but he denies that these relations were carried out by force. Petitioner asserts two primary, but related, claims: (1) his Sixth Amendment right to cross examine a witness was violated on account of the inability to cross-examine his daughter about her pre-trial denial of sexual activities (both after petitioner's sexual acts and before); and (2) (assuming his daughter would have remained steadfast at trial in her denial of prior sexual activities) petitioner's Sixth/Fourteenth/Amendment rights were violated due to the inability to mount a complete defense because of the inability to introduce evidence of his daughter's sexual activities. Petitioner also disputes the admission of Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome ("CSAA") evidence, and a jury instruction related thereto.
In sum, because evidence of the sexual activities of the daughter did not evince bias on her part, or otherwise relate to allegations of petitioner's coercive actions, only probable embarrassment, or at worst a falsehood to protect her new teacher love interest subsequent-to-petitioner's-unlawful-actions, in this AEDPA case, the trial court's preclusion of the cross-examination was not unreasonable. It follows that preclusion of admission of extrinsic evidence of prior sexual activities was also not AEDPA unreasonable either. The CSAA claims should be denied as well as not violative of any established Supreme Court holdings and on the merits
Prior to trial, petitioner had been charged with lesser unlawful sex with a minor offenses, incest, and more serious forcible sex charges. Perhaps as a method of taking away any potential for a compromise verdict, or because the prosecutor was very confident in the "force" case, the unadorned unlawful sex charges were dropped during trial leaving only the forcible sex charges and incest charges. ECF No. 14-4 at 248-249. The only ultimate contested issue was whether petitioner used force to accomplish the conceded sexual activities. The factual summary of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District ("Court of Appeal") is set forth below:
People v. Klippenstein, No. C083373, 2018 WL 3298027, at *1-2 (Cal. Ct. App. July 5, 2018).
Issues Presented
Of course, the issues here are decided not by whether the undersigned believes the state courts to have made an erroneous legal determination, but whether the state courts were unreasonable in their determinations pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
The statutory limitations of the power of federal courts to issue habeas corpus relief for persons in state custody is provided by 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"). The text of § 2254(d) provides:
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, 565 U.S. 34, 39 (2011)); Stanley v. Cullen, 633 F.3d 852, 859 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-406 (2000)). 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, 569 U.S. 58, 63-64 (2013) (citing Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. 37, 48 (2012)). Nor may it be used to "determine whether a particular rule of law is sowidely accepted among the Federal Circuits that it would, if presented to th[e] [Supreme] Court, be accepted as correct. Id.
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. Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75 (2003); Chia v. Cambra, 360 F.3d 997, 1002 (9th Cir. 2004). In this regard, a federal habeas court Williams, supra, 529 U.S. at 412. See also Lockyer, supra, 538 U.S. at 75 ( ) "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, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). Accordingly, "[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus...
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