Monroe v. Phieffer, 2:19-CV-02174-MCE-DMC-P
| Decision Date | 09 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 2:19-CV-02174-MCE-DMC-P,2:19-CV-02174-MCE-DMC-P |
| Parties | D'ANDRE MONROE, Petitioner, v. C. PHIEFFER, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California |
Petitioner, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, brings this petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Pending before the Court is Respondent's Motion to Dismiss. ECF No. 16. Respondent argues (1) that Petitioner's petition is premature under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971) because his direct appeal is pending, and (2) that his petition includes an unexhausted claim. Id. at 1. Petitioner responds (1) that Younger abstention is not required because the circumstances of his petition, including the risk of immediate and irreparable harm, warrant exercise of federal jurisdiction, and (2) that he properly presented and exhausted all claims before the appellate courts. ECF No. 22. The Court resolves the motion on abstention grounds and does not reach the exhaustion issue.
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Petitioner and friends drove to back up other friends who had been involved in a fight with several teenage girls. ECF No. 18-2 at 2-3. The teenage girls meanwhile regrouped in a nearby home. Id. at 2. After a series of arguments, during which Petitioner and another individual fired guns near the home, Petitioner and his friends returned to their car. Id. at 4. They drove slowly past the home. Id. Petitioner fired a gun through the open passenger-side window. Id. The bullet from Petitioner's gun entered the home through a bedroom window and hit 15-year-old Aliyah ("Lele") Smith, severing her spinal cord and killing her. Id. at 5. Petitioner had been drinking and was "drunkish." Id. Evidence is conflicted as to whether Petitioner's friends berated him for not firing the gun near the home rather than into it. Id.
A jury convicted Petitioner in California state court of second-degree murder and firing a gun into an inhabited house. ECF Nos. 10 at 1, 18-2 at 6. The jury also found gun enhancements. ECF Nos. 10 at 1; 18-2 at 6. The trial court sentenced Petitioner on the murder charge and gun enhancements. ECF No. 18-2 at 6. Citing California Penal Code section 654, the trial court withheld imposition of a sentence on the charge of firing into an inhabited house. Id. The court imposed a 15-years-to-life sentence for murder and 25-years-to-life sentence for the gun enhancements. Id. Petitioner is subject to an indeterminate term of 40-years-to-life. Id.
Petitioner appealed his conviction to the California Court of Appeal. Id. at 2; ECF No. 10 at 1-2. Petitioner did not challenge his conviction for firing a gun at inhabited home. ECF No. 18-2 at 2. Instead, he argued (1) that there was insufficient evidence to sustain a murder conviction; (2) that the trial court erred in not sua sponte instructing the jury on involuntary manslaughter; and (3) that the trial court erred in granting a jury instruction that prohibited the jury from considering voluntary intoxication as to whether Petitioner had a conscious disregard for life. Id. He also argued that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to request a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication. Id.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment except as to the gun enhancements. Id. The court remanded the case to the trial court in light of then-recent state legislation giving thetrial court discretion to dismiss gun enhancements. Id. Petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court of California. ECF No. 18-3. The Court denied review. ECF No. 18-4.
The trial court declined to strike the gun enhancement on remand in August 2019. See ECF No. 10 at 2-3; see also ECF No. 16 at 2. Petitioner appealed the trial court's denial to strike the enhancement to the Court of Appeal. See ECF Nos. 10 at 3; 16 at 2. The appeal is pending.1 See ECF Nos. 10 at 3; 16 at 2.
Petitioner filed a habeas corpus petition with the state trial court in June 2019. See ECF Nos. 16; 18-6. The assigned judge construed the petition as a post-judgment motion and reassigned the petition to the judge who presided over Petitioner's trial and who was handling the resentencing hearing on remand. ECF No. 18-6. The status of the petition is unknown.
Petitioner filed this federal habeas corpus petition on February 25, 2020. ECF No. 10. His petition rests on four grounds. Id. at 4-5.
First, Petitioner claims that the Court of Appeal erred in concluding that Petitioner "appreciated the risk when he was baited into firing one shot and therefore had a conscious disregard for life . . . ." Id. at 4. He claims that what the court concluded, from the arguments of Petitioner's appellate counsel, was that Petitioner's appellate counsel had conceded Petitioner refrained from firing into the home until pressured to do so because he was aware of the risk of firing. Id. Petitioner argues, however, that his counsel did not in fact concede that Petitioner was aware of the risk. Id. Instead, counsel stated that Petitioner did not shoot at the house "because he had no dog in this fight." Id. The court, in Petitioner's view, erred in taking counsel's statement as an inadvertent concession that he knew firing at the house was dangerous but did it anyway after being pressured by others. Id. Petitioner asserts that what counsel actually argued was that there was insufficient evidence of implied malice to sustain a second-degree murder conviction. Id.
Second, Petitioner contends that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to support conviction for second-degree murder and that his conviction violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Id. He specifically asserts that no evidence indicated that he had intent to kill, or even knew that Smith was inside the home. Id. He argues that a trained marksman would have had a difficult time hitting Smith, and that his errant shot cannot be considered as posing a high risk of death. Id. Especially because he had turned 18 just shortly before the shooting, there was no evidence to indicate that he knew his conduct posed a risk to anyone in the house or that he acted in conscious disregard of that risk. Id. At most, his conduct rose to the level of involuntary manslaughter. Id.
Third, Petitioner claims that the trial court prejudicially erred in refusing to instruct the jury "that an unlawful killing committed without malice in the course of an assaultive felony constitutes the crime of involuntary manslaughter." Id. at 5. He contends that the trial court's alleged error violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and his Sixth Amendment rights to a trial and to present a defense. Id. Petitioner claims that the instruction should have been granted because there was insufficient evidence of implied malice. Id. There was in Petitioner's view, however, sufficient evidence to show that an objective and reasonable person in Petitioner's position committed an act endangering life without appreciating the risk involved. Id. Petitioner argues that the evidence could only show he was guilty of criminal negligence or involuntary manslaughter. Id.
Fourth, Petitioner argues that his sentence of forty-years-to-life is unconstitutional as contrary to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 575 U.S. 911 (2015). Id. He asserts that he had just turned 18 at the time of the crime and lacked maturity and a developed sense of responsibility. Id. Those lacking qualities result in impulsive, ill-considered actions. Id. Juveniles are also more susceptible to negative influence and peer pressure. Id. Petitioner argues that his age, lack of maturity, undeveloped sense of responsibility, and vulnerability to peer pressure should have been considered at sentencing. Id.
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Respondent moves to dismiss Petitioner's petition without prejudice. ECF No. 16 at 5. Respondent's argument is twofold. Id. at 1. First, Respondent argues that Petitioner's appeal is still pending, and this Court should accordingly abstain under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). Id. at 2-3. Secondly, Respondent argues that Petitioner has not exhausted his claims because he did not present his claims under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 575 U.S. 911 (2015) to the Supreme Court of California. Id. at 3-5. Petitioner opposes Respondent's arguments on two pertinent bases.2 Petitioner first rebuts that Younger abstention is not appropriate because the pending appeal will not render his habeas petition moot, and an abstention exception applies because he will suffer immediate, irreparable harm if the Court abstains. ECF No. 22 at 4-10. He secondly contends that he exhausted his claims before the California Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of California because the claims he did raise necessarily implied the existence of a question concerning the constitutionality of his sentence under Miller and Montgomery. Id. at 10-14. Because the Court concludes that it must presently abstain, it does not reach the exhaustion arguments.
Federal courts' obligation to hear and determine cases is "virtually unflagging." Sprint Commc'ns, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U.S. 69, 77 (2013) (quoting Colo. River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976)); Arevalo v. Hennessy, 882 F.3d 763, 765 (9th Cir. 2018). Younger abstention is an exception to that rule and is a jurisprudential doctrine rooted in principles of equity, comity, and federalism. Arevalo, 882 F.3d at 765. Specifically, Younger warns against federal interference with ongoing state criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings. Id. But abstention is an extraordinary and narrow exception. Id.;Cook v. Harding, 879 F.3d 1035, 1038 (9th Cir. 2018). Indeed, virtually all cases discussing Younger abstention stress that the limited circumstances in...
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