ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR
Petitioner has filed a pro se Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging a judgment of conviction from Monterey County Superior Court. Doc. #1. For the reasons set forth below, the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus is DENIED.
In 2006, a jury convicted Petitioner of two counts of second degree murder, two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated and causing injury, driving with a .08 percent blood-alcohol level and causing injury, and hit-and-run driving with serious permanent injury. The jury further found that Petitioner personally inflicted great bodily injury on four victims and fled the scene after committing the offenses. The state trial court sentencedPetitioner to a determinate term of 10 years with a consecutive indeterminate term of 15 years to life. Doc. #32; People v. Morales, No. H030193, 2009 WL 1227954 (Cal. Ct. App. May 6, 2009). The state appellate court affirmed the judgment on May 6, 2009 and the California Supreme Court denied review on July 22, 2009.1 Doc. ## 32 & 33. Petitioner filed the instant federal habeas petition on March 23, 2010. See Doc. #1.
The facts of Petitioner's underlying offenses were summarized in the state appellate court's opinion:
On December 2, 2004, around 8:15 p.m., [Petitioner] drove his large SUV southbound on Highway 101. A number [of] people saw him driving and called 911 to report him. Cecilia Acuna and Ester Almanza testified that [Petitioner] was weaving between lanes and on and off the right shoulder going over 80 m.p.h. and forcing cars to the shoulder. Manuel Roque testified that at one point, [Petitioner] moved from left to right, narrowly missing his truck, and then drove onto the right shoulder, hit a temporary road sign, and continued on. Nick Rocha testified that at another point, [Petitioner] forced him off the side of the freeway. He followed [Petitioner] from a few car lengths back and flashed his lights. However, [Petitioner] swerved, almost running another car off the road, and then exited the freeway. He then drove up an embankment, backed down, and reentered the freeway, going even faster. Acuna testified that [Petitioner] came up so close to her that she had to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid being hit. She said [Petitioner] did the same thing to the car in front of her. Anthony Bayne testified that [Petitioner] scraped the side of his car as Bayne tried to avoid him. [Petitioner] then continued down the freeway, swerving from one side to the other.
Sylvia Villanueva was also on the freeway in her minivan, driving her three daughters, Maria, Catalina, and Elizabeth, and her mother in law, Josephina Rocha. She was in the right lane. At one point, she noticed[Petitioner] weaving and quickly approaching her from behind. He passed her so closely on the left that she had to move farther to the right. Then the truck in front of her almost went off the road. Some time later, she saw [Petitioner's] SUV again approaching her from behind at around 85 m.p.h. [Petitioner] swerved over to the center divider and then swerved back into the right lane, hitting Villanueva's van and causing it to skid and roll over. Josephina and Catalina were immediately ejected and killed; Maria was ejected and suffered near fatal injuries; Sylvia and Elizabeth were stuck inside the minivan. Sylvia was hospitalized for four days with a cerebral contusion and arm injury.
As a result of the collision, [Petitioner] lost control of his SUV, and it rolled across the freeway and through a fence, landing upside down on a frontage road. [Petitioner] climbed out of the SUV and then looked around. He immediately fled the scene. At a nearby gas station, Cecilia Mendoza, the attendant, saw [Petitioner] come in. She remarked that his head was bleeding and asked if he was okay. He said he was okay and left. Mendoza called the police. Outside the station, at [Petitioner's] request, Mendoza gave him her phone, but he handed it back, and she called his wife, whom he spoke to for a while.
A short time later, [Petitioner] told California Highway Patrol (CHP) Officer Peter Aguilar that he had come to the gas station after an accident. They returned to the frontage road, where CHP Officer Craig Jackson spoke to [Petitioner]. Officer Jackson observed that [Petitioner] was disoriented, his head was lacerated, his speech was slightly slurred, his eyes were red, and he smelled of alcohol. [Petitioner] said that he left work at 4:00 p.m., fell asleep, and woke up after the accident. However, he said that he had slept over seven hours the night before. He denied that he had been drinking. He was then arrested.
[Petitioner's] blood was drawn at 11:15 p.m., and tests revealed a blood-alcohol level of .13 percent and the presence of the active ingredient in marijuana. A forensic toxicologist opined that [Petitioner] had used marijuana roughly around the time of the accident, two to three hours before his blood was drawn. He further testified that marijuana can cause driving errors, and the combination of marijuana and alcohol intensifies the intoxicating effect of both, slowing reaction time, making it difficult to maintain a constant speed, and causing weaving.
The prosecution introduced evidence of [Petitioner's] prior driving record. In particular, [Petitioner] had two prior convictions for driving underthe influence (DUI) in August and October 1990, when he was around 18 years old. His license was suspended until March 2000, and he was convicted of driving with a suspended license in August 1996 and April 1998. Starting in May 1998, [Petitioner] participated in a jail DUI program. In July 1998, after his release, he enrolled in an 18-month multiple-DUI program, which he completed in February 2000. That program reviewed the statistics concerning alcohol-related accidents resulting in injury or death, instructed on the correlation between blood-alcohol levels and driving impairment, warned that impairment intensifies when alcohol and marijuana are combined, and cautioned that alcohol impairs judgment and that bad judgment leads to fatal accidents. [Petitioner's] driving privileges were reinstated in March 2000. However, because he had been convicted of driving with a suspended license earlier that March, his license was suspended again. In February 2001, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) advised him that he had been deemed a "negligent operator" and suspended his license until September 2001. Thereafter, [Petitioner] regained his driving privileges, and, on the day of the accident, he had a valid license.
Irma Rodriguez, [Petitioner's] wife, testified that their five-year-old son suffers from severe birth defects and mental and physical disabilities. He has recurrent, potentially life-threatening seizures. Together she and [Petitioner] administer medication to control the seizures. She testified that on December 2, 2004, their son showed seizure symptoms, she administered some medication, and then called [Petitioner], who usually got off work around 4:00 p.m. and was back home between 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. She could not recall when she called, saying it could have been 4:30, 5:30, or even 6:00 p.m.; but she said it was already dark outside. He did not answer, and she left a message on his cell phone. After some time - she could not say how long - [Petitioner] returned her call. He sounded normal and sober and did not mention where he was. She told him to return quickly because she feared their son would have another seizure. He said he was coming. Later, he called from the service station and told her about the accident.2
Contrary to what [Petitioner] told [] Officer Jackson, Rodriguez testified that he did not sleep for seven hours the night before the accident.
Doc. #32 at 2-5 (footnote in original, renumbered).
This Court may entertain a petition for a writ of habeas corpus "in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). The writ may not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court's 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." Id. § 2254(d).
"Under the 'contrary to' clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000). The only definitive source of clearly established federal law under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) is in the holdings (as opposed to the dicta) of the Supreme Court as of the time of the state court decision. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412; Brewer v. Hall, 378 F.3d 952, 955 (9th Cir. 2004). While circuit law may be "persuasive authority" for purposes of determining whether a state court decision is an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, only the Supreme Court's holdings are binding on the state courts and only those holdings need be "reasonably" applied. Clark v. Murphy, 331 F.3d 1062, 1069 (9th Cir.2003),overruled on other grounds by Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003)....
