Pinholster v. Ayers

• Decision Date: 09 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. 03-99008.,No. 03-99003.,03-99003.,03-99008.
• Citation: 590 F.3d 651
• Parties: Scott Lynn PINHOLSTER, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Robert L. AYERS, Jr., Warden, Respondent-Appellant. Scott Lynn Pinholster, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne S. Woodford, of the California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

590 F.3d 651

Scott Lynn PINHOLSTER, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Robert L. AYERS, Jr., Warden, Respondent-Appellant.

Scott Lynn Pinholster, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne S. Woodford, of the California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 03-99003.

No. 03-99008.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted June 23, 2009.

Filed December 9, 2009.

James William Bilderback II, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, argued, Kristofer Jorstad, Deputy Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for the respondent-appellant, cross-appellee.

Sean K. Kennedy, Federal Public Defender, Los Angeles, CA, for the petitioner-cross appellant/appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Gary L. Taylor, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-95-06240-GLT.

Before: ALEX KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, HARRY PREGERSON, STEPHEN REINHARDT, PAMELA ANN RYMER, ANDREW J. KLEINFELD, KIM McLANE WARDLAW, W. FLETCHER, RICHARD A. PAEZ, MARSHA S. BERZON, JAY S. BYBEE, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge MILAN D. SMITH, JR.; Dissent by Chief Judge KOZINSKI.

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge:

Scott Lynn Pinholster (Pinholster) was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of double murder with a knife in the course of a home robbery and burglary. After exhausting his state remedies, Pinholster sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court in which he alleged, among other claims, ineffective assistance of counsel at both the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. Applying the standards of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, in its final ruling, the district court upheld Pinholster's conviction, but granted habeas relief on his death sentence because the court found that trial counsel's deficient performance at the penalty phase of the trial unconstitutionally prejudiced Pinholster's defense.

A three-judge panel of this court affirmed the district court's guilt phase determination but reversed its grant of habeas relief on the penalty phase. Pinholster v. Ayers (Pinholster II), 525 F.3d 742 (9th Cir.2008). Sitting en banc, we affirm the district court. Although the denial of Pinholster's guilt phase ineffective assistance claim was appropriate, his penalty phase ineffective assistance claim warrants habeas relief even when considered under AEDPA's deferential standards.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND¹

A. The Prosecution's Guilt Phase Case

As recounted in the California Supreme Court's opinion on direct appeal, Art Corona (Corona), an accomplice in the commission of most of the crimes charged, served as the prosecution's primary witness. Pinholster v. Ayers (Pinholster I), 1 Cal.4th 865, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 765, 824 P.2d 571, 582 (1992). At trial, Corona testified that he, Pinholster, and Pinholster's co-defendant, David Brown (Brown), were attending a party at Pinholster's apartment on the evening of January 8, 1982, when Pinholster solicited them to rob Michael Kumar, a local drug dealer. Id. Pinholster told the others that he anticipated forcing entry into Kumar's home and taking drugs and money. Id.

As Corona drove towards Kumar's house, Pinholster directed Corona to stop at Lisa Tapar's residence. Id. Pinholster wanted Tapar to help with the robbery, but when he knocked on her door, she refused him entry and shut the door in his face. Id. In response, Pinholster took a buck knife from his belt, stabbed it through the door, and scratched a swastika and thunderbolts into the hood of her car. Id. Tapar, her father, and a third witness corroborated Corona's description of this incident. Id.

When Pinholster, Brown, and Corona arrived at Kumar's residence and found no one home, they broke in and ransacked it, taking a small amount of marijuana from a bedroom and spilling a green substance in the kitchen. Id. at 582-83. While they were searching the house, they heard a car pull up and saw Thomas Johnson and Robert Beckett (Kumar's housesitters) approach, one of whom opened the front door and shouted that he would call the police. Id. at 583. Pinholster, Brown, and Corona all moved towards the rear door to leave, but Johnson and Beckett came to the back and blocked their way. Id. When Johnson tried to enter the house, Pinholster struck him in the chest three or four times, demanding drugs and money. Id. Johnson dropped his wallet on the ground and obeyed Pinholster's order to sit down. Id. Pinholster then attacked Beckett as he approached, stabbing him in the chest. Id. Beckett dropped to the ground, and Pinholster kicked him in the head repeatedly, took the wallet from Beckett's pocket, and also picked up Johnson's wallet. Id. Brown then stabbed Johnson in the chest, "bury[ing] his knife to the hilt." Id. Johnson and Beckett died of their wounds.

Pinholster, Brown, and Corona then left Kumar's house and drove back to Pinholster's apartment. Id. On the way, Brown and Pinholster commented that they had "gotten them good." Id. Pinholster washed his knife upon his return, and the three split the proceeds of the robbery: $23 and a quarter-ounce of marijuana. Id.

Although Pinholster called Corona the day after the crime and told him to "lie low," Corona turned himself in two weeks later and gave a statement to police. Id. According to Corona, Pinholster threatened to blow him up on his way to court if Corona refused to invoke his right against self-incrimination, and testified against him. Id. Nevertheless, Corona testified against Pinholster and Brown and, at the end of the trial, pleaded guilty to burglary. Id.

Corona's wife, Casey Corona, who was at Pinholster's apartment when Pinholster, Brown, and her husband returned from Kumar's residence, corroborated her husband's testimony about the initiation, execution, and aftermath of the crime. Id. She testified that she watched Pinholster wash blood from his knife, and that she heard him say, "It had to be done the way it was done. We had to do what we had to do." Id.

The prosecution also presented forensic evidence that Pinholster had been in Kumar's home after the ransacking. Id. According to Corona's testimony, Pinholster wore boots and jeans on the evening of the murders. Id. During their search of Pinholster's apartment, police discovered boots, a towel, and a pair of jeans, all with microscopic blood traces on them. Id. While the boots and the towel tested positive for human blood, the jeans were not tested to determine whether the blood on them was also human. Id. at 583-84. Additionally, when police arrested Brown, he was carrying a buck knife with human blood traces close to the hilt and with dimensions that matched a stab wound in Johnson's body. Id. at 584. Police also discovered human blood on the inside forearm of Corona's shirt sleeve, but did not find any blood on his knife. Id.

B. Pinholster's Guilt Phase Case

During the guilt phase of his trial, Pinholster testified on his own behalf and presented an alibi defense. Id. at 584-85. He boasted that he had committed hundreds of robberies over the previous six years, using a gun, but never a knife, to victimize drug dealers. Id. at 584. Although he admitted a prior kidnapping conviction with the use of a knife, he claimed that he pleaded to the aggravating circumstance only as part of a plea bargain. Id. Pinholster also admitted going to Kumar's house and taking marijuana from the bedroom, but denied ransacking the residence or killing anyone. Id. Pinholster asserted that Corona had asked him for Kumar's address that night, and that Corona had gone to Kumar's house later to steal some additional drugs and money. Id. at 585.

C. The Jury's Guilt Phase Verdict

At the close of the guilt phase, the jury convicted Pinholster of first-degree murder and found that the following two multiple-murder special-circumstance allegations were true, making him eligible for a death sentence: first, he committed each murder during the course of a robbery and a burglary; and second, he personally used a knife. Id. at 581. The jury also convicted him of burglary, robbery, and intentional infliction of great bodily injury through personal use of a knife. Id.

D. The Prosecution's Penalty Phase Case

At the penalty phase of the trial, Pinholster stipulated that he had a prior kidnapping conviction with the use of a knife, and that he was identified as having held the knife to the victim's throat. Id. at 586. Pinholster also stipulated to numerous disciplinary infractions during his prison term for the kidnapping, such as throwing urine at guards, threatening to stab guards, and threatening to throw guards from an upper tier of the prison. Id. The prosecution presented testimony that Pinholster had a violent history with law enforcement, including: an outburst in court as a juvenile during which he threatened everyone in the room and struck a bailiff; resisting arrest as an adult by kicking one police officer in the back of the head while allegedly faking an epileptic seizure; making threats and kicking the X-ray machine when taken to the hospital after his arrest; starting a racial fight while in custody and kneeing an officer in the groin; and various other incidents of violence or threats of future violence while in custody, including death threats. Id. In addition, the prosecution presented testimony that Pinholster was a well-known member of the juvenile gang community. Theodore Mesquita testified that Pinholster had once cut Mesquita's arm with a razor, afterwards pursuing him on foot to the hospital where Mesquita required fifty stitches to close his wound. Id. at 586-87. Cathy Ann Smith, Pinholster's ex-wife, also testified that Pinholster once broke her jaw while seeming to have an epileptic seizure. Id. at 587.

E. Pinholster's Penalty Phase Case

Pinholster had been represented by, and later rejected, several different court-appointed attorneys to represent him...