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Ninth Circuit:
California S.C. Erred in Denying Killer’s Habeas Petition
Opinion Says High Court Acted Unreasonably in Summarily Deciding That Convict Had Not Made Prima Facie Case Based on Defense Investigator’s Declaration Saying That Star Witness Told Him of Secret Deal With Prosecutors
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals held yesterday that the California Supreme Court acted unreasonably in summarily denying a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by a convicted murderer who claims that the prosecutor in his case falsely represented to the jury at trial that a star witness did not receive benefits in exchange for his testimony, where the convict submitted a declaration swearing that a deal was made.
That declaration was filed by a defense investigator, José Newman, who averred that the witness told him that the deputy with the San Diego District Attorney’s Office handling the murder trial promised him that he wouldn’t get charged with any crimes relating to the slaying and would not face “much time” on an unrelated matter if he testified in the petitioner’s case.
At trial, the witness testified that he was not promised any deal in exchange for testifying.
In yesterday’s memorandum decision, signed by Circuit Judges Ryan D. Nelson, Eric D. Miller, and Roopali H. Desai, the court acknowledged that the declaration amounts to hearsay but said that California does not require that every factual allegation in a habeas petition be supported by admissible evidence.
Taking the allegations in the petition as true, the panel reasoned that the convict raised a sufficient claim that his conviction was materially tainted by false testimony and met the standard for stating a prima facie case for relief in federal court.
First-Degree Murder
The question arose after Willie Grant was convicted of first-degree murder with a firearm allegation relating to the April 2006 death of Bryan Dawson. A witness, Lawrence Laymon, testified at trial that Grant had approached him about robbing the paid parking lot where the witness and Dawson worked.
Laymon said that he told Grant of his unwillingness to participate in the scheme, but Grant proceeded with the plan anyway. The witness told the jury that Dawson was later shot outside the company’s downtown office space.
According to Laymon, he confronted Grant about the killing, and the defendant responded by saying “[h]e did not want to give up the money.” Then-San Diego Superior Court Judge Janet I. Kintner (now retired) sentenced Grant to 50 years to life in prison.
In 2011, Grant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court after exhausting his direct appeals and unsuccessfully seeking post-conviction relief in state court.
He argued that the California high court’s summary denial of his state petition involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law and was based on an irrational determination of the facts, as required for federal relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”).
Petition Denied
Senior District Court Judge John A. Houston of the Southern District of California disagreed and denied Grant’s petition. He pointed out that Laymon had testified that he hoped that the District Attorney’s Office would “look favorably” on him concerning the unrelated case and admitted that he was “testifying to get a favor.”
Under those circumstances, Houston wrote:
“Even if the prosecutor falsely represented the benefits Laymon was receiving in return for his testimony to the jury, the differences between what Laymon testified to at trial with regard to the benefits he was receiving and the statements he made to Newman are not significant enough to have altered the jury’s assessment of Laymon’s credibility, and thus there is no reasonable likelihood that the allegedly false testimony could have affected the jury’s judgment….Accordingly, the state court’s conclusion that false evidence regarding Laymon’s agreement with the prosecutor was not material…was not an unreasonable application of [federal law].”
Laymon pled guilty to marijuana charges in the unrelated case and received two years in prison. Grant claims that Laymon’s maximum exposure in that matter was eight years.
Yesterday’s opinion vacates Houston’s denial and remands for the court to hold an evidentiary hearing on his claims.
Summary Denial
Nelson, Miller, and Desai noted that a summary denial from the California Supreme Court amounts to an adjudication on the merits for purposes of the AEDPA and reflects a determination that the claims in the petition are insufficient to state a prima facie case for relief.
They noted that “[t]he State maintains that the…Court did not need to accept Grant’s factual allegations as true” because “inadmissible hearsay cannot support a prima facie case for habeas relief.” Rejecting this view, they wrote:
“California law does not require that every factual allegation in a habeas petition be supported by admissible evidence or else be disregarded. Such a stringent requirement is conspicuously absent from the California Supreme Court’s cases discussing its habeas pleading standards.”
Acknowledging that case law has established that factual allegations in such petitions must be made under circumstances such that perjury may be charged if they are false, the judges said, however, that case law does “not preclude consideration, at the prima facie stage, of a sworn statement relaying what another person said.”
Reasoning that a contrary rule “would conflict with the California Supreme Court’s clear statement that a petitioner need only ‘state fully and with particularity the facts on which relief is sought’ and ‘include copies of reasonably available documentary evidence supporting the claim,’ ” they declared that the bar set for the prima facie stage is low.
Grant’s Petition
Applying those principles to Grant’s petition, they opined:
“Grant surmounted that bar….Grant submitted a petition containing specific factual allegations….[His] critical factual allegation—that the prosecution promised Laymon a deal before he testified—is supported by a sworn statement….Even if Grant may not offer it to prove that what Laymon said is true, the investigator’s declaration, taken together with Laymon’s trial testimony and plea deal [on the marijuana case], is enough to ‘alert the prosecution and the court to what issues an evidentiary hearing would entail’ and ‘frame a disputed issue that entitles [him] to an evidentiary hearing,’ which is all that is required at the petition stage.”
Rejecting the state’s assertion that a declaration from Laymon was “reasonably available” and that Grant was obligated to provide it to establish his claims, the jurists noted that Laymon had “understandably declined to sign a statement that would show that he perjured himself.” They remarked:
“[E]ven if we were to accept that a declaration from Laymon would ordinarily be required to establish a prima facie case, the California Supreme Court [has] held that ‘the general rule requiring the pleading of facts’ should be relaxed in cases when ‘access to critical information is limited or denied to one party.’…We think the California Supreme Court would have determined that this is such a case. Holding otherwise here would turn that court’s very low bar into a very high one, effectively requiring Grant to prove his claim at the pleading stage.”
Unreasonable Application
Saying that a state may not knowingly use false evidence to obtain a tainted conviction, under the 1959 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Napue v. Illinois, the panel declared:
“Having accepted Grant’s allegations as true, the California Supreme Court unreasonably applied Napue in summarily denying Grant’s claim….The State’s sole argument is that any violation was not material, regardless of the falsity of Laymon’s testimony. But a Napue violation is material if ‘there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury.’…We have held that when the false testimony comes from a central witness in an otherwise circumstantial and weak case, a summary denial by a state court constitutes an unreasonable application of that standard.”
They continued:
“[W]hen the false evidence is perjured testimony relating to the witness’s agreement with the prosecution, materiality is bolstered because ‘the State would have been forced to disclose to the jury [the false testimony],’ which ‘would have had a devastating effect’ not only on the credibility of the witness, but ‘on the credibility of the entire prosecution case.’ ”
Under those circumstances, they reasoned:
“Although AEDPA restricts the availability of evidentiary hearings in federal habeas proceedings,….Grant ‘has alleged facts that, if proven, would entitle him to habeas relief,’ and he ‘did not receive a full and fair opportunity to develop those facts,’…[and] he is entitled to an evidentiary hearing.”
The case is Grant v. Swarthout, 22-55291.
The prosecutor in Grant’s murder trial was San Diego Deputy District Attorney George Bennett (now deceased).
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