Browning v. Baker, No. 15-99002 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner was found guilty of four crimes involving the robbery and murder of the victim in a Las Vegas jewelry store and was sentenced to death. The panel held that the Supreme Court of Nevada's denial of petitioner's claims under Brady v. Maryland and Strickland v. Washington constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent; petitioner was entitled to a writ of habeas corpus with respect to his convictions of burglary, robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, and murder with the use of a deadly weapon; and petitioner was not entitled to habeas relief as to the escape conviction because he has offered no reason to call the validity of that conviction into question. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Paul Browning’s habeas corpus petition as to his escape conviction; reversed the district court’s denial of the petition as to Browning’s convictions of burglary, robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, and murder with the use of a deadly weapon; and remanded for further proceedings. Browning contended that the prosecutor withheld material evidence favorable to the defense in violation of his constitutional rights as described in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and presented false and misleading evidence at trial in violation of his constitutional rights as described in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959). The panel held that an officer’s shoeprint observation, a witness’s expectation of a benefit for his testimony, and the precise description of the assailant’s hairstyle received from the victim were all favorable to Browning under Brady. The panel held that Browning’s Napue claim fails because it was not clearly established at the time of Supreme Court of Nevada’s decision that a police officer’s knowledge of false or misleading testimony would be imputed to the prosecution. For the Brady evidence, except for the witness’s expectation of a benefit for his testimony, the Supreme Court of Nevada did not explicitly address whether this evidence was favorable to Browning. The panel held that had the Supreme Court of Nevada not viewed the evidence as favorable to the defense, BROWNING V. BAKER 3 it would have been an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. The panel also held that it was an objectively unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent to hold that the Brady materiality standard was not met here, and therefore concluded that the district court should have granted habeas relief on Browning’s Brady claims. Browning also contended that he was denied his right to effective assistance of trial counsel due to inadequate pretrial investigation and preparation. Granting Browning’s motion to expand the certificate of appealability, and explaining that the court considers counsel’s conduct as a whole to determine whether it was constitutionally adequate, the panel wrote that the district court erred by limiting the COA to particular “claims” that counsel’s failure to investigate particular avenues of evidence were deficient. The panel held that Browning’s trial counsel unreasonably failed to investigate Browning’s case, and that the Supreme Court of Nevada unreasonably concluded that Browning failed to prove just that. The panel held that the Supreme Court of Nevada’s conclusion that any deficient performance did not prejudice Browning was objectively unreasonable. The panel concluded that Browning is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus with respect to his convictions of burglary, robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, and murder with the use of a deadly weapon. The panel wrote that Browning is not entitled to relief as to his escape conviction because he offered no reason to call its validity into question. Dissenting in part, Judge Callahan wrote that a meaningful application of the deferential standard of review under AEDPA compels the conclusion that the Nevada 4 BROWNING V. BAKER Supreme Court was not objectively unreasonable in rejecting Browning’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim as well as his claims under Brady and Napue.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on November 3, 2017.
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