Owens v. Trammell, No. 13-5066 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseOklahoma tried petitioner-appellant Keynon Owens twice for the first degree felony murder of Javier Carranza during a botched robbery of Javier and his cousin, Jesus Carranza. The first trial resulted in a guilty verdict on felony murder, but an acquittal on the predicate charge of the armed robbery of Javier. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) reversed the murder conviction and remanded for retrial on the ground that error committed by the trial court resulted in a substantial possibility of prejudice - that Owens may have been convicted based on his involvement in the robbery as a whole rather than the predicate felony charged in the information. Owens was convicted again after a second trial. On his second appeal to the OCCA, Owens unsuccessfully argued that his retrial was in violation of Double Jeopardy Clause. He contended the jury's acquittal on the predicate robbery felony (of Javier) at his first trial should have barred the State from retrying him for felony murder under constitutional principles of collateral estoppel. Owens next sought habeas relief in federal district court. Deferring to the OCCA's interpretation of federal law, the district court held the denial of Owens's collateral estoppel claim was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court precedent. The Tenth Circuit granted a certificate of appealability (COA) to decide whether Owens's retrial for felony murder violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. In the Tenth Circuit's view, Owens did not meet his burden of "show[ing] that the state court's ruling . . . was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." The Court therefore affirmed the denial of the petition and dismissed this appeal.
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