Martinez v. Ryan, No. 08-99009 (9th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254 on petitioner's claims relating to his first degree murder conviction and death sentence. The panel held that Rule 32.2(a) of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure is independent of federal law and adequate to warrant preclusion of federal review. Therefore, the panel may not review petitioner's judicial bias claim unless he establishes cause and prejudice. In this case, petitioner failed to demonstrate cause to overcome the procedural default of his claim and the panel need not address prejudice.
The panel also affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, because trial counsel did not perform deficiently by not moving for a judge's recusal and appellate counsel's failure to raise issues on direct appeal did not constitute ineffective assistance when appeal would not have provided grounds for reversal. Furthermore, petitioner did not establish cause and prejudice to overcome the procedural default of his Brady claim; the panel lacked jurisdiction to review the denial of petitioner's Rule 60(b) motion; challenges to the jury instructions denied; and remaining claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and sentencing claims rejected.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a writ of habeas corpus as to Ernesto Martinez’s claims relating to his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence, dismissed for lack of jurisdiction Martinez’s claim appealing the district court’s denial of his request to consider a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion, declined to expand the certificate of appealability, and denied Martinez’s motion to stay the appeal and remand for consideration of another claim under Brady v. Maryland. The panel held that Rule 32.2(a) of the Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, pursuant to which the Arizona post- conviction review court imposed a procedural default as to Martinez’s judicial bias claim, is independent of federal law and adequate to warrant preclusion of federal review; and that Martinez failed to demonstrate cause to overcome the procedural default of that claim. The panel held that because Martinez’s judicial bias claim is based on unfounded speculation, (1) his trial counsel did not perform deficiently by not moving for the trial judge’s recusal, and (2) his appellate counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise on direct appeal the claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move to disqualify the trial judge.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.