Hooper v. Shinn, No. 08-99024 (9th Cir. 2021)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a habeas corpus petition challenging petitioner's Arizona state conviction and death sentence for multiple offenses including two counts of first-degree murder.
The panel addressed three certified issues and concluded that (1) even assuming the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) does not bar the panel's review of petitioner's Brady claims, the delay in producing the photos and police reports, and the failure to disclose the Merrill benefits, were not material; (2) the district court did not err in denying him leave to amend his petition to add a claim that his death sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because amendment would be futile; and (3) petitioner's ineffective assistance of sentencing counsel claim is procedurally defaulted and petitioner failed to show cause under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), to excuse the default. Finally, the panel declined to expand the COA.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Murray Hooper’s habeas corpus petition challenging his Arizona state conviction and death sentence for multiple offenses including two counts of first-degree murder. The panel addressed three certified issues: (1) whether the prosecution’s nondisclosure and delayed disclosures of evidence violated Hooper’s due process rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); (2) whether the district court erred in denying Hooper leave to amend his petition to add a claim that his death sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because his sentence was based, in part, on now-invalid convictions; and (3) whether Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), excuses the procedural default of his claim that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance at sentencing. Analyzing Hooper’s Brady claims under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), the panel held that: • The Arizona Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply clearly established law in concluding that Hooper failed to show that disclosure of benefits that the State and a county investigator provided to a witness and his wife might have affected the outcome HOOPER V. SHINN 3 of the trial; that the panel is therefore barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) from reviewing Hooper’s claim based on these benefits; and that the Arizona Supreme Court’s determination that the benefits were cumulative impeachment evidence was not an unreasonable factual determination under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). • Because there was no clearly established law governing Brady claims based on delayed disclosures where the defense had the opportunity to use the evidence at trial, AEDPA precludes review of the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision on Hooper’s claim regarding the delayed disclosure of police reports. • Because there was no clearly established law concerning such delayed disclosures, Hooper’s argument that the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision on delayed disclosure of photos was an unreasonable application of clearly established law likewise fails; and assuming without deciding that the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision on the photos was based on an unreasonable factual determination, the outcome on the Brady claims does not change because the claims fail even on de novo review. The panel wrote that even if it could review all of the Brady claims de novo, they would fail because the delay in producing the photos and police reports, and the failure to disclose the benefits to the witness and his wife, were not material, as they would not have put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict. 4 HOOPER V. SHINN The panel held that the district court properly denied Hooper’s request for leave to amend his petition to include claims that his death sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because any amendment would be futile. The panel held that Hooper—who did not raise in his first state post-conviction petition his claim of ineffective assistance of sentencing counsel—failed to establish cause under Martinez to excuse the procedural default. The panel held that because Hooper failed to show what additional evidence he could have obtained from discovery or an evidentiary hearing to support that he was prejudiced by trial counsel’s performance, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying his requests for discovery and an evidentiary hearing. The panel declined to expand the certificate of appealability to include two claims as to which it deemed the district court’s decision not debatable among reasonable jurists.
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