Sanders v. Cullen, No. 10-99009 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas relief challenging petitioner's conviction and death sentence for four counts of first degree murder. The panel held that, because petitioner failed to prove that any of the eyewitnesses provided material, false testimony or that the prosecution knew they committed perjury, the state court's rejection of petitioner's Mooney-Napue claims relating to the eyewitnesses was neither contrary to clearly established federal law nor objectively unreasonable; the state court reasonably denied petitioner's claim that certain testimony from non-eyewitnesses was false; the state court reasonably denied petitioner's claims under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); the state court reasonably denied petitioner's claims relating to the exposure of two eyewitnesses; and the court affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's habeas petition with respect to the Mesarosh claim, lineup card claim, Massiah claim, ineffective assistance of counsel claim, and cumulative error claim.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Ricardo Rene Sanders’s habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and death sentence for four counts of first-degree murder. The panel held that because Sanders failed to prove that any of four eyewitnesses provided material, false testimony or that the prosecution knew they committed perjury, the state court’s rejection of Sanders’s claims under Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103 (1935), and Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), relating to those eyewitnesses was neither contrary to clearly established federal law nor objectively unreasonable. The panel held that the state court reasonably denied Sanders’s Mooney-Napue claims relating to two non- eyewitnesses. The panel held that the state court reasonably denied Sanders’s claims that the prosecution violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by failing to disclose material, exculpatory impeachment evidence about five trial witnesses. The panel held that the state court reasonably denied Sanders’s claims relating to the exposure of two eyewitnesses, who provided in-court identifications of Sanders, to a gag photograph of Sanders and a codefendant holding fake guns. The panel wrote that assuming that the SANDERS V. CULLEN 3 eyewitnesses’ exposure to the photograph was exculpatory evidence that was not disclosed, Sanders did not demonstrate that it was material under Brady because the eyewitnesses identified Sanders at a lineup before they saw the photo. Regarding Sanders’s claim that he was entitled to relief under Mesarosh v. United States, 352 U.S. 1 (1956), which applies in those rare situations where the credibility of a key government witness has been wholly discredited by the witness’s commission of perjury in other cases involving substantially similar subject matter, the panel held that the state court could have reasonably distinguished this case from Mesarosh. The panel held that the state court reasonably denied Sanders’s claim that the prosecution failed to preserve a witness’s lineup card in bad faith. The panel held that the state court reasonably denied Sanders’s claim under Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), that the prosecution planted a witness next to Sanders in a jailhouse van after Sanders’s preliminary hearing in order to obtain an incriminating statement in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Regarding Sanders’s claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to move to suppress a lineup, the panel held that the state court could have reasonably determined that defense counsel did not render deficient performance by failing to file a motion that was unlikely to succeed. The panel concluded that because Sanders did not show that there were multiple deficiencies in his guilt-phase trial, cumulative error does not require reversal of his convictions. 4 SANDERS V. CULLEN
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