Kyzar v. Ryan, No. 12-17564 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseLeroy Cropper, an Arizona prisoner, stabbed a correctional officer to death. After a jury trial, Petitioner was convicted of conspiring with Cropper to commit a deadly or dangerous assault by a prisoner. Petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief arguing that the evidence was not sufficient to support the conviction. The trial court denied the petition. The Arizona Court of Appeals and Arizona Supreme Court summarily denied Petitioner’s petitions for review. Petitioner later sought federal habeas relief, alleging, for purposes of this appeal, that the evidence adduced at trial was constitutionally insufficient to support his conviction. The district court denied relief. The Ninth Circuit remanded. On remand, the district court again rejected Petitioner’s sufficiency of the evidence claim. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Petitioner’s pro se filings before the Arizona courts fairly presented his sufficiency of the evidence claim, which was sufficient to exhaust his state remedies and avoid a procedural default of that claim; and (2) the Arizona trial court did not apply Jackson v. Virginia in an objectively unreasonable fashion when it rejected Petitioner’s sufficiency of the evidence claim.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Arizona state prisoner Dino Wayne Kyzar’s habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction for conspiring with Leroy Cropper to commit a deadly or dangerous assault by a prisoner, in a case in which Cropper stabbed a correctional officer to death. The panel held that Kyzar’s pro se filings before the Arizona trial court and Arizona Court of Appeals fairly presented his sufficiency of the evidence claim, which was sufficient to exhaust his state remedies and avoid a procedural default. The panel held, after reviewing the full trial record, that the Arizona trial court did not apply Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), in an objectively unreasonable fashion when it rejected Kyzar’s sufficiency of the evidence claim, where the State presented evidence that Kyzar knew Cropper intended to attack someone, agreed to help him obtain a knife, and took an overt act in furtherance of this conspiracy. KYZAR V. RYAN 3
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.