Eric Wright v. Kristin K. Mayes

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 27, 2024
• Docket: 22-15654
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 27 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ERIC WRIGHT, No. 22-15654

Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:21-cv-01754-SPL

v. MEMORANDUM** KRISTIN K. MAYES, * Attorney General for the State of Arizona, et al.,

Respondents-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Steven Paul Logan, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 6, 2024 Phoenix, Arizona

Before: MURGUIA, Chief Judge, and HAWKINS and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges.

Eric Wright appeals the district court’s order denying his habeas corpus

petition, which argued that during his trial, the prosecutor improperly used a

preemptory challenge in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). We

* Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), Kristin K. Mayes is substituted for her predecessor, Mark Brnovich, as Attorney General for the State of Arizona. ** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

While this court reviews de novo the district court’s denial of habeas corpus

relief, Hoyos v. Davis, 51 F.4th 297, 305 (9th Cir. 2022), the standard of review

applied by a federal habeas court to a state appellate court’s denial of relief

depends on whether the claim was “adjudicated on the merits” by the state

appellate court. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). If a claim was not adjudicated on the merits,

the federal habeas court applies de novo review. Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449, 472

(2009). But if a claim was adjudicated on the merits, the Antiterrorism and

Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) imposes a deferential standard of

federal review. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

Here, the Arizona Court of Appeals adjudicated Mr. Wright’s Batson claim

on the merits. When a petitioner presents a federal claim “to a state court and the

state court has denied relief,” we presume that “the state court adjudicated the

claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural

principles to the contrary.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 99 (2011). “This

presumption applies even when the state court resolves the federal claim in a

different manner or context than advanced by the petitioner so long as the state

court ‘heard and evaluated the evidence and the parties’ substantive arguments.’”

Patsalis v. Shinn, 47 F.4th 1092, 1098 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Johnson v.

Williams, 568 U.S. 289, 302 (2013)), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 107 (2023). Here,

2 Mr. Wright argues the Arizona Court of Appeals inadvertently failed to address his

actual claim. We disagree. The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a reasoned

opinion specifically discussing and rejecting the substance of his Batson claim.

We therefore find that Mr. Wright has not sufficiently rebutted this presumption,

and that the claim was adjudicated on the merits.

Because the Arizona Court of Appeals adjudicated Mr. Wright’s claim on

the merits, AEDPA imposes a deferential standard of review that requires federal

courts to deny habeas relief unless the state court’s decision was (1) “contrary to,

or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court,” or (2) “was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d);

see also Sifuentes v. Brazelton, 825 F.3d 506, 517 (9th Cir. 2016). When the

highly deferential AEDPA standard combines with the deference already afforded

“to the trial court’s determination of the prosecutor’s credibility” on direct review,

“we end up with a standard of review that is ‘doubly deferential.’” Sifuentes, 825

F.3d at 518 (quoting Briggs v. Grounds, 682 F.3d 1165, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012)).

This standard is met when the record “compel[s] the conclusion that the trial court

had no permissible alternative but to reject the prosecutor’s race-neutral

justifications” and find a Batson violation. Rice v. Collins, 546 U.S. 333, 341

(2006); see also Briggs, 682 F.3d at 1170 (explaining that federal courts must

3 uphold the state court decision “unless the state appellate court was objectively

unreasonable in concluding that a trial court’s credibility determination was

supported by substantial evidence”).

Here, Mr. Wright argues that the district court’s denial of habeas relief on

his Batson claim was erroneous because it was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts under Section 2254(d)(2). But Mr. Wright cannot

overcome AEDPA’s high standard. The prosecutor proffered two race-neutral

reasons for the strike. The trial court’s rejection of the Batson objection implicitly

recognized that these reasons given by the prosecutor were not pretextual. While

Mr. Wright has identified non-Black jurors who were not stricken, the record does

not show that the comparator jurors were so similar to the stricken juror as to

compel the conclusion that the trial court erred in overruling the Batson challenge.

See Jamerson v. Runnels, 713 F.3d 1218, 1231 (9th Cir. 2013) (finding that the

prosecutor’s “failure to exercise peremptory strikes against other non-black jurors

who shared weak parallels with [the struck] juror . . . ultimately does little to

undermine the stated justification”). The Arizona Court of Appeals engaged in a

substantive analysis of the issue, and its decision was not based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). Therefore, the district

court did not err in denying Mr. Wright’s habeas corpus petition.

AFFIRMED.