Guinard v. Shinn

District Court, D. Arizona·Decided December 9, 2021·No. 3:19-cv-08155·Unknown

Opinion

WO

Jimmy Wayne Guinard, No. CV-19-08155-PCT-DGC (MHB)

Petitioner, ORDER

v.

David Shinn, Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections; and Attorney General of the State of Arizona,

Respondents. Petitioner Jimmy Guinard is confined in Arizona state prison. He commenced this federal action by filing a habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Docs. 1, 6. Magistrate Judge Michelle Burns issued a report recommending that the Court deny the petition (“R&R”). Doc. 38. Guinard objected. Doc. 39. In an order dated September 30, 2021, the Court accepted the R&R and denied the petition. Doc. 45. Guinard now asks the Court to reconsider that order. Doc. 47. The motion is fully briefed. Docs. 50, 53. The Court will deny the motion. I. Background. A. Guinard’s State Court Convictions and Sentences. Guinard challenges his convictions and sentences in two Yavapai County Superior Court cases: No. P1300CR2011-01146 (“2011 case”) and No. P1300CR2012-00975 (“2012 case”). In the 2011 case, a jury convicted Guinard of transporting dangerous drugs for sale and possessing drug paraphernalia. Doc. 12-4 at 44-46; see State v. Guinard, No. 1 CA-CR 13-0490, 2014 WL 2548104, at *1 (Ariz. Ct. App. June 3, 2014). He was sentenced to an aggregate 20-year term of imprisonment. Id. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences, and the Arizona Supreme Court denied review. Docs. 1-1 at 24-68, 12-4 at 53-72. Guinard’s petitions for post-conviction relief (“PCR”) under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 were denied. Docs. 1-3 at 2-5, 34-35; 1-4 at 2-14, 22-39; 12-4 at 75-80; 12-5 at 2-8. In the 2012 case, a jury convicted Guinard of transporting dangerous drugs for sale and possessing methamphetamine paraphernalia. See State v. Guinard, No. 1 CA-CR 14- 0810, 2015 WL 4747890, at *1 (Ariz. Ct. App. Aug. 11, 2015). The trial court sentenced him to five years on the transportation count and eight months on the paraphernalia count. See id.; Doc. 12-8 at 25-26. The convictions and sentences were affirmed on appeal, see Guinard, 2015 WL 4747890, at *6, and the PCR petitions were denied, Docs. 1-6 at 18-45, 1-7 at 2-3, 12-8 at 53-62. B. Guinard’s Habeas Petition and Judge Burns’s R&R. Guinard filed his habeas petition in May 2019. Doc. 1. The petition asserts twenty-one grounds for relief, with multiple subclaims alleged in most of the grounds. Id. at 8-34. In June 2019, Guinard filed a supplement that asserts additional subclaims. Doc. 6. Grounds one through ten address the convictions or sentences in the 2011 case, and the remaining grounds concern the 2012 case. Doc. 1 at 8-34. Guinard asserts violations of his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and specifically alleges insufficient evidence and chain of custody issues; denial of an impartial jury; lowered standard of proof; ineffective assistance of trial, appellate, and PCR counsel; prosecutorial misconduct; judicial bias and malfeasance; entrapment; and compulsory process violations. Id.; Doc. 6 at 2-20; see also Doc. 38 at 7 & n.2. In September 2020, Judge Burns recommended that the petition be denied. Doc. 23. Guinard filed an objection contending, among other things, that the claims asserted in his supplement to the petition had not been addressed. Doc. 26 at 1. The Court referred the matter to Judge Burns to consider those supplemental claims. Doc. 32. Judge Burns issued an amended R&R in May 2021. Doc. 38. She found that many of Guinard’s claims are procedurally defaulted under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 because: (1) Guinard failed to present the claims to the Arizona Court of Appeals on direct review, to the trial court in a PCR petition, or to any state court (id. at 18-21); (2) the state courts invoked an independent and adequate state procedural rule in denying the claims – Guinard could have raised the claims on direct review but failed to do so, see Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32(a) (id. at 21-22); or (3) he failed to fairly present the federal bases for the claims to the state courts (id. at 22-23). Judge Burns further found that Guinard established no exception to the procedural default – he did not show the requisite cause and prejudice or a miscarriage of justice. Id. at 23-28; see Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750-51 (1991); Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 321 (1995). With respect to Guinard’s remaining claims, Judge Burns found them to be conclusory, speculative, not cognizable under federal habeas law, or otherwise without merit. Doc. 38 at 28-54. II. The Court’s September 30 Order and Guinard’s Motion for Reconsideration. The Court found Guinard’s general objection to the R&R and his repetitive arguments to be improper because they were not specific to any of Judge Burns’s findings or recommendations. Doc. 45 at 7-9. The Court found Guinard’s specific objections to be without merit and therefore accepted the R&R and denied the habeas petition. Id. at 10-16. Guinard asks the Court to reconsider its order. Doc. 47. Motions for reconsideration are disfavored and rarely granted. See Nw. Acceptance Corp. v. Lynnwood Equip., Inc., 841 F.2d 918, 925-26 (9th Cir. 1988); Resolution Tr. Corp. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 873 F. Supp. 1386, 1393 (D. Ariz. 1994). A motion for reconsideration will be denied absent a showing of manifest error or of new facts or legal authority that could not have been brought to the Court’s attention earlier with reasonable diligence. LRCiv 7.2(g)(1); see United Nat’l Ins. Co. v. Spectrum Worldwide, Inc., 555 F.3d 772, 780 (9th Cir. 2009). The motion may not repeat previously made arguments. See id.; Motorola, Inc. v. J.B. Rodgers Mech. Contractors, 215 F.R.D. 581, 582 (D. Ariz. 2003) (reconsideration cannot “be used to ask the Court to rethink what it has already thought through”). Mere disagreement with an order is an insufficient basis for reconsideration. Ross v. Arpaio, No. CV 05-4177-PHX-MHM, 2008 WL 1776502, at *2 (D. Ariz. 2008). A. Guinard’s General Objection and De Novo Review. Rule 72 requires that objections be “specific” to the findings and recommendations of the magistrate judge. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2). Because an obvious purpose of this requirement is judicial economy – to permit magistrate judges to resolve matters not objectionable to the parties – the Court was required to make a de novo determination only of “those portions of [Judge Burns’s R&R] to which objection is made.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). The Court found Guinard’s “object[ion] to all adverse rulings in the R&R” (Doc. 39 at 1) to be an improper general objection. Doc. 45 at 7 (noting that de novo review of the entire R&R would defeat the efficiencies intended by Congress in enacting § 636(b)(1)(C)). The Court similarly found Guinard’s rehashing of arguments previously made in his habeas briefing to be ineffective because it provided the Court “no guidance as to what portions of the R&R Guinard considers to be incorrect.” Id. at 8 (citation omitted). Guinard claims that the Court “has denied [him] de novo review,” as shown by the Court’s comment that Judge Burns’s R&R was thorough and thoughtful. Doc. 47 at 1. But the Court made that accurate observation only by way of background. See Doc. 45 at 1. The 56-page R&R was both thorough and thoughtful, but the Court did not deny de novo on that basis. The Court instead carefully reviewed and considered the specific portions of the R&R to which Guinard objected. See id. at

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