Wilson v. Gamboa

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: October 22, 2025
• Docket: 24-1818
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS OCT 22 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LUKE NOEL WILSON, No. 24-1818 D.C. No. Petitioner - Appellant, 3:22-cv-02058-WQH-MMP v. MEMORANDUM* MARTIN GAMBOA, Warden, Avenal State Prison; ROB BONTA, Attorney General, State of California,

Respondents - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California William Q. Hayes, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 15, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: CLIFTON, IKUTA, and LEE, Circuit Judges.

Luke Noel Wilson appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254

habeas corpus petition. Wilson was convicted of one count of oral copulation of a

child ten years old or younger and three counts of lewd acts upon a child in violation

of California Penal Code § 288.7(b) and § 288(a). We have jurisdiction under 28

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. U.S.C. § 2253, and we affirm.

We review the district court’s denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus

de novo and may affirm on any ground supported by the record. Varghese v. Uribe,

736 F.3d 817, 822–23 (9th Cir. 2013). The Antiterrorism and Effective Death

Penalty Act (AEDPA) governs § 2254 habeas petitions filed after 1996. See id. at

823. Under AEDPA, we may only grant relief if the petitioner shows that “the state

court’s decision (1) ‘resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an

unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the

Supreme Court of the United States’ or (2) ‘resulted in a decision that was based on

an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the

State court proceeding.’” Id. (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)).

1. Ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) claim. Wilson’s IAC claim against

his trial counsel does not warrant federal habeas relief. To prevail on a claim for

IAC, Wilson must show that the state courts either unreasonably determined the facts

of his case or unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, which requires both

deficient performance by counsel and prejudice from the error. 466 U.S. 668, 687

(1984). As to prejudice, this requires showing that every fairminded jurist would

conclude there was a reasonable probability of a different outcome at trial but for the

error. See Shinn v. Kayer, 592 U.S. 111, 121 (9th Cir. 2020).

Wilson argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for not calling a computer

2 24-1818 forensics expert at the pre-trial suppression hearing who could have further

explained “hash values,” which are unique digital characters—akin to digital

fingerprints—associated with a specific digital picture or file. Google had identified

child pornography photos sent and received by Wilson based on their unique hash

values, which matched the hash values from specific photos previously identified as

child pornography. Without someone having opened or viewed those photos,

Google referred Wilson’s emails to law enforcement officers, who opened and

viewed those photos without obtaining a warrant. Wilson argues that he would have

prevailed in his Fourth Amendment challenge if his counsel had obtained a computer

expert to testify about “hash values.”

We affirm the denial of the IAC claim because the California Court of Appeal

did not make an unreasonable application of Strickland in holding that the failure to

hire a computer expert did not prejudice Wilson. Wilson’s proposed defense expert

testimony is largely the same as the testimony that the State’s expert already

provided to the trial court. Both the proposed expert and the State’s expert affirm

that hash values, even if they do not portray the contents of an image, are unique and

thus identify an image. If the images previously were labeled as child pornography,

then this identification would have been decisive.

To be sure, the State’s expert did not testify as to what the hash values could

not reveal, such as the number, ethnicities, and ages of the people depicted in the

3 24-1818 images. But both the state trial and appellate courts recognized this in rejecting

Wilson’s Fourth Amendment claim. Both courts acknowledged that humans did not

view the images when Google forwarded them to law enforcement and that the hash

value was only an identification of files. But they nevertheless denied Wilson’s

motion to suppress on the basis that identifying previously-labeled images of child

pornography was enough. The fact that our court in Wilson’s federal criminal case

reached a different legal conclusion on his Fourth Amendment challenge does not

mean that additional expert testimony about hash values would have made the

difference. See United States v. Wilson, 13 F.4th 961, 964 (9th Cir. 2021). Rather,

our court reached a different result because we applied a different legal analysis to

the same set of facts.

We have held that a petitioner is not prejudiced when the proposed witnesses

would have repeated essentially the same information that had already been

presented. See, e.g., Davis v. Woodford, 384 F.3d 628, 650 (9th Cir. 2004);

Cunningham v. Wong, 704 F.3d 1143, 1161 (9th Cir. 2013). Accordingly, the

California Court of Appeal’s rejection of Wilson’s IAC claim was not an

unreasonable application of Strickland.

2. Due process claims. Wilson claims that his constitutional right to notice

of the charges against him was violated when one of Wilson’s victim’s testimony at

trial was somewhat different than her testimony at the preliminary hearing. Wilson

4 24-1818 identifies Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U.S. 196 (1948) as the Supreme Court case

guaranteeing defendants a Sixth Amendment right to notice of the charges they face.

The state appellate court’s denial of Wilson’s due process claim was not contrary to

or an unreasonable application of Cole. Cole only requires general notice of the

nature of the charges to permit adequate preparation of a defense. See 333 U.S. at

201. Cole says nothing about how specific the notice must be or what source or form

it must arise from or in. The details available to Wilson before trial clearly meet the

general safeguards required in Cole: Wilson had notice of who the victims were,

what acts were alleged, and an accurate general timeframe of the acts.

3. Jury instruction claims

A. The unanimity instruction

Wilson faults the trial court’s failure to provide a unanimity instruction to the

jury, claiming that he has a constitutional right to a unanimity jury instruction based

on Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020). The state appellate court did not

unreasonably apply Ramos in holding that the unanimity instruction for the predicate

offense was not required. Wilson’s interpretation of Ramos goes too far. Ramos

does not require a unanimity instruction for predicate acts—only that the jury’s

verdict be unanimous. Id. at 90. Since Wilson’s argument depends on extending

Ramos, federal law cannot be considered clearly established on this point. See White

v. Woodall, 572 U.S. 415, 426 (2014).

5 24-1818 Wilson also seeks relief based on his argument that the state appellate court’s

determination that the prosecutor elected predicate acts during his closing argument

was unreasonable as a factual matter. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). The state court’s

factual determination is only unreasonable if it was “objectively unreasonable,”

Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 340 (2003), and not “merely because the federal

habeas court would have reached a different conclusion in the first instance.” Wood

v. Allen, 558 U.S. 290, 301 (2010). Here, the Court of Appeal had an adequate basis

for its factual determination: the prosecutor linked specific Dropbox images and

videos to specific charges.

B. The intent instruction

Wilson also cannot obtain relief based on the trial court’s jury instruction on

intent. CPC § 288(a)—charged in Counts Two through Four—sets out an intent

requirement for lewd and lascivious acts against children. To convict under this

statute, the jury must find that the defendant committed the act “with the intent of

arousing, appealing to, or gratifying the lust, passions, or sexual desire of that person

or the child.”

After deliberations began, the jury asked whether lust had to be purely sexual,

or whether it could refer to other types of lust, such as financial lust. After conferring

with the parties and reaching a consensus, the trial court responded with a note

explaining that lust refers only to sexual lust.

6 24-1818 On appeal, Wilson argues that the court’s answer misconstrued the law and

altered the intent requirement for CPC § 288(a). The district court denied relief on

this claim because it did not raise a federal question. We agree that Wilson raises a

question solely regarding the interpretation of state law. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502

U.S. 62, 67–68 (1991).

C. Instructions concerning the substance of the evidence presented

Finally, Wilson contends that the jury instructions lessened the prosecution’s

burden of proof and constituted an improper judicial comment on the evidence

presented. The trial court issued multiple jury instructions beginning with: “The

People presented evidence that the defendant committed [an offense],” followed by

instructions on how the jury was to use that evidence. According to Wilson, this

preamble could be interpreted as the trial court telling the jury that “Wilson [actually]

committed the charged crimes.”

Defense counsel did not object to these instructions at trial. The California

Court of Appeal ultimately decided that Wilson could not show prejudice from these

instructions. The court stated that instructing that “the prosecution ‘presented

evidence’ that the defendant committed a crime is not synonymous with stating the

evidence is credible or that the defendant did indeed commit the crime.” The

appellate court also concluded that there was no prejudice because the instructions

separately informed the jury (1) that it had to make factual determinations, (2) that

7 24-1818 Wilson was entitled to a presumption of innocence, and (3) that the prosecution’s

burden of proof was beyond a reasonable doubt.

We affirm the denial. The state appellate court did not unreasonably apply

any Supreme Court precedent. Reasonable jurists could conclude that any error was

harmless, given the multiple other statements in the jury instructions about the jury’s

role, the prosecution’s burden of proof, and the defendant’s entitlement to a

presumption of innocence. See, e.g., Parker v. Matthews, 567 U.S. 37, 42 (2012).

4. Evidentiary challenges under Napue and Brady. Wilson argues that the

prosecution presented false evidence to the jury when the two female victims

testified that Wilson had groomed them to perform sexually egregious acts. He

contends the sisters’ testimony was false and satisfies the three requirements for a

claim under Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959): (1) the prosecution presented

evidence that was actually false; (2) the prosecution knew or should have known the

evidence was false; and (3) the false evidence was material. See Hayes v. Brown,

399 F.3d 972, 984 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (citation omitted).

The California court of appeal applied the wrong standard under Napue.

Therefore, we review de novo. Frantz v. Hazey, 533 F.3d 724, 735 (9th Cir. 2008).

Even assuming the testimony’s falsity and the prosecutor’s knowledge of the falsity,

however, this claim flounders on Napue’s materiality prong. The jury heard other

extensive testimony about Wilson grooming the victims over many years. See

8 24-1818 Hampton v. Shinn, 143 F.4th 1047, 1070–71 (9th Cir. 2025).

Wilson also claims that the prosecution violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S.

83 (1963) by withholding evidence from a hard drive. Relatedly, Wilson argues that

his trial counsel was ineffective for declining to obtain the hard drive before trial.

We affirm the district court’s denial of Wilson’s claims. The California Court of

Appeal did not unreasonably apply Brady in holding that the prosecution did not

improperly withhold any evidence and that the hard drive evidence was immaterial.

Brady prevents exculpatory evidence from being withheld by the state—but

the California Court of Appeal did not unreasonably apply Brady in holding that the

prosecution offered the hard drives to Wilson’s counsel but he declined to accept

them. In other words, the evidence was not suppressed. Cf. Milke v. Ryan, 711 F.3d

998, 1017–18 (9th Cir. 2013) (finding evidence is not suppressed for Brady purposes

where the defendant can find the relevant information on his own).

Nor did the state appellate court unreasonably apply Strickland in rejecting

Wilson’s IAC claim. The state appellate court concluded that even with the photos

on the hard drive, the defense would only have been able to show that the sisters had

gaps in their recollections—which was immaterial given the amount of other

evidence of grooming. Because the evidence was immaterial, Wilson could not have

established prejudice as to his IAC claim.

AFFIRMED.

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