Faustino Corona v. Victor Almager

MEMORANDUM

Faustino Corona appeals the district court’s order dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which challenges his conviction for attempted, premeditated murder. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253 , and we affirm.

Corona contends that his trial counsel, Richard Pintal, provided ineffective assistance by failing to conduct an adequate investigation into the extent of Corona’s intoxication at the time of the crime, failing to adequately research the law on the voluntary intoxication defense and failing to present sufficient evidence at trial to obtain a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication. Corona has presented no evidence establishing the extent of Pintal’s investigation or the sufficiency of Pintal’s legal research. The newly proffered declarations from witnesses with information about the extent of Corona’s intoxication do not establish the inadequacy of the investigation, because they do not establish that Pintal failed altogether to contact pertinent witnesses or obtain comparable evidence from other sources. We therefore cannot conclude that the state court’s dismissal of Corona’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim was…