Donroy Walker v. Mark Nooth

MEMORANDUM

An Oregon jury convicted Walker of first-degree sexual abuse and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration. After exhausting his state remedies, Walker filed a federal habeas corpus petition, which the district court denied. We have jurisdiction over Walker’s appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253, and we affirm.

The Oregon courts’ decision that Walker was not “in custody” for Miranda purposes was not “so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility of fairminded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786-87 , 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). Rather, that decision fell well “within the matrix” of clearly established Supreme Court authority. Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 665 , 124 S.Ct. 2140 , 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004). The detectives drove an unmarked police car and approached Walker with a congenial tone; Walker consented to the interview; the detectives did not transport Walker to, or ask him to appear at, the police station; the interview took place in a large parking lot in Walker’s neighborhood in the middle of the day; the detectives told Walker that he was not…