Mark Pray v. Craig Farwell

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner/Appellant, Mark Ronald Pray, a Nevada state prisoner serving two consecutive life sentences for first degree murder, appeals from the district court’s denial of his application for a writ of habe-as corpus. The bizarre facts underlying Pray’s conviction are fully recounted by the Nevada Supreme Court in Pray v. State, 114 Nev. 455 , 959 P.2d 530, 531 (1998). The district court certified one issue for appeal; Plaintiff appealed on the certified issue and two other uncertified issues.

As to the uncertified issues, we find that Pray fails to establish that reasonable jurists could debate whether the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further as required by Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 , 120 S.Ct. 1595 , 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000) (quoting Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880 , 893 & n. 4, 103 S.Ct. 3383 , 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983)).

As to the certified issue — whether Pray’s constitutional right to effective counsel was violated where trial counsel failed to deliver on his promise to the jury that Pray would testify — we affirm the district court’s…