Enrique Godoy v. Marion Spearman

Dissent by Judge FISHER

OPINION

We must decide whether a state appellate court’s affirmance of a conviction for second degree murder, along with its denial of a request for an evidentiary hearing and for a continuance, were contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal constitutional law.

I

A

Enrique Godoy and several friends were standing on the balcony of his apartment in Los Angeles when Chasen Pacheco, an acquaintance of Godoy, appeared below. Pacheco had been a friend until a recent dispute over marijuana, and asked Godoy “to come downstairs so he could talk to him.” There, Godoy and Pacheco started wrestling on the grass and throwing punches at each other.

- Godoy’s friends soon broke up the fight, and one friend, Brett Voegeli,. grabbed Go-doy and pulled him up the stairs. Pacheco continued to talk to Godoy, imploring him to go back down “to finish the fight.” Eventually, Godoy’s friend Rodolfo Hernandez, standing nearby, heard Godoy say, “Let me finish him off.”

When Pacheco reached the top of the stairs, Voegeli tried to intervene, but Pacheco pulled him out of the way and said to Godoy, “Let’s finish this.” Pacheco had…

dissenting:

When a sitting juror is alleged to have continuously texted a judge friend about the trial and relayed the judge’s information to the jury, the majority concludes the trial court need not investigate further— and the jury verdict would not violate due process. I disagree.

Just recently, in an analogous context, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that “the guarantee of an impartial jury is vital to the fair administration of justice.” Dietz v. Bouldin, — U.S. -, 136 S.Ct. 1885, 1893 , 195 L.Ed.2d 161 (2016). Because due process does not tolerate “any ground of suspicion that the administration of justice has been interfered with” by external influence, Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 149 , 13 S.Ct. 50 , 36 L.Ed. 917 (1892), a jury must “decide the case solely on the evidence before it,” and the trial judge must “determine the effect of [prejudicial] occurrences when they happen,” Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217 , 102 S.Ct. 940 , 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982). So obvious are these principles that Dietz needed no citation to conclude that, when there is even a “suggestion of prejudice,” a court “should, of course, determine whether any juror has been directly tainted.” 136…

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ENRIQUE ANTHONY GODOY, No. 13-56024 Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:10-cv-07927-R-AGR

MARION SPEARMAN,

Respondent-Appellee. OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Manuel L. Real, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 2, 2015 Pasadena, California

Filed August 25, 2016

Before: Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Raymond C. Fisher, and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge O’Scannlain; Dissent by Judge Fisher SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment denying California state prisoner Enrique Anthony Godoy’s habeas corpus petition challenging his second-degree murder conviction based on juror misconduct, the denial of an evidentiary hearing, and the denial of a continuance.

Because it was bound by Tarango v. McDaniel, 815 F.3d 1211 (9th Cir. 2016), the panel assumed that Godoy was entitled under clearly established law to a presumption of prejudice from a juror’s alleged misconduct – i.e., that she was conferring with a “judge up…