Steven L. Brooks v. Larry Kincheloe

Steven L. Brooks, in custody in the State of Washington following his conviction of first degree murder, appeals pro se from an order of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington denying his petition for a writ of habe-as corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . In his petition he claims that his rights under the Sixth Amendment were violated because the trial court admitted testimony from a jailhouse informant regarding Brooks’ murder confession. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of the petition for writ of habeas corpus.

I

On July 11,1979, the body of ten-year-old Brian Miller was discovered on a rock beneath a bridge at the Olney Creek Campground near Sultan, Washington. An autopsy revealed that the boy had been beaten on the head until unconscious, and then drowned. Numerous bruises and cuts were found on the boy’s body, including a laceration extending three-quarters of the way around the base of the boy’s penis. In the opinion of the pathologist who testified at trial, this wound was deliberately inflicted with a dull cutting instrument.

Brooks had been camping next to the campsite of Brian Miller and his family. During the…