Gregory Demetrulias v. Ron Davis

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

GREGORY SPIROS DEMETRULIAS, No. 14-99000 Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:07-cv-01335-

DOC

RONALD DAVIS, Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin, Respondent-Appellee. OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California David O. Carter, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 26, 2021 Pasadena, California

Filed September 23, 2021

Before: M. Margaret McKeown, Kim McLane Wardlaw, and Ronald M. Gould, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wardlaw SUMMARY *

Habeas Corpus / Death Penalty

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Gregory Spiros Demetrulias’s habeas corpus petition governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, in a case in which a jury convicted Demetrulias of first-degree murder, found that Demetrulias killed the victim in the course of a robbery, and imposed the death penalty.

Demetrulias argued that the trial court violated his right to due process when it allowed the prosecution to introduce victim character evidence during its case in…