Brian Brewer v. A. Hedgpeth

MEMORANDUM

A. Hedgpeth, Warden, appeals the district court’s grant of California state prisoner Brian Glen Brewer’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C § 2254. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We review de novo, Lambert v. Blodgett, 393 F.3d 943, 964 (9th Cir.2004), and we reverse.

Brewer claims he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel because his defense counsel failed to investigate two additional alibi witnesses. The issue before us is whether the state court’s decision rejecting this claim was objectively unreasonable. Applying “the doubly deferential judicial review that applies to a Strickland claim evaluated under the [28 U.S.C.] § 2254(d)(1) standard,” Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111 , 129 S.Ct. 1411, 1420 , 173 L.Ed.2d 251 (2009), we hold that the state court’s decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

A. Background

In 2004, Brewer was charged by the State of California with robbery and false imprisonment in connection with a 2002 robbery of a credit union. During the jury trial in…