Cooper

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

A. The Underlying Facts and Procedural History We begin with a brief overview of the proceedings culminating in the sentence Cooper is serving. Highsmith was killed in August 1995, and the following year Cooper and Cross were jointly tried. (Cooper I, supra, 149 Cal.App.4th at pp. 505–506.) A jury convicted Cooper of murder, kidnapping, and other crimes, and he was sentenced to 71 years to life in prison. (Ibid.) Several years later, after unsuccessfully appealing to this court, he obtained federal habeas relief on the basis that the admission of Kingdom’s out-of-court statement violated the Confrontation Clause.5 (Id. at pp. 506–507; Cooper v. McGrath (N.D.Cal. 2004) 314 F.Supp.2d 967, 985, 988.) Cooper was retried in the fall of 2004. The jury convicted him of one count of first degree murder and one count of kidnapping and found true that

Cooper also filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in which he

claims that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to provide the trial court with certain evidence from his trial before it ruled on the section 1170.95 petition. By separate order in the habeas corpus…