Coleman

Russell Coleman is a California prisoner under sentence of death. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . The district court denied relief from the conviction but granted relief from the sentence, because the state court jury instructions violated Hamilton v. Vasquez, 17 F.3d 1149 (9th Cir.1994). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 . We agree with the district court and we affirm.

FACTS

On September 5,1979, between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., Shirley Hill was raped, sodomized and strangled to death inside a small bungalow next to a football field within the grounds of a high school. In 1981, Coleman was tried and convicted of Hill’s murder.

Three parts of the evidence against Coleman strongly support his conviction. These consist of fingerprints, serology tests, and a lie.

The police matched Coleman’s palm print to a print left on a windowsill in the bungalow. They also matched his thumbprint to a print left on a chair near Hill’s body. The thumbprint tested presumptively positive for blood. Hill’s fingerprints were also found on the windowsill on either side of Coleman’s palm print. It was not possible to determine whether Hill’s…