Michael Su Chia v. Steven Cambra, Jr., Warden Attorney General of the State of California

281 F.3d 1032 Michael Su CHIA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Steven CAMBRA, Jr., Warden; Attorney General of the State of California, Respondents-Appellees. No. 99-56361. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted December 7, 2000. Filed February 27, 2002. James Dirks, Sacramento California, for the petitioner-appellant. Valerie A. Baker, Deputy Attorney General, State of California, Los Angeles, California, for the respondents-appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Kim McLane Wardlaw, District Judge, Presiding. Before D.W. NELSON, BRUNETTI and KOZINSKI, Circuit Judges. OPINION D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge. 1 On November 1, 1988, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury convicted Michael Su Chia ("Chia") of two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder, as well as counts of second degree robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. Chia's conviction stemmed from a Drug Enforcement Agency ("DEA") sting operation that went tragically wrong. Two DEA agents were killed when the targets of the sting operation decided to rob and murder the agents instead of consummating the drug deal. Chia,…

On November 1, 1988, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury convicted Michael Su Chia (“Chia”) of two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder, as well as counts of second degree robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. Chia’s conviction stemmed from a Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) sting operation that went tragically wrong. Two DEA agents were killed when the targets of the sting operation decided to rob and murder the agents instead of consummating the drug deal. Chia, however, was not accused of being one of the shooters or of being present when the agents were murdered. Rather he was prosecuted as a co-conspirator, an aider and abettor, and an accomplice.

Chia’s defense hinged on explaining his relationship to the shooters and his interactions with them in the days and hours before the murders. Chia contends that, far from being a co-conspirator, he tried to talk one of the shooters, his good friend William Wei Wang (“Wang”), out of the plot. In support of his version of events, Chia sought to introduce at trial statements made by Wang to police after the shooting. The trial court excluded the statements as hearsay. Chia’s direct appeals…

dissenting.

I dissent because Wang’s statements do not bear sufficient indicia of reliability, and the California trial court’s exclusion of these statements as inadmissible hearsay did not deny Chia his due process rights under Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 , 93 S.Ct. 1038 , 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973).

Having asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Wang was unavailable to serve as a witness in Chia’s trial. Thus, Chia sought to introduce hearsay statements made by Wang to the police, that were exculpatory in nature, as declarations against penal interest. 1 See Cal. Evid.Code § 1230 (West 1999). The trial court determined that Wang’s statements did not fall within this hearsay exception, and that the exclusion of the statements did not deprive Chia of his due process rights under Chambers . In order to determine whether exclusion of the hearsay statements rendered Chia’s trial fundamentally unfair under Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, we must examine the statements themselves.

Co-conspirator Wang was first interviewed by the police on February 5, 1988 in the hospital emergency room prior to his undergoing surgery. Before receiving Wang’s statements,…