William Charles Payton v. Jeanne Woodford, Warden, William Charles Payton v. Jeanne Woodford, Warden

Opinion by Judge PAEZ; Dissent by Judge TALLMAN

OPINION

A California jury convicted William Charles Payton (“Payton”) of the first degree murder and rape of Pamela Montgomery and the attempted murder of Patricia Pensinger and her son, Blaine Pensinger. Payton was sentenced to death. Payton appealed both his underlying conviction and death sentence.

On direct appeal, the California Supreme Court affirmed both his conviction and his sentence. People v. Payton, 3 Cal.4th 1050 , 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 526 , 839 P.2d 1035 (1992). Payton filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and a subsequent amended habeas petition in federal district court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 , after exhausting his state court remedies.

Payton raised several arguments in his habeas petition relating to the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. At issue here is Payton’s contention that the jury did not consider, in imposing the death penalty, potentially mitigating evidence of his post-crime religious conversion and good behavior in prison. The California death penalty statute contains an eleven-factor test that requires the jury to weigh and balance specific aggravating and mitigating circumstances in…

dissenting in part, joined by Circuit Judges KOZINSKI, TROTT, FERNANDEZ, and T.G. NELSON:

Today, six judges of this court announce that the legal conclusion reached by seven of their colleagues 1 (plus five justices of the California Supreme Court) is not only wrong, but objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established federal law. According to the six judges in the majority, those twelve judges were so off-the-mark in their analyses of United States Supreme Court precedent that their shared legal conclusion — -that Payton’s constitutional rights were not violated by the “unadorned” factor (k) instruction— must be deemed objectively unreasonable. I respectfully dissent. 2

I

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1218, (AEDPA) significantly limited the power of the federal bench to grant a state prisoner’s petition for habeas corpus. Post AEDPA, the successful ha-beas applicant must convince the federal judge or appellate panel that the state court decision upholding his conviction or sentence is “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court…

346 F.3d 1204 William Charles PAYTON, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Jeanne WOODFORD, Warden, Respondent-Appellant. William Charles Payton, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeanne Woodford, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. No. 00-99000. No. 00-99003. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Filed October 20, 2003. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of the State of California, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Frederick R. Millar, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina, Deputy Attorney General, Nancy L. Palmieri, Deputy Attorney General, Esteban Hernandez, Deputy Attorney General, San Diego, California, for respondent-appellant Jeanne S. Woodford. Maria E. Stratton, Federal Public Defender, Dean R. Gits, Deputy Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Los Angeles, California, and Rosalie L. Rakoff, A Professional Corporation, Santa Monica, California, for petitioner-appellee William Charles Payton. On Remand from the United States Supreme Court. Before: Mary M. SCHROEDER, Chief Judge, Harry PREGERSON, Alex KOZINSKI, Stephen S. TROTT, Ferdinand F. FERNANDEZ, Thomas G. NELSON, A. Wallace TASHIMA,…