Megan Van Lynn v. Teena Farmon, Warden

347 F.3d 735 Megan VAN LYNN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Teena FARMON, Warden, Respondent-Appellant. No. 03-15221. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted August 15, 2003 — San Francisco, California. Filed October 17, 2003. 1 COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Patrick J. Whalen, Deputy Attorney General, State of California, Sacramento, California, for the respondent-appellant. 2 Matthew Alger, Fresno, California, for the petitioner-appellee. 3 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Frank C. Damrell, Jr., District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-98-01715-FCD(JFM). 4 Before: Stephen REINHARDT and Susan P. GRABER, Circuit Judges, and John S. RHOADES, * District Judge. 5 Opinion by District Judge RHOADES; Concurrence by Judge GRABER. OPINION RHOADES, District Judge: 6 Respondent Warden Teena Farmon ("Warden Farmon") appeals the district court's judgment granting petitioner Megan Van Lynn's ("Van Lynn") petition for writ of habeas corpus on the ground that Van Lynn was denied her Sixth Amendment right to represent herself at trial and received ineffective assistance of appellate counsel because her counsel failed to…

Opinion by District Judge RHOADES; Concurrence by Judge GRABER.

OPINION

Respondent Warden Teena Farmon (“Warden Farmon”) appeals the district court’s judgment granting petitioner Megan Van Lynn’s (“Van Lynn”) petition for writ of habeas corpus on the ground that Van Lynn was denied her Sixth Amendment right to represent herself at trial and received ineffective assistance of appellate counsel because her counsel failed to raise this issue on direct appeal.

We conclude that where a state court reasons that a defendant is not competent to represent herself simply because she will be unable to present her defense in an informed, reasonable, or intelligent manner, that decision is contrary to clearly established Supreme Court case law. We cannot avoid granting the writ pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1) by positing an alternative reason for the state court’s denial of the motion for self-representation that is entirely distinct from the reason given by the state court, even if such different reason might have justified the state court’s action. We therefore affirm.

I. Background

On November 28, 1991, Van Lynn’s home suffered major fire damage. On December 9,1993, Van Lynn was…

concurring:

I concur because the state court expressly reasoned to its decision in a manner that contradicted express Supreme Court reasoning on the same legal issue. In this way the state court’s decision was “contrary to” established Supreme Court case law, 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1). See Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 8 , 123 S.Ct. 362 , 154 L.Ed.2d 263 (2002) (per curiam).

I write separately to note that a denial on timeliness grounds of a Faretta 1 motion made in the third week of a four-week trial would neither have been contrary to, nor have involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court case law. Applying Supreme Court precedent, we have held that there is no midtrial Faretta right. United States v. Bishop, 291 F.3d 1100, 1114 (9th Cir.2002), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1176 , 123 S.Ct. 1002 , 154 L.Ed.2d 920 (2003); United States v. Smith, 780 F.2d 810, 811 (9th Cir.1986) (per curiam). A state-court decision that reached the same conclusion would not entitle a defendant to habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1). The state court’s decision in this case, however, cannot fairly be read to have rested on the ground of timeliness.

. Faretta v.…