Jerry Carter v. G.J. Giurbino, Warden

The California Supreme Court issued a postcard denial of appellant Jerry Carter’s petition for writ of habeas corpus, citing only In re Lindley, 29 Cal.2d 709 , 177 P.2d 918 (1947). Lindley stands for the California rule that a claim of insufficiency of evidence can only be considered on direct appeal, not in habeas proceedings. In denying a federal petition for writ of habeas corpus, the district court held that the Lindley rule is an independent and adequate state procedural bar and that appellant had procedurally defaulted his sufficiency of evidence claims by failing to pursue them to conclusion on direct appeal. We agree and affirm.

I.Background

In 1999, Carter was convicted in the state of California of six counts of robbery and one count of carjacking and sentenced to 167 years to life.

Although Carter raised one sufficiency of the evidence claim to the California Court of Appeal on direct appeal, he failed to raise any sufficiency of the evidence claims when he petitioned the California Sdpreme Court for review. After Carter’s direct appeal was concluded, he then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the California Supreme Court asserting that there was…