Grady Arnold v. D.L. Runnels

Grady Arnold, at age thirty-six, was sentenced by a California state court to serve a forty-one-year to life imprisonment sentence as a third-strike offender, upon being convicted of attempted armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and shooting at an occupied building in violation of the California Penal Code. His conviction was affirmed by the state court of appeal. Following denial of review by the Supreme Court of California, Arnold sought relief on several grounds pro se through a writ of habeas corpus from the federal district court, under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . The court denied the writ.

We granted a certificate of appealability as to the sole question of whether the trial court violated Arnold’s Fifth Amendment rights by admitting a tape recording of *862 certain utterances Arnold made during an interrogation, even though Arnold had said he did not want to talk on tape and responded to all substantive questions on tape by saying “no comment.”

Two critical facts control the outcome of this case: Arnold unequivocally invoked his right not to speak on tape by saying he did not want to talk on tape; further, he never thereafter waived that right.…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

The state courts did not unreasonably apply clearly established federal law. “[C]learly established Federal law under [ 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1) ] is the governing legal principle or principles set forth by the Supreme Court at the time the state court renders its decision.” Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 71-72 , 123 S.Ct. 1166 , 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003). In Lockyer , the Supreme Court held, “[a] state court decision is contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases or if the state court confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of this Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from our precedent.” Id. at 73 , 123 S.Ct. 1166 (citations omitted).

Here, the state courts relied on Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 , 114 S.Ct. 2350 , 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994), in determining that Arnold did not unambiguously invoke his right to silence. Even though Davis deals with invoking the right to counsel, the government posits that it should extend to cases involving the right to silence because there appears to be no…

421 F.3d 859 Grady ARNOLD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. D.L. RUNNELS, Respondent-Appellee. No. 04-15194. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted January 13, 2005. Filed August 24, 2005. COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Amitai Schwartz, Esq., Elizabeth Letcher, Esq., Emeryville, CA, for the appellant. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Peggy S. Ruffra, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Morris Beatus, Deputy Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for the appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Jeremy Fogel, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-01-20810-JF. Before MYRON H. BRIGHT, * TASHIMA, and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges. BRIGHT, Circuit Judge. 1 Grady Arnold, at age thirty-six, was sentenced by a California state court to serve a forty-one-year to life imprisonment sentence as a third-strike offender, upon being convicted of attempted armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and shooting at an occupied building in violation of the California Penal Code. His conviction was affirmed by…