Mark Mancebo v. Derral G. Adams Attorney General of the State of California E. Meyers

Mark C. Mancebo brings this petition to challenge the denial by the federal district court of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Mancebo is currently serving an indeterminate term sentence of fifteen years to life for his conviction for second-degree murder, with an additional eight years stayed on his conviction for kidnap-ing. Mancebo argues that he was denied his constitutionally guaranteed right to effective assistance of counsel when, at his original trial, his counsel neither objected to nor moved to exclude a portion of a recorded conversation with police regarding his decision not to take a polygraph examination. Mancebo also argues that the district court did not commit error in holding an evidentiary hearing to examine his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253 . This court reviews a district court’s denial of a writ of habeas corpus de novo. Leavitt v. Arave, 383 F.3d 809, 815 (9th Cir.2004). Pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), we can only overturn Maneebo’s conviction if the state court decision affirming his conviction was “an unreasonable application of…