Shirley Ree Smith v. Gwendolyn Mitchell, Warden

Shirley Ree Smith appeals the district court’s denial of her habeas corpus petition. The State of California convicted Smith of assault on a child resulting in death. The state courts affirmed her conviction. Smith then filed this federal habeas petition claiming that her conviction violated due process because the evidence was constitutionally insufficient. On appeal, Smith focuses her argument almost exclusively on the absence of constitutionally sufficient evidence of one element of the crime — -the cause of the child’s death. We agree with Smith that no rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Smith caused the child’s death. We further conclude that the state court’s affirmance of Smith’s conviction constituted an unreasonable application of Jackson v. Virginia 443 U.S. 307, 319 , 99 S.Ct. 2781 , 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), which established the standard for constitutional sufficiency of the evidence. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1). We accordingly reverse and remand with instructions to grant the writ.

I

Smith is the grandmother of the deceased infant, Etzel. Smith’s daughter Tomeka Smith is the mother of the child. Tomeka also had two older children,…