Aaron Reynoso v. George J. Giurbino, Warden

The State, through Warden Giurbino, appeals the district court’s decision to grant Aaron Reynoso’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It asserts that the claim on which relief was granted was unex-hausted and that the state court’s rejection of the claim was reasonable. We conclude that Reynoso’s claim was properly exhausted and that, on the merits, he has demonstrated ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). We agree with the district court that the state court’s decision to the contrary constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law. Accordingly, we affirm its grant of the writ of habeas corpus.

I.

On July 11, 1995, Jyotsna Prajapati was shot once in the head and died from her wounds shortly afterwards. At the time of the shooting, Prajapati was working alone behind the counter of the Top Produce Market, a convenience store that she and her husband owned.

After investigating Prajapati’s murder for a week, the Los Angeles Police Department asked the Los Angeles City Council to approve a $25,000 reward “for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the…

dissenting:

The ultimate question in this case is twofold. First, whether it was “objectively unreasonable” for the California Court of Appeal and Supreme Court to have concluded that Reynoso’s appointed counsel’s performance — with respect to her handling of witnesses Mendoza and Terrones — was within the range of competence demanded *1121 by the Sixth Amendment. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 , 120 S.Ct. 1495 , 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). If the answer to this question is “no,” the case is closed in the Warden’s favor. If the answer is “yes,” then we must decide whether those courts would have been objectively unreasonable in concluding that Reynoso suffered no prejudice from counsel’s deficient performance. Because we have “no reasoned state court decision” on these issues, we must perform an independent review of the record to ascertain whether the state court decision was objectively unreasonable. Pham v. Terhune, 400 F.3d 740, 742 (9th Cir.2005) (quoting Himes v. Thompson, 336 F.3d 848, 853 (9th Cir.2003)).

We now have a record from our district court which partially illuminates these issues…

462 F.3d 1099 Aaron REYNOSO, Petitioner-Appellee, v. George J. GIURBINO, Warden, Respondent-Appellant. No. 05-55695. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted June 9, 2006. Filed September 6, 2006. COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED Bill Lockyer, Attorney General for the State of California; Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Kenneth C. Byrne, Supervising Deputy Attorney General (on the briefs); Xiomara Costello, Deputy Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA (argued), for the respondent-appellant. Maria E. Stratton, Federal Public Defender (on the briefs); Mark R. Drozdowski, Deputy Federal Public Defender, Los Angeles, CA (argued), for the petitioner-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Virginia A. Phillips, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-02-03854-VAP. Before: REINHARDT, TROTT, and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges. REINHARDT, Circuit Judge: 1 The State, through Warden Giurbino, appeals the district court's decision to grant Aaron Reynoso's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It asserts that the claim on which relief was granted was…