David Johnson v. Ivan Clay

MEMORANDUM

Petitioner appeals from the district court’s denial of his habeas claim. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

I.

It was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 , 106 S.Ct. 1712 , 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), for the California Court of Appeal to affirm the trial court’s denial of Petitioner’s Batson motion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(1). Courts must apply a three-step test when evaluating a Batson challenge:

Tolbert v. Page, 182 F.3d 677, 680 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc) (alteration in original) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The California Court of Appeal, as well as the state trial court, applied the right legal standard in this case because it correctly analyzed the trial court’s decision under each step of the Batson test.

We reject Petitioner’s argument that the California Court of Appeal ran afoul of Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 281 , 125 S.Ct. 2317 , 162 L.Ed.2d 196 (2005), by failing to conduct an exhaustive comparative juror analysis under step three of the Batson test. The California Court of Appeal analyzed the comparative information proffered by Petitioner on direct review,…