Higginbotham

MEMORANDUM *

Petitioner James Higginbotham, currently serving a third strike sentence in California for felony cohabitant battery, appeals the district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . The facts of this case are familiar to the parties. Upon de novo review, Casey v. Moore, 386 F.3d 896, 904 (9th Cir. 2004), we affirm.

Higginbotham claims that his trial attorney, Stephen Brodsky, provided ineffective assistance during plea negotiations and at trial by failing to research the mens rea requirement of the statute under which he was convicted. The California Court of Appeal, applying an analysis consistent with Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), found that Higginbotham had not shown any prejudice resulting from *34 Brodsky’s performance as counsel. In particular, Higginbotham did not prove that he would have declined to testify, and would have instead accepted the plea bargain, but for Brodsky’s allegedly inadequate research and resulting misadvice. This conclusion was not contrary to, nor an “objectively unreasonable” application of, Strickland in light of the evidence available at the state habeas…