Mills

MEMORANDUM *

William Mills appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for habeas corpus. Even assuming a freestanding claim of innocence is potentially available in a non-capital ease, see House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518, 554-55 , 126 S.Ct. 2064 , 165 L.Ed.2d 1 (2006), Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 417 , 113 S.Ct. 853 , 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993), Mills has failed to meet the “extraordinarily high” threshold for a freestanding claim because he has failed to “affirmatively prove that he is probably innocent,” Carriger v. Stewart, 132 F.3d 463, 477 (9th Cir.1997) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). Mills’s “newly discovered” evidence, Herrera, 506 U.S. at 400 , 113 S.Ct. 853 , consists of the July 2007 report and affidavit prepared by Dr. Welch. We have rejected freestanding claims of innocence based on the affidavit of a mental health expert hired by the defense, reasoning that “[bjecause psychiatrists disagree widely and frequently on what constitutes mental illness, a defendant could always provide a showing of factual innocence by hiring psychiatric experts who would reach a favorable conclusion.” Boyde v. Brown, 404 F.3d 1159, 1168 (9th Cir.2005) (internal…