Triggs

MEMORANDUM **

Petitioner-Appellant Kethon Triggs (“Triggs”), a state prisoner, appeals the district court’s denial of his habeas petition. In 1995, a jury convicted Triggs of cocaine possession in violation of California Health and Safety Code section 11350(a). Under California’s three-strikes law, the trial court sentenced Triggs to 25 years to life in prison.

Triggs petitioned for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 , claiming that he was incompetent to stand trial, and that the state court denied him due process in failing sua sponte to hold a competency hearing. Secondly, Triggs claims that trial counsel’s failure to investigate and present evidence about his incompetency denied him his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. 1 Thirdly, Triggs claims that the admission at trial of a preliminary hearing transcript from 1982 violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. Finally, Triggs claims that his sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

We review de novo the district court’s denial of Triggs’s habeas petition. Estrada v. Scribner, 512 F.3d 1227, 1235 (9th Cir.2008). In conducting a review of a…