Negron v. Salazar

Filing 6

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS; DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY. Signed by Judge Claudia Wilken on 6/21/2012. (Attachments: # 1 Certificate/Proof of Service)(ndr, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 6/21/2012)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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GABRIEL ESCOBAR NEGRON,

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No. C 10-1976 CW (PR)

Petitioner,

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR WRIT
OF HABEAS CORPUS; DENYING
CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY

v.
J. TIM OCHOA, Warden,
Respondent.

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INTRODUCTION

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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Petitioner Gabriel Escobar Negron, a state prisoner, has filed

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a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

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§ 2254, alleging the following two claims: (1) the trial court

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erroneously excluded medical evidence regarding the paternity of a

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domestic violence victim's unborn child, and (2) the trial court

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violated Petitioner's due process rights by refusing to admit this

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evidence into the record.

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Order to Show Cause why the present writ should not be granted.

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October 22, 2010, Respondent filed an answer.

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file a traverse.

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On June 24, 2010, the Court issued an
On

Petitioner did not

Having considered all of the papers filed by the parties, for
the reasons discussed below the Court DENIES the petition.

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PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

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On August 14, 2008 a jury found Petitioner guilty of willfully

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inflicting corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition upon

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a cohabitant under California Penal Code § 273.5(a).

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court sentenced Petitioner to the aggravated term of five years in

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state prison for the violation of California Penal Code § 273.5(a)

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with a prior conviction, and further imposed three consecutive one-

The trial

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year sentences for his three prior prison terms, for an aggregate

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sentence of eight years.

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Petitioner filed a timely appeal to the California Court of

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Appeal on May 21, 2009.

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court affirmed the trial court's judgment.

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On December 15, 2009, the state appellate

Petitioner subsequently filed a petition for review in the

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California Supreme Court.

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court denied the petition for review.

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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On May 6, 2010, Petitioner filed the present federal habeas
petition.

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On February 18, 2010, the state supreme

FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The state appellate court summarized the facts of the case as
follows:
The victim met defendant in mid-October of 2007.
She and defendant began to live together, along with
the victim's 10-month-old son, in an apartment in
Castroville. In November of that year defendant choked
her and then threatened to kill her if she called the
police. Defendant left but later moved back and
resumed physically and verbally abusing the victim.
At some point during this time, the victim
discovered that she was pregnant. She told defendant
about her pregnancy sometime in November. Defendant
was happy about the pregnancy initially but soon
resumed being violent. He refused to believe he was
the baby's father (we note that the record does not
reveal that she told him he was; it does, however,
suggest that she may have told him this). He kicked
the victim in the stomach during her pregnancy and
inflicted other injuries.

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On December 14, 2007, the victim went to a clinic
in Salinas. While there, she filled out a
questionnaire that asked, among other things, whether
she was in an abusive relationship. She indicated that
she was. The clinic notified the Monterey County
Sheriff's Department, but the victim refused to file a
complaint.

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Defendant's attacks on the victim continued as
late as January 5, 2008, and she ended the relationship
on that day. On January 6, the victim changed her mind
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about her reticence and filed a report with the
sheriff's department about defendant's abuse. On
January 7, a sheriff's deputy photographed her
injuries. About this time the victim also decided to
have and proceeded with an abortion.

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(People v. Negron (Op.), No. H033719, 2009 WL 4817744 (Cal. Ct.

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App. Dec. 15, 2009) at *1-2.)

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LEGAL STANDARD
A federal court may entertain a habeas petition from a state

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prisoner "only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of

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the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States."

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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U.S.C. § 2254(a).

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Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a district court may not grant habeas

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relief unless the state appellate court's adjudication of the

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claim: "(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or

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involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established

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Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United

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States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an

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unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence

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presented in the State court proceeding."

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Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412 (2000).

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applies both to questions of law and to mixed questions of law and

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fact, id. at 407-409, and the second prong applies to decisions

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based on factual determinations, Miller El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S.

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322, 340 (2003).

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Court authority, that is, falls under the first clause of

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§ 2254(d)(1), only if "the state court arrives at a conclusion

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opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of

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law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the

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Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts."

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d);
The first prong

A state court decision is "contrary to" Supreme

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Williams, 529 U.S. at 412-13.

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an "unreasonable application of" Supreme Court authority, under the

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second clause of § 2254(d)(1), if it correctly identifies the

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governing legal principle from the Supreme Court's decisions but

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"unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's

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case."

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issue the writ "simply because that court concludes in its

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independent judgment that the relevant state court decision applied

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clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly."

Id. at 413.

A state appellate court decision is

The federal court on habeas review may not

Id.

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For the Northern District of California

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at 411.

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to support granting the writ.

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by state courts are presumed correct absent clear and convincing

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evidence to the contrary."

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petitioner must present clear and convincing evidence to overcome

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the presumption of correctness under § 2254(e)(1); conclusory

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assertions will not do.

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binding on the states, Ninth Circuit precedent remains relevant

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persuasive authority in determining whether a state court decision

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is objectively unreasonable.

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(9th Cir. 2003).

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is warranted only if the error had a "'substantial and injurious

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effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict.'"

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Johnson, 532 U.S. 782, 795 (2001) (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson,

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507 U.S. 619, 638 (1993)).

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Rather, the application must be "objectively unreasonable"
Id. at 409.

"Factual determinations

Miller El, 537 U.S. at 340.

Id.

A

Although only Supreme Court law is

Clark v. Murphy, 331 F.3d 1062, 1069

If constitutional error is found, habeas relief

Penry v.

When there is no reasoned opinion from the highest state

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court to consider a petitioner's claims, the court looks to the

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last reasoned opinion of the highest court to analyze whether the

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state judgment was erroneous under the standard of § 2254(d).

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v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 801, 806 (1991).

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the California Court of Appeal is the highest court that addressed

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Petitioner's claims.

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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Ylst

In the present case,

DISCUSSION
Petitioner asserts that the trial court erred by denying him
the right to present certain medical records of the victim.

He

claims that the excluded evidence was highly relevant and should
have been admitted because: (1) it directly spoke to the
credibility of the victim, and (2) it would not have necessitated
undue consumption of the court's time.

Petitioner further claims

that excluding this evidence: (1) violated his right to a complete
defense, (2) violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront
witnesses, because his right to cross-examine outweighed the
victim's right to privacy, and (3) resulted in prejudice.

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The following factual background for this claim has been taken
from the state appellate court's decision:
Defendant claims that the trial court abused its
discretion by excluding relevant evidence (see Evid.
Code, §§ 210, 351) and violated his rights undergirded
by the Fifth and/or Sixth Amendments and the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution to present
a complete defense and his Sixth Amendment right to
confront the witnesses against him when it excluded
evidence he wished to introduce about the timing of the
victim's abortion, namely medical records that might
have persuaded one or more jurors that she was pregnant
by another man, not defendant, and had falsely or
inaccurately accused him of being the father.

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The victim testified that when she told defendant
she was pregnant, "[h]e would always say he wasn't" the
father. During one discussion of the topic he lashed
out at her verbally and kicked her in the stomach,
pulled her hair, and slapped her face. The victim also
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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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testified that her first sexual intercourse with
defendant occurred on October 28, 2007. Defendant
wanted to introduce impeaching evidence that an
examination done on December 18, 2007, showed the age
of the aborted fetus to be nine weeks, meaning that it
could have been conceived in mid-October and defendant
would not be the father. Under the principle of falsus
in uno, falsus in omnibus, the impeachment evidence
could cast doubt among the jurors about the veracity of
the victim's entire account that defendant physically
abused her.
The record does not tell us the evidentiary basis
under which the trial court considered the matter. The
court ruled, however, that the evidence must be
excluded because in the court's view it was only
marginally relevant and its introduction would be too
time-consuming -- evidently a ruling under Evidence
Code section 352, which provides in relevant part that
"The court in its discretion may exclude evidence if
its probative value is substantially outweighed by the
probability that its admission will . . . necessitate
undue consumption of time . . . ." The court described
its reasoning (a description that both parties agreed
was accurate) following an unreported discussion with
the parties about the evidence: Regarding "the
potential introduction of the medical records, . . .
the Court had expressed some considerable concern about
the fact that this has the potential of invading the
privacy of [the victim]. The Court had an opportunity
to review those medical records in chambers. [¶]
[Defense counsel] had indicated that she wanted to
bring out certain aspects of the medical records that
could potentially impeach [the victim], and I asked for
an offer of proof. The offer of proof was . . . that
it was very likely that [the victim] was pregnant from
an earlier relationship and that medical records would
show that that was indeed the case; that one could then
conclude that she had lied to the defendant by
indicating that he was the father of the unborn child;
and that if she was capable of lying under one
circumstance, then she certainly would be capable of
lying with regard to alleging that she was a victim of
domestic violence."
The Court reviewed the medical records and
determined that there was the following five facts: [¶]
That on December the 13th, [the victim] stated that her
last menstrual period was October the 18th of 2007;
second, that [the victim] had checked a box on a form
indicating that she was in an abusive relationship;
third, that on December the 14th the medical staff at
the hospital or clinic where she was at contacted the
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Salinas Police Department to report an abusive
relationship as required by law; fourth, that on
December the 13th the stenography record indicated that
someone, some medical person, wrote down the number
'8,' for eight weeks, next to a box asking for the
estimated age of the fetus; and fifth, that on December
the 18th, 2007, the pathology exam that the exam at the
conclusion of the abortion, the pathology exam, showed
someone had written in there "age of the fetus, nine
weeks."

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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"I -- as a result of this I had a conversation
with Counsel in chambers, at which time I told them
that the information was sufficiently marginal as to be
of minimal relevance in determining whether or not [the
victim] may or may not have been telling the truth when
talking to the defendant indicating that he was the
father of the child; that there were a variety of other
issues involved in addressing the potential
admissibility of that medical record that would indeed
involve an undue consumption of court time, and for
those reasons I was not going to allow the medical
records into evidence."

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Defendant acknowledges that the evidence would not
establish conclusively that the victim was inaccurate
in other details of her testimony -- e.g., the victim
"might have been unaware of when her pregnancy started"
or "the pathology report . . . might have been
inaccurate." But he notes that Evidence Code section
210 provides in pertinent part that "'Relevant
evidence' means evidence, including evidence relevant
to the credibility of a witness . . . having any
tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed
fact that is of consequence to the determination of the
action" and observes that the case mainly involved the
jurors' assessment of the victim's credibility inasmuch
as the case rested on the victim's testimony,
buttressed only by photographic evidence that did not
identify him as an assailant. In defendant's view, the
question of the evidence's conclusiveness bears on "the
weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. If the
records had been admitted into evidence, . . . the jury
could have . . . accorded them whatever significance"
it found warranted. Because "the only significant
decision the jury had to make was whether or not [the
jurors] believed" the victim, the trial court, in
defendant's view, abused its discretion by excluding
the evidence and violated his constitutional rights.
(Op. at *2-3 (alterations in original).)

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The state appellate court described the applicable law as
follows:
"On appeal, 'an appellate court applies the abuse
of discretion standard of review to any ruling by a
trial court on the admissibility of evidence . . . .'"
(People v. Hovarter (2008) 44 Cal.4th 983, 1007-1008.)
A trial court abuses its discretion when its ruling
falls outside the bounds of reason. (People v.
Benavides 35 Cal.4th 69 at 88.)

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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The foregoing rule applies to limit both the
admissibility of relevant evidence and the scope of our
review of a ruling excluding it. "'As with all
relevant evidence . . ., the trial court retains
discretion to admit or exclude evidence offered for
impeachment. [Citations.] A trial court's exercise of
discretion in admitting or excluding evidence is
reviewable for abuse [citation] and will not be
disturbed except on a showing the trial court exercised
its discretion in an arbitrary, capricious, or patently
absurd manner that resulted in a manifest miscarriage
of justice [citation]' [Citation.] '[T]he discretion
to be exercised is that of the trial court, not that of
the reviewing court. Thus, even if the reviewing court
might have ruled otherwise in the first instance, the
trial court's order will yet not be reversed unless, as
a matter of law, it is not supported by the record.'"
(People v. Tuggles (2009) 178 Cal.App.4th 1106, 1128.)
(Id. at *3-4.)

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The state appellate court rejected this claim as
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follows:
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Here, we cannot say that the court abused its
discretion, i.e., was unreasonable to conclude that the
evidence would have been unduly time-consuming in
relation to its potential probative value. The medical
records would not have necessarily established that the
victim was misleading defendant about the identity of
the unborn child's father, only that her apparent
belief that he was the father possibly was incorrect.
That would not have taken anything away from the
content of her testimony, and inferences that could
reasonably be derived therefrom, that she apparently
communicated to defendant that he was the father and he
reacted badly to the news, at one point becoming angry
and kicking her in the stomach, pulling her hair, and
slapping her face.

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(Id. at *4.)
As explained above, Petitioner argues that admitting medical

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records about a discrepancy in the paternity of the unborn child

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could discredit the witness sufficiently to undermine the rest of

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her testimony about being a victim of domestic violence.

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the state courts were not unreasonable in finding Petitioner's

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theory too attenuated to justify admission.

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not abuse its discretion by excluding the medical evidence, nor

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was it unreasonable to conclude that the evidence would have been

However,

The trial court did

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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unduly time consuming in relation to its potentially probative

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value.

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the trial court's decision was reasonable.

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Therefore, the state appellate court's decision to uphold

Petitioner's due process claim is also not compelling.
the state appellate court articulated:

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As for defendant's constitutional claims, we
discern no violation of any constitutional guaranty.
"[F]undamental fairness [is] the touchstone of due
process . . . ." (Gagnon v. Scarpelli (1973) 411 U.S.
778, 790.) Thus, for the court's evidentiary ruling to
have risen to the level of a due process violation
because it denied him a right to present a defense, it
must have rendered defendant's trial fundamentally
unfair. Because the court's ruling did not violate
state law in the first instance, a fortiori we perceive
no due process violation. That is also true to the
extent that the right to present a defense implicates
the Sixth Amendment and with regard to defendant's
Sixth Amendment confrontation clause claim. All of
these claims rest on defendant's claim of error under
state law, and, therefore, because defendant's state
law claim fails, so necessarily must his constitutional
claims. "[R]ejection on the merits of a claim that the
trial court erred on the issue actually before that
court necessarily leads to rejection of the newly
applied constitutional 'gloss' as well. No separate
constitutional discussion is required in such cases,
and we therefore provide none." (People v. Lewis and
Oliver (2006) 39 Cal.4th 970, 990, fn. 5 [addressing a
due process claim that hinged on a claim of state-law
error].)

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As

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(Id. (alterations in original).)

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The Sixth Amendment and the due process guarantee of

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fundamental fairness afford an accused in a criminal trial the

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right to present a defense.

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284, 294 (1973); Clark v. Brown, 450 F.3d 898, 904 (9th Cir. 2006)

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(citing California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485 (1984)).

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Supreme Court has made clear that the erroneous exclusion of

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critical, corroborative defense evidence may violate the Sixth

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Amendment right to present a defense, as well as the due process

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S.

The

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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right to a fair trial.

DePetris v. Kuykendall, 239 F.3d 1057,

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1062 (9th Cir. 2001).

However, "[s]tate and federal rulemakers

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have broad latitude under the Constitution to establish rules

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excluding evidence from criminal trials."

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Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 324 (2006) (quotations and citations

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omitted).

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that is repetitive, only marginally relevant or poses an undue

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risk of harassment, prejudice or confusion of the issues."

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325-26.

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Holmes v. South

The "Constitution permits judges to exclude evidence

Id. at

Here the state appellate court found that the exclusion of
the medical evidence did not violate the state evidentiary rules
or Petitioner's constitutional rights to present a defense and due
process.

Moreover, the excluded evidence was only marginally

relevant.

According to Petitioner, the excluded evidence was

intended to show that if the victim lied about one issue -- i.e.,
the paternity of the unborn child -- then all of her testimony
would be in question.

However, even if the evidence showed the

victim had lied in the past, it is not necessarily admissible.
Even if Petitioner's logic were correct, the evidence could still
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be excluded because of the discretion the trial court has to

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exclude evidence that is only marginally relevant.

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In sum, for the reasons explained by the state appellate

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court, the trial court reasonably found that the excluded medical

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evidence had minimal, if any, relevance.

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such evidence did not violate Petitioner’s constitutional rights

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to present a defense or to a fundamentally fair trial guaranteed

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by due process.

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(holding that due process does not guarantee a defendant the right

Therefore, excluding

See Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37, 42 (1996)

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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to present all evidence, regardless of how marginal its

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relevance).

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this claim was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application

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of federal law.

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DENIED.

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Accordingly, the state appellate court's denial of

Therefore, Petitioner's due process claim is

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES the petition for
a writ of habeas corpus on all claims.
Further, a Certificate of Appealability is DENIED.
11(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases.

See Rule

Petitioner has

not made "a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional
right."

28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).

Nor has Petitioner demonstrated

that "reasonable jurists would find the district court's
assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong."
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).

Petitioner may not

appeal the denial of a Certificate of Appealability in this Court
but may seek a certificate from the Ninth Circuit under Rule 22 of
the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases.
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See Rule 11(a) of the

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The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment and close the
file.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: 6/21/2012
CLAUDIA WILKEN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

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