Samuel Guzman v. Ron E. Barnes , 560 F. App'x 686 ( 2014 )

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                                                                             FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION                               MAR 06 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SAMUEL SAMSON GUZMAN,
Plaintiff - Appellee              No. 11-56467
v.                                            D.C. No. 5:10-cv-01009-JAK-
RNB
DEBORAH DEXTER,
MEMORANDUM*
Defendant - Appellant
Appeal from the United States District Court
for Central District of California,
John A. Kronstadt, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted January 7, 2014
Pasadena, California
Before: REINHARDT and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges, and DORSEY, District
Judge**
Petitioner Samuel Samson Guzman appeals the denial of a habeas corpus
petition challenging his second-degree murder conviction in California state court.
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The Honorable Jennifer A. Dorsey, District Judge for the District of
Nevada, sitting by designation.
1
We review the district court’s denial de novo and review its related factual findings
for clear error. Lambert v. Blodgett,

393 F.3d 943

, 964 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing
DePetris v. Kuykendall,

239 F.3d 1057

, 1061 (9th Cir. 2001); Solis v. Garcia,

219 F.3d 922

, 926 (9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam)). We have jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. § 2253

 and affirm the district court’s denial of habeas relief.
Guzman contends that the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment rights by
excluding evidence of the victim’s gang affiliation. We reject this contention
because this Circuit recognized in Spivey v. Rocha,

194 F.3d 971

 (1999), that
evidence of a victim’s gang membership is inadmissible to bolster a defendant’s
self-defense claim. Gang-membership evidence is “not probative to the question of
whether” the victim was armed.

Id. at 978

. Thus, excluding this evidence did not
render Guzman’s trial “so fundamentally unfair as to violate due process.”

Id.

 In
any event, apart from our own precedent, no clearly established Supreme Court
precedent supports Guzman’s claim of constitutional error.
Guzman further argues that this Court should expand the Certificate of
Appealability (“COA”) to consider whether the trial court erred by allowing the
prosecutor to introduce evidence of Guzman’s training in the Marine Corps, where
he served as a cook, and to characterize Guzman as “trained to kill” by the military.
The trial court did not err in admitting this evidence because Guzman’s military
2
training was relevant to determining his state of mind, impeaching his testimony,
and evaluating his self-defense claim. Even if this evidentiary decision were
erroneous, Guzman has not made the requisite “substantial showing of the denial
of a constitutional right” for the Court to expand the COA and address this
challenge.

28 U.S.C. § 2253

(c)(2); Doe v. Woodford,

508 F.3d 563

, 567 (9th Cir.
2007) (quoting Hiivala v. Wood,

195 F.3d 1098

, 1104 (9th Cir. 1999)); see also
Estelle v. McGuire,

502 U.S. 62

, 70 (1991) (admission of relevant evidence does
not violate due process) (per curiam) (citation omitted).
Finally, Guzman contends that the COA should be expanded to determine
whether the gang-membership and military-training evidence cumulated to deprive
him of a fair trial. Again, we conclude that Guzman has failed to show a
constitutional violation. Even if these evidentiary decisions were erroneous, they
did not “so infect[] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a
denial of due process.” Donnelly v. DeChristoforo,

416 U.S. 637

, 643 (1974). The
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which governs Guzman’s habeas
petition, requires that “the state court decision [was] more than incorrect or
erroneous.” Lockyer v. Andrade,

538 U.S. 63

, 75 (2003) (citing Williams v.
Taylor,

529 U.S. 362

, 410, 412 (2000)). The trial court’s decision must have been
“objectively unreasonable.”

Id.

 (citation omitted). Nothing in the record, viewed
3
favorably to Guzman, suggests objectively unreasonable decisions by the trial
court or the subsequent reviewing courts. Guzman’s cumulative-error argument
thus fails to satisfy the requirement of a substantial showing of the denial of a
constitutional right.
Guzman has not demonstrated that the state court’s decisions were contrary
to law or evidenced an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law,
as determined by the United States Supreme Court. See

28 U.S.C. § 2254