Jesus Flores v. William Muniz ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 19 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JESUS REYNOSO FLORES, No. 18-15992
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No.
1:16-cv-01475-LJO-JDP
v.
WILLIAM MUNIZ, Warden, MEMORANDUM*
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
Lawrence J. O'Neill, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 11, 2020
San Francisco, California
Before: SCHROEDER and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges, and MORRIS,** District
Judge.
Jesus Flores appeals from the District Court’s order denying his federal
petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We affirm.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Brian M. Morris, United States District Judge for the
District of Montana, sitting by designation.
Flores initially waived his Miranda rights during a custodial interrogation.
After the detectives told Flores to start over, Flores replied, “I’m done talking.”
The detectives continued talking to Flores for over two hours, with the
conversation culminating in Flores’s confession. The California state district court
admitted the confession, at trial, over Flores’s objection. A jury convicted Flores of
attempted murder and first-degree murder with special circumstances of (1)
committing murder while laying-in-wait; and (2) committing murder while
engaged in the commission or attempted commission of a robbery.
Flores filed a federal habeas petition after having exhausted his state court
remedies. The District Court denied the petition. This Court granted a certificate of
appealability on two issues: (1) whether Flores’s confession violated his Miranda
rights; and (2) if so, whether the admission of the confession at trial constituted
harmless error. We review the District Court’s denial de novo. Arnold v. Runnels,
421 F.3d 859, 862 (9th Cir. 2005).
Flores argues that he clearly invoked his Miranda rights and that the
continued police interrogation violated that invocation. See Miranda v. Arizona,
384 U.S. 436, 444–45 (1966). We agree that his statement, “I’m done talking,”
cannot reasonably be interpreted as anything except a facially unambiguous
invocation of the right to remain silent. See Anderson v. Terhune, 516 F.3d 781,
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787 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc). The continued questioning that led to Flores’s
confession violated his Miranda rights.
Although the state court erred in admitting Flores’ statements at trial, such
error proves harmless. Flores argues that his confession constituted the only
evidence at trial regarding the laying-in-wait special circumstance. Respondent
asserts that each special circumstance, on its own, resulted in Flores receiving a life
sentence without the possibility of parole. If sufficient evidence supports the
robbery/attempted robbery special circumstance, Flores’s sentence would remain
unchanged. Given the volume of undisputed evidence establishing Flores’s guilt —
including video footage of the shooting and testimony from multiple witnesses that
Flores admitted to the shooting—the introduction of Flores’s confession proves
cumulative. See Padilla v. Terhune, 309 F.3d 614, 622 (9th Cir. 2002). The
prosecution paid scant attention to Flores’s confession during its closing argument,
instead encouraging the jury to rely on the video evidence. See Brecht v.
Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 639 (1993).
3 18-15992
Sufficient evidence existed to support a jury finding Flores guilty of
premeditated murder in the commission of a robbery or attempted robbery, even
without Flores’s confession. We cannot say that the trial court’s erroneous
admission had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the
jury’s verdict. See id. at 623.
AFFIRMED.
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