Richard Pickett v. Rick Coursey ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 9 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
RICHARD PICKETT, No. 20-35247
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:15-cv-02394-SB
v.
MEMORANDUM*
RICK COURSEY,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Oregon
Michael H. Simon, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted December 7, 2020**
Seattle, Washington
Before: McKEOWN and WATFORD, Circuit Judges, and ROTHSTEIN,***
District Judge.
Richard Pickett appeals from the district court’s denial of his petition for a
writ of habeas corpus. The state court decided that he was not entitled to relief on
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, United States District Judge
for the Western District of Washington, sitting by designation.
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either of his two claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and Pickett argues that
this decision was unreasonable under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). We affirm.
1. Pickett’s first claim is based on his trial counsel’s failure to object to the
testimony of a physician’s assistant that she had diagnosed the victim with child
sexual abuse in the absence of physical evidence. Shortly after Pickett was
convicted, the Oregon Supreme Court, in State v. Southard, 218 P.3d 104 (Or.
2009), ruled that such testimony was inadmissible under Oregon Evidence Code
Rule 403. Id. at 111–13. Southard was pending during Pickett’s trial, and Pickett
argues that his trial counsel should have objected to this testimony to preserve the
issue.
Regardless of whether trial counsel’s failure to object constituted deficient
performance, the state courts reasonably concluded that Pickett’s trial would not
have ended any differently even if counsel had objected and this evidence had been
excluded. As the Oregon Court of Appeals noted on direct appeal, the other
evidence at trial was extensive, including Pickett’s detailed admissions to law
enforcement officers, testimony from the victim, and photographs corroborating
the victim’s account. State v. Pickett, 264 P.3d 209, 210 (Or. Ct. App. 2011).
Applying the second prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), the
state post-conviction court held that there was no reasonable probability of a
different outcome in the absence of counsel’s purported error. See id. at 694. This
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decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland’s
prejudice prong. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
2. Pickett’s second claim is based on his appellate counsel’s failure to raise
an issue on appeal. At trial, Pickett moved to suppress the victim’s diary and
letters, arguing that they fell outside the scope of the search warrant under which
they were seized. On direct appeal, Pickett’s appellate counsel dropped this issue,
instead raising only the unpreserved Southard issue. Pickett argues that his
counsel should also have sought review of the motion to suppress.
Regardless of whether Pickett’s appellate counsel performed deficiently, the
state courts reasonably concluded that his appeal would not have ended differently
even if counsel had raised this issue on appeal. The search warrant included “[a]ny
and all evidence of the crimes of” encouraging child sexual abuse, and at the
hearing on the motion to suppress, a law enforcement officer testified that diaries
and letters sometimes contain evidence of this crime. The officer further testified
that during the search of Pickett’s house, it was “immediately apparent” that the
seized documents were valuable evidence. On this basis, the trial court ruled that
the documents fell within the scope of the search warrant and, in the alternative,
that the documents were lawfully seized under the plain-view doctrine.
According to the state post-conviction court, Pickett failed to show a
reasonable probability that the trial court’s ruling would have been overturned on
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direct appeal in the absence of appellate counsel’s alleged error. Given the
apparent soundness of the trial court’s ruling, the decision of the post-conviction
court was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of Strickland’s
prejudice prong.
AFFIRMED.