Splain v. Newton ( 1998 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
SEP 10 1998
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
AUDREY SPLAIN,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 98-2128
(Dist. of New Mexico)
TOM NEWTON, Warden; ATTORNEY (D.C. No. CIV-95-808-JP)
GENERAL FOR THE STATE OF NEW
MEXICO,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BALDOCK, EBEL, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and the appellate record, this three-judge panel
has unanimously determined that oral argument would not be of material
assistance in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th
Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
Audrey Splain seeks to appeal the district court’s order dismissing her 28
U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus petition with prejudice. Because this court
concludes that Splain has not made a substantial showing of the denial of her
constitutional rights, we deny her a certificate of probable cause and dismiss the
appeal. 1
Splain was convicted of trafficking in cocaine in New Mexico state court
in 1994. Splain exhausted her claims on direct appeal to the New Mexico Court
of Appeals and filed this § 2254 petition in 1995. Splain raises the following
three claims in support of her petition: (1) her Sixth Amendment rights were
violated by the exclusion of African-Americans from the venire panel; (2) her
due process rights were violated by the admission of a mass spectrometer analysis
to prove the illegal material was cocaine; and (3) she was convicted on the basis
of insufficient evidence in violation of the Due Process Clause.
In resolving Splain’s claim regarding the venire panel, the district court
noted that the African-American population within the relevant New Mexico
district was between two and five percent and that the total size of the venire was
1
Because Splain filed her § 2254 petition in July of 1995, the Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) does not apply. See Lindh
v. Murphy , 117 S. Ct. 2059, 2063 (1997); United States v. Kunzman , 125 F.3d
1363, 1364 n.2 (10th Cir. 1997). This court, therefore, construes Splain’s appeal
as a request for a certificate of probable cause under the pre-AEDPA version of
28 U.S.C. § 2253. See Hernandez v. Starbuck , 69 F.3d 1089, 1090 n.1 (10th Cir.
1995).
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forty-eight people. In light of the size of the venire and the African-American
population, one or two African-Americans would have represented a fair cross-
section of the community. With this background in mind, the district court
concluded that Splain’s claim failed because she could not show a systematic and
deliberate exclusion of African-Americans from the venire. See United States v.
Ruiz-Castro , 92 F.3d 1519, 1527 (10th Cir. 1996) (holding that to establish a
prima facie case under the Sixth Amendment, a movant must show that the
underrepresentation of a minority group is due to “systematic exclusion of the
group in the jury-selection process”). Splain’s claim was based solely on the
absence of African-American’s from her particular venire without reference to
whether such a result was a statistical anomaly or a systematic practice. See
Duran v. Missouri , 439 U.S. 357, 362 (1979) (movant stated prima facie case by
demonstrating systematic exclusion of minority group over six month period);
Taylor v. Missouri , 419 U.S. 522, 524 (1975) (same over one year period).
Furthermore, the African-American population in the relevant area was small
enough that the absence of any African-Americans from the venire was not
statistically unlikely. Cf. Castaneda v. Partida , 430 U.S. 482, 486-87 (1977)
(movant made prima facie case where Mexican-American population in county
was approximately eighty percent while percentage of Mexican-Americans on
grand jury panels was approximately thirty-nine percent over ten year period).
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As to Splain’s claims concerning the admission of the mass spectrometer
tests, the district court noted that Splain’s arguments related to the weight of the
evidence rather than its admission and that the admission of the tests did not
render her trial fundamentally unfair. See Maes v. Thomas , 46 F.3d 979, 987
(10th Cir. 1995) (holding that a federal court cannot grant habeas relief for state
evidentiary rulings unless those rulings rendered the trial as a whole
fundamentally unfair). Finally, the district court noted that Splain’s claims
regarding the sufficiency of the evidence boiled down to the claim that the sole
witness against her at trial was not worthy of belief. As properly noted by the
district court, in concluding whether evidence is constitutionally sufficient, a
federal court “may neither weigh conflicting evidence nor consider the credibility
of witnesses.” United States v. Harrod , 981 F.2d 1171, 1174 (10th Cir. 1992).
This court has considered de novo Splain’s appellate brief, the magistrate’s
report and recommendation, and the entire record on appeal. In light of that
review, there can be no question that the district court’s resolution of Splain’s
claims is not debatable among jurists, deserving of further proceedings, or
subject to an alternate resolution. See Gallagher v. Hannigan , 24 F.3d 68, 68
(10th Cir.1994). Accordingly, Splain has not made a substantial showing of the
denial of an important federal right and is not, therefore, entitled to a certificate
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of probable cause. The request for a certificate of probable cause is DENIED
and this matter is DISMISSED .
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Michael R. Murphy
Circuit Judge
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