Powers v. Dinwiddie

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
April 1, 2009
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
BOBBIE OTTO POWERS,
Petitioner-Appellant, No. 08-6213
v. (W.D. of Okla.)
WALTER DINWIDDIE, Warden, (D.C. No. CV-07-661-R)
Respondent-Appellee.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before TACHA, TYMKOVICH, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges. **
An Oklahoma jury convicted Bobbie Otto Powers of four counts of
indecent or lewd acts with a child under sixteen in violation of Okla. Stat. tit. 21,
§ 1123(A). The jury sentenced Powers to four fifteen-year prison terms; the state
trial court ordered him to serve these sentences consecutively. On direct appeal,
the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) affirmed Powers’s conviction
*
This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
**
After examining the briefs and the appellate record, this three-judge
panel has determined unanimously 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(G). The cause is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
and sentences. Powers filed an application for post-conviction relief in state
court, which the trial court denied. The OCCA affirmed the denial.
Powers then filed this habeas petition in federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254. The district court referred the case to a magistrate judge, who issued a
well-reasoned report and recommendation. The district court adopted the report
and recommendation and denied Powers’s habeas petition. The court also
declined to issue a certificate of appealability (COA) or grant Powers in forma
pauperis status for purposes of appeal.
Powers, proceeding pro se in this appeal, 1 renews his request for a COA. A
COA is a jurisdictional prerequisite to our review of the district court’s denial of
Powers’s habeas petition. See Coronado v. Ward, 517 F.3d 1212, 1215 (10th Cir.
2008) (citing Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 335–36 (2003)); see also
§ 2253(c)(1). To secure a COA, Powers must make a “substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right,” § 2253(c)(2), such that “reasonable jurists would
find the district court’s assessment of [his] constitutional claims debatable or
wrong,” Miller-El, 537 U.S. at 338.
Powers raises numerous issues in his application for a COA: (1) the OCCA
violated his due process and equal protection rights when it refused to modify his
sentence due to the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on Oklahoma’s 85
1
Because Powers proceeds pro se, we construe his filings liberally. See
Kay v. Bemis, 500 F.3d 1214, 1218 (10th Cir. 2007).
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percent rule; 2 (2) the jury instructions contained various errors that deprived him
of a fair trial; (3) evidence presented at Powers’s preliminary hearing did not
establish probable cause and he was therefore improperly bound over for trial; (4)
Powers was denied a fair trial when the state trial court admitted evidence of his
prior bad acts; and (5) his sentence was unconstitutionally excessive.
We conclude, based on our independent review of the record, and for
substantially the same reasons given by the district court, that Powers has not
made a “substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right” with respect
to any of the issues he raises, and we therefore deny his request for a COA. See
§ 2253(c)(2)
First, state law did not require the OCCA to modify Powers’s sentence to
correct the trial court’s failure to instruct on the 85 percent rule. The OCCA was
merely required to determine whether the error “resulted in a miscarriage of
justice or substantial violation of a constitutional or statutory right.” See Brown
v. State, 177 P.3d 577, 581 (Okla. Crim. App. 2008). The OCCA considered the
issue, but in spite of the 85 percent rule, found Powers’s sentence to be “fair
under the circumstances.” Powers v. State, No. F-2005-793, slip op. at 3 (Okla.
2
Under the 85 percent rule, “[p]ersons convicted of: . . . [l]ewd
molestation of a child . . . shall be required to serve not less than eighty-five
percent (85%) of any sentence of imprisonment imposed by the judicial system
prior to becoming eligible for consideration for parole.” Okla. Stat. tit. 21,
§ 13.1. In 2006, while Powers’s direct appeal was pending, the OCCA held that
trial courts should instruct jurors on the 85 percent rule prior to sentencing.
Anderson v. State, 130 P.3d 273, 283 (Okla. Crim. App. 2006).
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Crim. App. Sept. 19, 2006). Therefore, without an independent federal
constitutional violation, the OCCA did not infringe Powers’s federal due process
rights when it refused to modify his sentence under state law. Cf. Carbray v.
Champion, 905 F.2d 314, 318 (10th Cir. 1990) (holding that it is not a violation
of due process for a state court to exercise its discretion, under state law, to
modify a sentence on appeal).
Nor did the OCCA violate equal protection guarantees by failing to modify
the sentence. Even if the OCCA somehow erred in refusing to modify Powers’s
sentence, the mere misapplication of state law by a state appellate tribunal does
not amount to an equal protection violation. See Cummings v. Sirmons, 506 F.3d
1211, 1237 (10th Cir. 2007) (finding no support for the argument that a state
court violates a defendant’s equal protection rights by erroneously applying state
law). In any event, Powers has failed to show he is similarly situated to other
defendants whose sentences were modified by the OCCA, and therefore cannot
state a prima facie equal protection claim. Cf. United States v. Moore, 543 F.3d
891, 897 (7th Cir. 2008) (denying a defendant’s disparate-sentencing equal
protection claim and recognizing that, under federal law, sentencing is an
“individualized process going well beyond the details of the defendant’s instant
offense”).
Second, as the district court properly found, none of the various alleged
errors in the jury instructions warrant habeas relief. Powers claims the
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instructions did not adequately differentiate the four charges against him,
provided insufficient material facts to the jury, and did not set forth the dates of
Powers’s criminal acts. According to Powers, the instructions led the jury to
believe it was required to convict him on all four counts or none. Our review of
the record convinces us that Powers has failed to show any of the alleged errors
“so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.”
Cummings, 506 F.3d at 1240 (quoting Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154
(1977)). Powers is therefore not entitled to a COA on his various jury instruction
claims.
Third, Powers’s claim that there was insufficient evidence presented in his
preliminary hearing for the state to bind him over for trial is not redressable by
way of a habeas petition. A § 2254 petition challenges the validity of a state
prisoner’s conviction and sentence, Yellowbear v. Wyo. Attorney Gen., 525 F.3d
921, 924 (10th Cir. 2008), and the Supreme Court has long held that an “illegal
arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction,” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420
U.S. 103, 119 (1975). Because Powers was ultimately convicted, his claim
regarding the sufficiency of the evidence at his preliminary hearing cannot be
grounds for habeas relief. See Montoya v. Scott, 65 F.3d 405, 422 (5th Cir. 1995).
Fourth, with respect to the evidence of Powers’s prior bad acts, Powers has
not shown that the trial court’s evidentiary rulings violated his constitutional
rights. We give considerable deference to state court evidentiary rulings and
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“may not provide habeas corpus relief . . . unless [those rulings] rendered the trial
so fundamentally unfair that a denial of constitutional rights results.” Duckett v.
Mullin, 306 F.3d 982, 999 (10th Cir. 2002) (internal quotations omitted); see also
Smallwood v. Gibson, 191 F.3d 1257, 1277 (10th Cir. 1999) (applying the same
standard to review a state court’s decision to admit evidence of prior bad acts).
Because Powers has not shown his trial was fundamentally unfair, he is not
entitled to a COA on his evidentiary claim.
Finally, we decline to issue a COA on Powers’s excessive sentence claim.
Powers asserts that because he was seventy years old when he was sentenced, his
consecutive sentences equate to life imprisonment, which he contends is
excessive in this case. But “[t]he Eighth Amendment analysis focuses on the
sentence imposed for each specific crime, not on the cumulative sentence for
multiple crimes.” Hawkins v. Hargett, 200 F.3d 1279, 1285 n.5 (10th Cir. 1999).
Powers’s fifteen-year sentences are within the statutory range of punishment for
lewd acts with a child under sixteen. See Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 1123(A). These
sentences are not “extraordinary” or “grossly disproportionate” and therefore do
not violate the Eighth Amendment. See United States v. Gillespie, 452 F.3d 1183,
1190–91 (10th Cir. 2006) (collecting authorities).
For the foregoing reasons, Powers has failed to make a substantial showing
of the denial of a constitutional right. We therefore DENY his request for a COA
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and DISMISS this appeal. We further DENY Powers’s motion to proceed in
forma pauperis.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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