Cornelis Moore v. William Duncan

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT DEC 21 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
CORNELIUS GEROME MOORE, No. 10-17646
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:98-cv-01625-WBS-
JFM
v.
WILLIAM DUNCAN, Warden; STATE MEMORANDUM *
OF CALIFORNIA,
Respondents-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
William B. Shubb, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted November 14, 2011 **
San Francisco, California
Before: HAWKINS and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and DUFFY, District Judge.***
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
Cornelius Gerome Moore (“Moore”) appeals the district court’s denial of his
28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition challenging his guilty plea in California state court to the
crimes of burglary of an inhabited dwelling, robbery, assault with intent to commit
the felony of oral copulation and taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent.
Specifically, Moore challenges 1) the district court’s judgment that his guilty plea
was voluntary and 2) the district court’s rejection of his claim that his trial counsel
provided ineffective assistance in failing to advise him concerning possible mental
health defenses. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253 and we
affirm.
As the facts and procedural history are familiar to the parties, we do not recite
them here except as necessary to explain our disposition. We review de novo the
district court’s denial of a petition for writ of habeas corpus. Lopez v. Thompson,
202 F.3d 1110, 1116 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Under the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), which governs Moore’s petition,
“[f]ederal habeas relief may not be granted for claims subject to § 2254(d) unless it
is shown that the earlier state court’s decision ‘was contrary to’ federal law then
***
The Honorable Kevin Thomas Duffy, United States District Judge for
the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
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clearly established in the holdings of this Court; . . . or that it ‘involved an
unreasonable application of’ such law; or that it ‘was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts’ in light of the record before the state court.” Harrington
v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785 (2011) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)) (citations
omitted). “Factual findings and credibility determinations made by the district
court in the context of granting or denying the petition are reviewed for clear error.”
Lambert v. Blodgett, 393 F.3d 943, 964 (9th Cir. 2004).
Both of Moore’s claims in the district court’s certificate of appealability must
be treated under the Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688 (1984), standard
regarding ineffective assistance of counsel. In order to succeed on these claims,
Moore must show that “his counsel provided deficient assistance and that there was
prejudice as a result.” Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 787. Both the state court and the
district court explicitly found that Moore has failed to show facts sufficient to
satisfy the prejudice element, namely that there is a reasonable probability that “but
for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on
going to trial.” Smith v. Mahoney, 611 F.3d 978, 986 (9th Cir. 2010) (citation
omitted).
Here, the state court found that the evidence in the record failed to
demonstrate that Moore could have proven that he was not guilty by reason of
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insanity by a preponderance of the evidence due to the contradictory and
speculative nature of Moore’s alleged mental illness. Further, the district court,
after carefully analyzing Moore’s psychiatric history, held that the state court’s
determination that Moore was not prejudiced was not unreasonable under § 2254, as
the record “is equivocal about the role that illness played in [Moore]'s intent the
night of the crimes, or his capacity to know and understand what he was doing that
night, or his ability to distinguish right from wrong when he broke into the victim's
house and committed the crimes to which he pleaded guilty.” Because we do not
find that these “[f]actual findings and credibility determinations made by the district
court in the context of granting or denying the petition” are clearly erroneous,
Lambert, 393 F.3d at 964, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Moore’s
petition for habeas relief.
AFFIRMED.
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