Dunn v. Covello

Background

Keylen M. Dunn filed this pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal law that allows a state prisoner to seek relief from a state-court conviction. A California jury found Dunn guilty of robbery and, after a retrial, guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 17 years to life. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction, and the California Supreme Court denied review.

Dunn raised three claims: (1) the trial court should have instructed the jury on involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense; (2) the court gave an erroneous instruction concerning accident and should have given a separate instruction; and (3) the court improperly admitted evidence of two earlier incidents, a robbery and threats involving a bar bouncer.

Involuntary-Manslaughter Instruction

The court denied the first claim. It explained that the Supreme Court has required instructions on lesser included offenses in capital cases but has not clearly established that such an instruction is constitutionally required in a non-capital case. Dunn’s conviction was not a capital case.

The court also held that the California Court of Appeal reasonably found that the trial evidence did not support an involuntary-manslaughter theory. Dunn’s proposed theory was that he had merely brandished a knife and that the victim accidentally fell on it, but the court found no evidence supporting that scenario. The court further concluded that the evidence did not show Dunn lacked the intent to kill or failed to understand the danger of stabbing someone in the chest. Under the federal standard governing review of state convictions, the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law or an unreasonable determination of the facts.

Accident Instruction

The court denied the second claim. The California Court of Appeal found that the trial court had not actually instructed the jury on accident. The trial court’s statement that the evidence might show an accident was interpreted as addressing whether Dunn committed the stabbing or had the required criminal intent, not as giving a separate accident defense instruction.

The court also concluded that the trial court was not required to give an accident instruction because defense counsel did not request one during the second trial and the evidence did not support the theory that the victim accidentally fell on Dunn’s knife. The federal court added that an alleged error under state law would not by itself justify federal relief. Even assuming the trial court’s statement could be viewed as an instruction, Dunn did not show that it so infected the trial that his conviction violated due process, meaning basic constitutional fairness.

Prior-Bad-Acts Evidence

Dunn argued that admitting evidence of the earlier robbery and threats violated due process. The respondent argued that this claim was unexhausted and procedurally defaulted. Exhaustion generally requires a person to present a federal claim to the state courts first; procedural default can prevent federal review when a claim was not properly preserved or presented under state procedures.

The court did not decide those procedural arguments. Instead, it reviewed the claim on the merits under a federal statute allowing a court to deny an unexhausted claim when it plainly lacks merit. The court reviewed this claim directly because Dunn had presented only a state-law argument about the evidence in his appeal, not the federal due-process argument.

The court held that questions about whether the evidence complied with California’s evidence rules were state-law questions that could not support federal habeas relief. It further held that the evidence did not make the trial fundamentally unfair. The earlier incidents could permissibly support the inference that Dunn could act intentionally, understand actions and consequences, and form the mental state needed for murder, particularly in response to defense evidence about his mental and cognitive conditions. The court therefore denied this claim.

Disposition

The court denied Dunn’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It also denied a certificate of appealability, finding that Dunn had not made the required showing that reasonable judges could debate the court’s rejection of his constitutional claims.