Stamps v. Grounds

Background

Keith Stamps, a California prisoner, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 2009 state-court criminal judgment. An Alameda County jury convicted him of first-degree murder with an enhancement for personally discharging a firearm that caused death. The state trial court sentenced him to 50 years to life in prison. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction, and the California Supreme Court denied review.

Stamps initially raised additional claims concerning juvenile sentencing. After state-court proceedings resulted in his eligibility for a parole hearing after 25 years and an opportunity to create a record relevant to parole eligibility, Stamps acknowledged that those claims were moot. The district court dismissed those claims and proceeded with the three exhausted claims addressed in this order. Stamps proceeded without a lawyer after appointed counsel was allowed to withdraw.

Legal standard

Under the federal habeas statute, a federal court may grant relief from a state conviction only if the petitioner is in custody in violation of federal law or the Constitution. For claims already decided on the merits by a state court, relief is generally available only if the state decision was contrary to, or unreasonably applied, clearly established United States Supreme Court precedent, or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.

Claims and analysis

1. Sufficiency of the evidence. Stamps argued that the evidence did not support first-degree murder under either of the prosecution’s theories: premeditated and deliberate murder or felony murder during an attempted carjacking. The district court applied the federal standard requiring it to ask whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational factfinder could have found the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court held that the state appellate court’s rejection of this claim was not unreasonable. Evidence supporting premeditation included threatening telephone calls about a missing dog, testimony that the calls came from a number associated with a phone found where Stamps was arrested, testimony that the caller’s voice was Stamps’s, Stamps’s approach to the car with a gun, and statements connecting the encounter to earlier threats. The court also found sufficient evidence for the attempted-carjacking theory: Stamps approached the car with a gun, ordered passengers out, began getting into the driver’s seat, and shot Wheeler after Jaquez and Wheeler moved back toward the car. The petition was denied as to this claim.

2. Jury-instruction claim. Stamps challenged the use of CALCRIM No. 361, which allowed the jury to consider a defendant’s failure to explain or deny evidence against him, while stating that such a failure alone could not prove guilt and that the prosecution still had to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. The instruction was given because Stamps did not explain the fingerprint evidence found on Jaquez’s car.

The district court concluded that the state court’s rejection of this claim was not unreasonable. Even assuming the instruction lacked a proper basis, any error did not have a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict. The instruction did not tell the jury to discredit Stamps’s entire testimony; other instructions limited its application; the prosecution did not refer to CALCRIM No. 361 in closing argument; and eyewitness testimony contradicted Stamps’s account. The petition was denied as to this claim.

3. Ineffective assistance of counsel. Stamps argued that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to request CALCRIM No. 522, an instruction stating that provocation may reduce murder from first degree to second degree. The governing test required Stamps to show both that counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and that the alleged error probably affected the result.

The court held that the state appellate court reasonably rejected the claim. Defense counsel chose to pursue voluntary manslaughter based on imperfect self-defense rather than provocation, and the court treated that choice as trial strategy. The court also found no prejudice because the state appellate court determined that the evidence did not support a provocation instruction, and the instruction would not have affected a first-degree murder conviction based on felony murder. The petition was denied as to this claim.

Disposition

Judge Beth Freeman denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court also denied a certificate of appealability because Stamps had not made the required showing that a constitutional right was denied or that reasonable jurists would find the court’s assessment debatable or wrong. The court directed the clerk to enter judgment for the respondent, terminate pending motions, and close the file. The order stated that Stamps could seek a certificate of appealability from the Court of Appeals.