Rivera v. Broomfield

Background

Jaime Rivera, an incarcerated person proceeding without a lawyer, filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his state-court conviction. The opinion states that an Alameda County jury convicted him of twelve sexual offenses against minors and that he was sentenced to an aggregate term of forty years in prison. The state appellate court affirmed the conviction and judgment but modified the judgment to reflect 454 days of credit for time served. The California Supreme Court denied review in 2020. Rivera did not report filing a state habeas petition.

The court had previously screened Rivera’s initial petition and found one potentially valid federal claim: that his right to due process was violated when the jury was instructed with CALCRIM No. 1193. Rivera’s first amended petition omitted that claim and instead raised a sentencing-error claim and an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. The court previously dismissed the sentencing claim with prejudice because it alleged only a state-law error, which is not a basis for federal habeas relief. It dismissed the ineffective-assistance claim because the allegations were conclusory but allowed Rivera to amend that claim. The opinion states that omitting the previously recognized due-process claim from the first amended petition waived it at that stage.

Current Screening

The court reviewed the second amended petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2243 and Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases. The court stated that the second amended petition was substantively the same as the initial petition, with four handwritten pages identifying purported inconsistencies in the evidence. It did not raise ineffective assistance of counsel.

The court found that the second amended petition states one cognizable claim for federal habeas relief: Rivera’s claim that the jury instruction using CALCRIM No. 1193 violated due process. “Cognizable” here means that the claim is legally eligible for consideration in a federal habeas case. The court did not resolve the merits of the due-process claim. Instead, it found that the claim warranted an answer from the respondent.

Orders

The court directed the clerk to substitute Warden Ron Broomfield for the previously named respondent because Broomfield was Rivera’s current custodian. It granted, effective retroactively, Rivera’s request for more time to file the second amended petition and deemed that petition timely filed. It also granted Rivera’s request for more time to respond to the answer.

The court determined that the respondent’s December 30, 2021 answer addressed the due-process claim in the second amended petition. It reset the briefing schedule and ordered Rivera to file and serve a traverse—a written response to the answer—by March 4, 2022. The order states that it terminated Docket Nos. 17 and 22; it did not grant or deny the habeas relief sought on the due-process claim.