David Watkins v. Larry Small
David Dion WATKINS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Larry SMALL, Warden, Respondent-Appellee
- Proceeding
- appeal
- Trial court
- United States District Court for the Southern District of California
- Trial judge
- Thomas J. Whelan (district judge)
- Outcome
- affirmed — AFFIRMED.
- Area
- civil
- Panel
- Cudahy (author), Fletcher, Kim M. Wardlaw
Analysis
No analysis yet. When one exists it is a model's reading of this opinion — the rulings it reviewed, whether it agrees with the court, and the authorities it checked — shown beside the court's own disposition, never in place of it. How analyses are made.
Opinion
FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION OCT 20 2010
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DAVID DION WATKINS, No. 08-56363 Petitioner - Appellant, D.C. No. 3:07-cv-00196-W-POR v. MEMORANDUM * LARRY SMALL, Warden, Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Thomas J. Whelan, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 6, 2010 Pasadena, California Before: CUDAHY, * * WARDLAW and W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judges.
David Dion Watkins appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), and we affirm.
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The Honorable Richard D. Cudahy, Senior United States Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation. It was not unreasonable for the California Court of Appeal on review of Watkins’s state habeas petition to determine that Watkins failed to show that the prosecution engaged in discriminatory conduct under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S.
79 (1986). The trial record shows that at least one African-American was empaneled on the jury. Even if the trial court had conducted a comparative juror analysis scrutinizing the justifications proffered for excluding the African- American panelists and considering whether those justifications applied equally to white jurors, see Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231, 241 (2005), Watkins fails to show that such an analysis would have demonstrated that the prosecutor’s race- neutral justifications for the peremptory challenges were pretextual. See Kesser v. Cambra, 465 F.3d 351, 360 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (“[I]f a review of the record undermines the prosecutor’s stated reasons, or many of the proffered reasons, the reasons may be deemed a pretext for racial discrimination.” (alteration in original)
(quoting Lewis v. Lewis, 321 F.3d 824, 830 (9th Cir. 2003))).
Therefore, the California Court of Appeal’s decision was neither an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law nor an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding.
AFFIRMED.