Rivas v. Ryan
- Proceeding
- appeal
- Trial court
- United States District Court for the Southern District of California
- Trial judge
- Napoleon A. Jones (district judge)
- Outcome
- affirmed — AFFIRMED.
- Area
- civil
Analysis
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Opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FEB 19 2010
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS ROY C. RIVAS, Jr., No. 07-56165 Petitioner - Appellant, D.C. No. CV-04-01154-J(JMA)
v. MEMORANDUM * STUART J. RYAN, Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Napoleon A. Jones, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 5, 2010 Pasadena, California Before: SCHROEDER, FISHER and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
Roy Rivas, a California state prisoner, appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition. Rivas argues he was denied a fair trial because the jury foreman lied during voir dire. He further argues he was deprived of a peremptory challenge because of the untruthful answers.
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. The California Court of Appeal did not unreasonably determine that the jury foreman, Rudy Medina, answered all questions on voir dire truthfully. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Medina himself brought the prior relationship with Rivas’
mother to the trial court’s attention; the relationship had been brief and ended over twenty years before the trial. The court reasonably determined that Medina did not lie and therefore Rivas had failed to establish implied bias. See Fields v. Brown, 503 F.3d 755, 773 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc). Rivas had a two day evidentiary hearing in California Superior Court to establish that Medina was biased and failed to do so. See id.
Rivas also claims that Medina’s untruthful answers deprived him of a peremptory challenge. Because a state court’s good-faith deprivation of a peremptory challenge “is not a matter of federal constitutional concern,” we reject this claim as well. Rivera v. Illinois, 129 S. Ct. 1446, 1453 (2009).
In reaching this result, we assume proper jurisdiction. Because the petition lacks merit, we need not address the State’s argument that Evans v. Chavis, 546 U.S. 189 (2006), renders Rivas’ petition untimely.
AFFIRMED.