Last week, the Ninth Circuit in Hoyos v. Davis found that, in affirming a death sentence, the California Supreme Court analysis of the defendant’s Batson claim of prosecutorial racial discrimination in jury selection (People v. Hoyos (2007) 41 Cal.4th 872, 899–903, overruled on other grounds in People v. McKinnon (2011) 52 Cal.4th 610) “conflicts with clearly established federal law articulated by the United States Supreme Court.” Nonetheless, the panel denied habeas corpus relief because its de novo review — applying correct federal law — came to the same bottom-line conclusion as the California Supreme Court that the Batson argument was meritless.
The Ninth Circuit said the Supreme Court erred when it “scanned the record, articulated its own race-neutral reasons why the prosecutor may have exercised his peremptory strikes, and denied Hoyos’s Batson claim on those grounds.” But the appellate court then independently found the claim meritless “because Hoyos did not meet his burden of showing of an inference of discrimination.”
Besides rejecting Hoyos’s appeal, the California Supreme Court denied two state habeas petitions, in 2009 and 2013. The Ninth Circuit rejected Hoyos’s other habeas claims in an unpublished memorandum.
The Ninth Circuit usually, but not always, refuses to overturn Supreme Court death penalty affirmances.
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