Randy Joe Skains v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA and BILL LOCKYER, Attorney General

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent*
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
The Honorable Kenneth F. Ripple, Senior United States Circuit Judge**
for the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
RANDY JOE SKAINS,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
STATE OF CALIFORNIA and BILL
LOCKYER, Attorney General,
Respondents - Appellees.
No. 09-15838
D.C. No. 2:06-cv-00127-LKK-
CHS
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
Lawrence K. Karlton, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 16, 2010
San Francisco, California
Before: RIPPLE, Senior Circuit Judge, RYMER and FISHER, Circuit Judges.**
Randy Joe Skains appeals from the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C.
FILED
JUL 06 2010
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C OU R T OF APPE ALS

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We review de novo a district court’s decision to deny a habeas petition and1
review its factual findings for clear error. McMurtrey v. Ryan, 539 F.3d 1112,
1118 (9th Cir. 2008). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of
1996 (“AEDPA”), a federal court may grant habeas relief on a claim “adjudicated
on the merits” in state court if the decision “was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the
Supreme Court of the United States” or “was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court
proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)-(2). The standard of review is “highly
deferential . . . [and] demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the
doubt.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002) (per curiam). If, however,
the state court denied a claim without reasons, we independently review the record
to determine whether its decision was contrary to, or an unreasonable application
of, clearly established federal law.
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§ 2254 habeas corpus petition. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253, and1
we affirm.
I
The California Court of Appeal’s determination of Skains’s Napue claim
was not contrary to clearly established federal law or an unreasonable application
of it. Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959). A Napue claim will succeed
only if the prosecution knows or should have known that the testimony was false,
whereas Skains offers only speculation that the prosecutor knew or should have
known that Mills’s impeachment testimony was inaccurate at the time it was

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For this reason, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying2
Skains’s motion to depose the trial prosecutor. United States v. Zuno-Arce, 209
F.3d 1095, 1103 (9th Cir. 2000) (speculation is not a basis for an evidentiary
hearing on a Napue claim), overruled on other grounds by Valerio v. Crawford,
306 F.3d 742, 763-64 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc).
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given. In any event, there is no reasonable likelihood that Mills’s testimony could2
have affected the verdict. Mills acknowledged that Skains and Miller could have
spoken regardless of their housing; no viable defense depended on the testimony;
and although Mills’ testimony was used to impeach Skains, the prosecution also
impeached him in several other ways.
II
“[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal defendants a meaningful
opportunity to present a complete defense.” Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690
(1986) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, “[t]he accused does not have
an unfettered right to offer testimony that is incompetent, privileged, or otherwise
inadmissible under standard rules of evidence.” Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400,
410 (1988). Reviewing the record independently, we conclude that excluding all
but two of Skains’s letters did not violate Skains’s right to present a full and
complete defense and was neither contrary to clearly established federal law nor an
unreasonable application of it. The excluded letters were cumulative, Skains

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testified that he wrote many others, and the jury heard ample evidence about the
nature, extent, and duration of Skains’s fear of Miller.
III
Reviewing Skains’s claim of judicial bias de novo because the trial court
rejected it on procedural grounds and the California Supreme Court denied it
without comment, we conclude that the prosecutor’s minimal contribution to the
trial judge’s campaign did not create an appearance of bias or a risk of actual bias.
Cf. Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 129 S. Ct. 2252, 2265 (2009) (concluding
that a litigant’s expenditure of $3 million to support a judge’s campaign resulted in
“an extraordinary situation where the Constitution requires recusal”). Nor did the
trial judge’s evidentiary rulings demonstrate bias. See Liteky v. United States, 510
U.S. 540, 555 (1994).
Reviewing the record independently, we conclude that the District Attorney
had no unconstitutional conflict of interest under clearly established federal law.
See Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238, 250-51 (1980); see also Young v.
United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S.A., 481 U.S. 787, 808-09 (1987). Skains
failed to show that bringing a motion in limine to suppress evidence regarding the

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Miller arrest warrant was motivated by personal or professional interests instead of
legal merit.
IV
Considering the conduct of the trial court “in its context and under all the
circumstances,” Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 237 (1988), the trial court’s
jury poll was not coercive, nor was it impermissibly one-sided or directed toward a
return of a guilty verdict. Both times the jury returned the verdict forms, it found
Skains guilty of second-degree murder on the only form that gave them the choice
to do so and found that Skains had used a deadly weapon, a finding which
presupposed Skains had been found guilty of a crime. In this context, the judge’s
queries pertained to a mistake in the verdict forms, not the verdict itself. Each
juror endorsed the guilty verdict for second-degree murder in spite of ample
opportunity to repudiate it. Moreover, Skains’s counsel did not object to the
judge’s method of polling the jury, which “indicates that the potential for coercion
argued now was not apparent to one on the spot.” Lowenfield, 484 U.S. at 240. In
these circumstances, we cannot say that the poll was constitutionally infirm under
clearly established federal law.
AFFIRMED.

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