Appellate Standards under AEDPA

Facts of the Case

On the evening of June 6, 1988, Sandra Simms used cocaine with Mr. Lewis and his girlfriend, Michelle Boggs, at a Fresno, California boardinghouse. Ms. Simms then gave Mr. Lewis money to procure more drugs but became concerned that he had stolen it and went searching for him. She found Mr. Lewis with an associate, Paul Pridgeon, and she accompanied them to Mr. Pridgeon’s apartment. While walking down an alley, Mr. Lewis struck Ms. Simms in the head with a wooden two-by-four, knocking her to the ground. He then struck her six more times, fatally strangled her, and took money from her bra.

A passing motorist discovered Ms. Simms’s body that evening and alerted the Fresno Police Department, who found Ms. Simms’s body. The next day, Mr. Pridgeon accompanied officers to the murder site, where they found the two-by-four with traces of blood. Mr. Lewis was discovered at the boardinghouse and arrested. Blood from his shoes “matched Simms’s blood and that of approximately 2 percent of the population” (Lewis, p 1172).

At trial, defense experts testified that Mr. Pridgeon’s mental illness, substance use, and mild intellectual disability impaired his ability to “perceive and recollect” Ms. Simms’s murder, which resulted in confabulation. Mr. Pridgeon’s trial testimony was also inconsistent compared with preliminary hearings, leading the defense to unsuccessfully move that his testimony be stricken from the record.

On November 26, 1990, the trial court found Mr. Lewis guilty of first-degree murder and robbery, which allowed for the death penalty. During the penalty phase, the state presented aggravating circumstances under Cal. Penal Code § 190.3(b) (1978), which allowed the jury to consider prior violent criminal activities. At age 13 years, Mr. Lewis had been involved in the murder of A.Z. Rogers, where the evidence supported that Mr. Lewis and two of his friends caused Mr. Rogers’s death.

Nine days after the death of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Lewis was brought to the police station for questioning. Detective Thomas Lean reported reading him Miranda rights and, per police reports, Mr. Lewis acknowledged understanding his rights “without ‘any overt hesitation.’” Mr. Lewis’s account of Mr. Rogers’s death changed when challenged with conflicting evidence, but appeals to his conscience eventually resulted in a confession. During the trial for the murder of Ms. Simms, Mr. Lewis recalled being read his Miranda rights but said he was scared and did not understand what “many of the words meant” (Lewis, p 1174). He also claimed that detectives denied his requests to speak to his mother. Detective Lean did not recall his request but said it would be analogous to Mr. Lewis asking for an attorney.

The defense for the trial regarding Ms. Simms’s murder argued that Mr. Lewis did not understand the wrongfulness of his acts at the time of Mr. Rogers’s murder and thus the jury should not be allowed to consider it as an aggravating factor. The SCC later affirmed the trial court’s decision to reject this assertion. Further, Mr. Lewis argued that his confession was inadmissible because he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights and that his confession was made involuntarily. The trial court denied Mr. Lewis’s motion and determined that his confession was voluntary and made knowingly and intelligently, which allowed the jury to consider his past crimes. During the four days of deliberation, the foreperson allegedly told jury members that because Mr. Lewis “had been exposed to Jesus Christ…[he] would have ‘everlasting life’ regardless of what happened to him” (Lewis, p 1186). The trial court jury sentenced Mr. Lewis to death.

The SCC affirmed the trial court’s conviction and sentence in 2001. Mr. Lewis filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C § 2254 (1996) in the district court; he amended his petition in 2008, raising 33 separate claims. His amended petition was denied, and he filed an unsuccessful motion for reconsideration under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) (2007). The district court granted a certificate of appealability for five of his claims. Mr. Lewis then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging the district court’s denial, citing the merits of his five certified and three uncertified claims as justification.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Ninth Circuit reviewed Mr. Lewis’s federal habeas petition through the lens of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), which prohibited federal courts from granting a habeas petition unless the state court’s decision was inconsistent with established federal law. To determine whether Mr. Lewis’s voluntary confession was contrary to established federal law, the Ninth Circuit considered the SCC’s opinion in Mr. Lewis’s appeal, as it was California’s last reasoned decision.

The SCC applied the “totality-of-the-circumstances test,” which considered “age, intelligence, education, experience, and capacity to understand the meaning and consequences of the given statement” (Lewis, p 1178). It determined that Detective Lean’s testimony was credible, supported the claim that Mr. Lewis knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights, and disagreed that Mr. Lewis’s age and intellectual status impaired his ability to waive his rights. Regarding Mr. Lewis’s claim that due process protections were violated by denying access to his mother at the time of questioning, the Ninth Circuit agreed that Mr. Lewis had waived his claim by not raising the concern on direct appeal.

Mr. Lewis cited J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011), arguing that the SCC erred by not considering that “custodial interrogations are inherently coercive” (Lewis, p 1179). Yet J.D.B. was decided a decade after the SCC had decided this case and was not clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1) (2009). Additionally, the trial record did not support a threatening or coercive environment influencing Mr. Lewis’s free will to confess. The Ninth Circuit was not persuaded by Mr. Lewis’s argument, relying on 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2) (2009), that the SCC erred in affirming his confession as an aggravating factor, stating that none “of the factual issues Lewis identifies entitle[d] him to relief” (Lewis, p 1180).

Mr. Lewis argued that his trial counsel was ineffective during the penalty phase by not presenting evidence of his innocence in the murder of Mr. Rogers; not providing mental health experts with mitigating psychosocial information; failing to develop, investigate, and present mitigating factors; and not objecting when witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment rights. Applying Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), the Ninth Circuit said that Mr. Lewis’s arguments failed to show that his counsel performed ineffectively or was prejudicial to his defense. The remaining evidence could not be considered under the AEDPA, as it was not part of the court record when the SCC considered the case.

The Ninth Circuit determined that the SCC did not violate the AEDPA, as they could reasonably determine that the unrepresented mitigating factors were cumulative and speculative. Not presenting these factors also failed to be prejudicial. Furthermore, Mr. Lewis’s assertion that not providing relevant information to mental health experts during the penalty phase did not support his claim that his trial counsel’s investigation fell below a reasonable standard or was prejudicial. The Ninth Circuit posited that pleading for mercy and appealing to doubts of the jury was a reasonable mitigation strategy.

Finally, Mr. Lewis argued that the foreperson’s comments amounted to unconstitutional religious discrimination. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that Mr. Lewis’s citation of Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 280 U.S. 206 (2017), was erroneous, as it had been decided 16 years after the SCC considered the argument.