Robert McDaniels v. Richard Kirkland

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Robert McDaniels v. Richard Kirkland, 627 F. App'x 672 (9th Cir. 2015)

Robert McDaniels v. Richard Kirkland

Opinion

MEMORANDUM *

Robert McDaniels and Keelon Jenkins appeal from denials of their separate 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petitions for writs of habeas corpus. We address them Batson claims in a published opinion filed concurrently with this memorandum disposition. Here, we address their ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims.

We affirm the district court’s denial of McDaniels’s habeas petition with respect to his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. Fairminded jurists could disagree about whether McDaniels’s claim is meritorious, which precludes federal habeas relief. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101-05, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011).

Jenkins’s briefing on appeal addresses ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims for which we did not previously grant a certificate of appealability (“COA”). We construe this briefing as a motion to expand the COA. See 9th Cir. R. 22-l(e). So construed, we grant the motion in part and deny it in part. We deny the motion with respect to Jenkins’s claim under People v. *673 Marsden, 2 Cal.3d 118, 84 Cal.Rptr. 156, 465 P.2d 44 (1970) (in bank), which we recognize as an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim for purposes of federal habeas, see Robinson v. Kramer, 588 F.3d 1212, 1216 (9th Cir. 2009). We grant the motion, however, with respect to Jenkins’s other ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, which is based on his allegation that trial counsel attacked Jenkins’s credibility at trial. Because this claim is “adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further,” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484, 120 S.Ct. 1595, 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000), we order the State to submit briefing in response to it. We return this claim to the three-judge panel for further proceedings consistent with this disposition.

No. 09-17339 AFFIRMED. Motion to expand the certificate of appealability GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART in No. 11-15030; No. 11-15030 REMANDED IN PART to the three-judge panel.

*

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.

Reference

Full Case Name
Robert McDANIELS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Richard J. KIRKLAND, Warden, Respondent-Appellee; Keelon T. Jenkins, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Michael S. Evans, Warden, Respondent-Appellee
Cited By
2 cases
Status
Unpublished