United States District Court, D. Arizona
DEATH
PENALTY CASE
ORDER
Honorable Roslyn O. Silver Senior United States District
Judge
Before
the Court is Petitioner Tracy Allen Hampton's motion to
alter or amend the judgment. (Doc. 108.) Respondents filed a
response and Petitioner filed a reply. (Docs. 118, 119.) For
the following reasons, Petitioner's motion is denied.
I.
Applicable Law
A party
may move a court to alter or amend a judgment within 28 days
after the entry of the judgment. Fed. R. Civ. 59(e).
“[T]here are four basic grounds upon which a Rule 59(e)
motion may be granted: (1) if such motion is necessary to
correct manifest errors of law or fact upon which the
judgment rests; (2) if such motion is necessary to present
newly discovered or previously unavailable evidence; (3) if
such motion is necessary to prevent manifest injustice; or
(4) if the amendment is justified by an intervening change in
controlling law.” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Herron,
634 F.3d 1101, 1111 (9th Cir. 2011). “[A]mending a
judgment after its entry remains ‘an extraordinary
remedy which should be used sparingly.'”
Id.
II.
Discussion
Petitioner
asserts that this Court “committed manifest errors of
law and fact” related to its denial of Claims 2, 3, and
4. The Court disagrees.
A.
Claim 2
In
Claim 2, Petitioner alleged that his constitutional rights
were violated when the trial court admitted the testimony of
George Ridley, a jailhouse informant. Specifically, he
alleged that the state's failure to timely disclose
Ridley's presentence report violated Brady v.
Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and that the state's
failure to correct inaccurate testimony by Ridley violated
Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959). (Doc. 40 at
55-65.)[2]This Court concluded that Petitioner was
not prejudiced by any alleged Brady error, and that
any violation of Napue was not material. (Doc. 103
at 14-17.)
Petitioner
asserts that when the Court denied Petitioner's
Brady claim, it failed to consider the content of
Ridley's presentence report, which included the opinions
of Ridley's former wife and probation officer “that
Ridley was being untruthful with regard to Hampton” and
otherwise had a reputation for untruthfulness. (Doc. 108 at
9.) He asserts that this potential evidence was not
cumulative to the impeachment offered during trial.
Petitioner made these arguments in his reply in support of
his petition (Doc. 68 at 30-33; see also Doc 40 at
60-61), and they remain unpersuasive.
“[W]hen
defense counsel sufficiently impeaches a government witness
in cross-examination and closing argument, the defendant
cannot later claim a Brady[] violation on account of
additional undisclosed evidence supporting the
impeachment.” United States v. Kohring, 637
F.3d 895, 908 (9th Cir. 2011); see also Barker v.
Fleming, 423 F.3d 1085, 1100 (9th Cir. 2005) (finding no
materiality where undisclosed impeachment evidence “was
not the glue holding together the prosecution's
case” and “heaped-on impeachment evidence”
would not have altered the witness's “already
shattered credibility”). Ridley was cross examined
regarding the truthfulness of his testimony, the basis for
his testimony, and his motives to lie. This impeachment
occurred during the guilt phase of trial (RT 4/30/02 at
73-75, 97, 105-19) as well as the penalty phase of trial (RT
1/16/03 at 29-38). The content of Ridley's presentence
report reiterated that Ridley's incarceration gave him a
motive to lie about Hampton's case-it did not provide any
“new and different ground of impeachment.”
Barker, 423 F.3d at 1097.
Petitioner
emphasizes that although trial counsel presented evidence
that Ridley had been arrested for stalking and adamantly
wanted to avoid incarceration, counsel allegedly failed to
establish that Ridley wanted to avoid incarceration for the
specific purpose of pursuing his “obsess[ion] with
stalking his ex-wife.” (Doc. 108 at 10.) This is not a
new or different ground on which to impeach Ridley. Ridley
testified extensively about the charges against him, the
possibility that he would be incarcerated for a significant
period of time, and his plea agreement with the state, and he
ultimately conceded that he was willing “to testify and
say whatever it took” to avoid incarceration. (RT
4/30/02 at 105- 12, 114-20; see also RT 1/16/03 at
29-38.) Additional testimony regarding the precise reasons
Ridley wanted to avoid incarceration would have been
cumulative to the extensive testimony regarding Ridley's
plea agreement and his admission that he was willing to lie
in court. Petitioner did not establish that there is any
probability that the additional information contained in
Ridley's presentence report regarding his stalking habits
would have had any impact on the jury's verdict. See
Browning v. Baker, 875 F.3d 444, 464 (9th Cir. 2017)
(“Under Brady, evidence is material ‘if
there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been
disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would
have been different.'”).
Petitioner
next asserts that the Court erred in concluding that any
Napue violation was not material because the
standard for materiality under Napue is low (Doc.
108 at 13- 14), and Ridley's credibility was not as
thoroughly impeached during the penalty phase as it had been
during the guilt phase (id. at 14-15). The Court
again disagrees that the alleged Napue error could
have had any effect on the penalty-phase verdict.
Petitioner
agrees (Doc. 108 at 13) that the standard for materiality
under Napue is whether “there is
‘any reasonable likelihood that the false
testimony could have affected the judgment of the
jury.'” Jackson v. Brown, 513 F.3d 1057,
1076 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting Hayes v. Brown, 399
F.3d 972, 985 (9th Cir. 2005)). Here, it is not reasonably
likely that the ...