F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
September 26, 2005
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
Clerk of Court
RODNEY BOYD,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 04-3407
(D.C. No. 03-CV-3476-WEB)
RAYMOND ROBERTS, Warden, El (D. Kan.)
Dorado Correctional Facility; PHILL
KLINE, Kansas Attorney General,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HENRY , ANDERSON , and TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
Petitioner-Appellant Rodney Boyd appeals from the district court’s denial
of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant 28 U.S.C. § 2254. He attacks
his state convictions for rape and aggravated burglary arguing that the trial court
violated his constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial by excluding
defense-witness testimony of his prior sexual relationship with the victim under
Kansas’s rape shield statute. Specifically, Boyd contends that the trial court’s
ruling resulted in violations of his Sixth Amendment rights to confrontation,
compulsory process, and effective assistance of counsel and his Fourteenth
Amendment right to due process. We granted a certificate of appealability limited
to Boyd’s ineffective assistance of counsel and due process claims.
Background
In 1997, the State of Kansas convicted Boyd of rape and aggravated
burglary. Before trial, Boyd’s counsel moved to admit witness testimony
concerning an alleged prior sexual relationship between Boyd and the victim.
Boyd’s counsel erred, however, by failing comply with the procedural
requirements of Kansas’s rape shield statute, which required the submission of
affidavits from the witnesses. 1
The trial court noted the procedural error but
1
Kansas’s rape shield statute provides that a defendant seeking to introduce
evidence of a rape victim’s previous sexual conduct must make a motion at least
seven days before trial, which “shall be accompanied by an affidavit in which an
offer of proof of the previous sexual conduct of the complaining witness is
(continued...)
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ultimately determined on the merits that the proffered evidence was speculative,
irrelevant, and not admissible under Kansas’s rape shield law. Therefore, Boyd
was barred from introducing witness testimony of his prior sexual relationship
with the victim.
After appealing his conviction unsuccessfully, Boyd filed a state habeas
corpus petition pursuant to K.S.A. § 60-1507, which was denied by the trial court.
On appeal, the Kansas Court of Appeals remanded the matter back to the trial
court for an evidentiary hearing to determine the nature of the excluded evidence.
The Court of Appeals concluded that a hearing was necessary in order to
determine whether, as a matter of law, the evidence would have been admissible
if Boyd’s trial counsel had complied with the procedural requirements of the rape
shield statute.
At the evidentiary hearing, Boyd testified that at the time of trial, he was
prepared to submit an affidavit describing the nature of his sexual relationship
with the victim. One of his two witnesses, Stephan Manuel, also gave testimony
regarding Boyd’s relationship with victim. Manuel testified that at the time of
Boyd’s trial he was prepared to give an affidavit stating that he had occasionally
dropped Boyd off at the victim’s apartment building at night and picked him up
1
(...continued)
stated.” K.S.A. § 21-3525(b).
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the next morning. Boyd’s other witness, Clara Williams, did not testify.
However, Boyd’s trial counsel testified that Williams did not have first-hand
knowledge of the nature of Boyd’s relationship with the victim and could only
testify that she had once seen the victim doing Boyd’s hair. When asked why she
never submitted affidavits from these witnesses, Boyd’s counsel testified that she
had decided not to do so because of the nature of the testimony and the court’s
pre-trial ruling that the evidence was inadmissible.
After the evidentiary hearing, the trial court again held that the evidence
was inadmissible under Kansas’s rape shield law. On appeal, the Kansas Court of
Appeals agreed. The Court of Appeals held that the evidence might have been
admissible had Boyd established a distinctive sexual pattern with the victim that
so closely resembled his version of the alleged encounter so as to tend to prove
consent, but that he failed to make such a showing. Holding that the evidence
was speculative and irrelevant, the court stated:
Furthermore, Manuel’s and Williams’ versions were simply not
relevant. The fact that Boyd was dropped off at an apartment
building, especially since Boyd’s girlfriend lived on the floor above
[the victim’s], was not demonstrative of a prior sexual relationship or
of [the victim’s] consent to Boyd’s entering her apartment.
Williams’ belief that [the victim] and Boyd were sexually involved
because [the victim] did Boyd’s hair was also too speculative.
Boyd v. State , No. 87,822 at 9 (Kan. Ct. App. Jun. 27, 2003) (unpublished
opinion) (Aplee. Br. Attach. 3). Accordingly, the Court of Appeals upheld the
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trial court’s dismissal of Boyd’s habeas petition and rejected Boyd’s Sixth
Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. 2
The Court of Appeals
determined that any procedural errors made by Boyd’s trial counsel with respect
to proffering the evidence had not affected the outcome of the trial and therefore
Boyd suffered no prejudice.
The District Court Proceedings
After exhausting his state remedies, Boyd filed a pro se petition for writ of
habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his
petition, Boyd again argued that the trial court’s exclusion of witness testimony
concerning his sexual relationship with the victim violated his Sixth and
Fourteenth Amendment rights. He argued that his trial was unfair because the
excluded evidence would have established his defense of consent and disproved
an element of the burglary charge and that his right to effective assistance of
counsel was violated by his counsel’s failure to obtain witness affidavits
corroborating his claim of a sexual relationship with the victim.
2
In his appeal from the trial court’s denial of his state habeas petition, Boyd
had also argued that the court’s exclusion of evidence violated his Fourteenth
Amendment right to due process. However, the Kansas Court of Appeals did not
address this argument, holding only that Boyd’s constitutional right to effective
assistance of counsel had not been violated. For purposes of 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(b)(1)(A), we hold that by raising the issue, Boyd exhausted all available
remedies in the state court concerning his due process claim.
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The district court denied the petition in its October 5, 2004, 12-page
decision. After analyzing the Kansas Court of Appeals’s decision under the
deferential standard prescribed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (AEDPA), the district court concluded that the trial court’s exclusion
of the evidence at issue was not contrary to clearly established federal law. 3
See
Boyd v. Roberts , No. 03-3476-WEB, 2004 WL 2782566, at *4 (D. Kan. Oct. 5,
2004) (unpublished decision). Citing Michigan v. Lucas , 500 U.S. 145, 150-52
(1991), and this court’s decision in Richmond v. Embry , 122 F.3d 866, 872
(10th Cir. 1997), the district court held that Kansas’s rape shield law passed
muster because the state has a legitimate interest in the exclusion of evidence of a
rape victim’s sexual history. Boyd , 2004 WL 2782566, at *2-3. The court
concluded that Kansas case law prevented the state from excluding all evidence of
sexual history and at the same time provided a reasonable standard to determine
the relevancy of such evidence. Id. at *3. In Boyd’s case, the court found that
due to the speculative nature of the proffered evidence, its exclusion
3
Under AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas relief on a claim
adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court 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.
Young v. Workman , 383 F.3d 1233, 1236 (10th Cir. 2004) (quotation marks
omitted); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
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compromised neither Boyd’s defense of consent nor his defense to the burglary
charge. See id . at *3,5. With respect to his ineffective assistance of counsel
claim, the court held that any procedural errors made by Boyd’s trial counsel in
failing to proffer evidence were harmless given the trial court’s determination on
the merits that the evidence was not admissible. Id. at *6. Ultimately, the district
court concluded that “the trial court’s decision to exclude the evidence was not so
fundamentally unfair as to deprive petitioner of his rights to a fair trial and due
process under the 6th and 14th Amendments.” Id. at *4.
Analysis
Generally, in reviewing the district court’s decision, “we accept the district
court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, and we review the
court’s legal conclusions de novo .” Richmond , 122 F.3d at 870. In this case,
since the district court did not hold an evidentiary hearing, but based its decision
solely on review of the state court record, we conducted an independent review of
the district court’s decision. See Cook v. McKune , 323 F.3d 825, 831 (10th Cir.
2003). Having reviewed the record, the briefs, and the applicable law pursuant to
these standards, we conclude that Boyd has raised no reversible error in this case.
For the same reasons articulated by the district court in its order of October 5,
2004, we hold that the challenged decision of the state trial court did not violate
Boyd’s constitutional rights.
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Therefore, the district court’s denial of the writ is AFFIRMED .
Entered for the Court
Robert H. Henry
Circuit Judge
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