FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAY 27 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
QUASHON COLLINS, No. 11-55246
Petitioner - Appellant, D.C. No. 2:09-cv-07572-PA-SS
v.
MEMORANDUM*
P.D. BRAZELTON, Acting Warden,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted May 12, 2014**
Pasadena, California
Before: PREGERSON, REINHARDT, and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges.
Quashon Collins, a California state prisoner, appeals the district court’s
denial of his petition for the writ of habeas corpus. We affirm.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
1. The state court’s finding that the trial court adequately considered
Collins’s second request for substitute counsel did not “result[] in a decision that
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)(2). A state court’s
factual determination is only unreasonable “if it is so clearly incorrect that it would
not be debatable among reasonable jurists.” Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1500
(9th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), overruled on other
grounds by Gonzalez v. Arizona, 677 F.3d 383, 389 n. 4 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc).
Collins does not dispute that the state court gave him a full hearing when he
first asked for substitute counsel pursuant to People v. Marsden, 465 P.2d 44 (Cal.
1970). At that hearing, the court allowed Collins to explain why he wanted new
counsel. Collins explained that he wanted counsel to request the personnel records
of the undercover officer, desired to take his case to trial, and wanted his brother as
a witness. The court then questioned Collins’s counsel regarding these complaints
before denying Collins’s request.
At the hearing on Collins’s second request to substitute counsel, which is at
issue on this appeal, the court asked an open-ended question, “What is your request
and why?” In response, Collins raised two issues–the denial of a motion for the
undercover’s personnel records and counsel’s delay in contacting his brother–that
had been raised during the first hearing. Further, when the court asked him
whether anything had changed since the last hearing, Collins again complained of
counsel’s delay in speaking with his brother. Although the second hearing was
truncated, given the court’s familiarity with Collins’s complaints, the state court
did not deprive him of an adequate hearing, and its finding that “nothing has
changed” since the first Marsden hearing was not unreasonable.
2. To the extent Collins contends that the state court’s denial of his
Marsden request “resulted in a decision that was was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” 28 U.S.C. §
2254(d)(1), we disagree for the same reasons stated above.
AFFIRMED.