FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
August 30, 2011
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
TOD A. PABST,
Petitioner - Appellant, No. 10-3256
v. (D. Kansas)
DAVID MCKUNE, Warden, Lansing (D.C. No. 5:08-CV-03258-SAC)
Correctional Facility; STEPHEN SIX,
Kansas Attorney General,
Respondents - Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before KELLY, HARTZ, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
I. INTRODUCTION
Tod Pabst (Defendant), an inmate in a Kansas correctional facility, seeks
habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on the ground that his trial was rendered
fundamentally unfair by the involvement of a private prosecutor who had a
conflict of interest. He further alleges that the failure of both trial and appellate
*
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not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,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. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
counsel to challenge the use of the private prosecutor denied him effective
assistance of counsel. The United States District Court for the District of Kansas
denied relief but granted a certificate of appealability enabling Defendant to
appeal the denial. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). Defendant filed a timely
appeal and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and § 2253. We affirm.
II. BACKGROUND
In March 1997, Defendant killed his fiancee. See Pabst v. State, 996 P.2d
321, 324 (Kan. 2000). A jury convicted him of murder but the conviction was
overturned on appeal. See id. at 331. The victim’s parents hired a private
attorney, Pedro Irigonegaray, under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 19-717 to assist the
prosecutor at the retrial. See Pabst v. State, 192 P.3d 630, 633 (Kan. 2008).
Although Irigonegaray was assigned the handling of several parts of the trial, the
state prosecutor controlled the case and “everything that Irigonegaray did on the
case was subject to [his] prior approval.” Id. at 634; see id. at 635 (state court
found that private prosecutor acted under “direct supervision” of public
prosecutor). The jury convicted Defendant of premeditated first-degree murder,
and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. See State v. Pabst, 44 P.3d 1230,
1232 (Kan. 2002). The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. See id.
Defendant sought state postconviction relief that challenged Irigonegaray’s
role in the second trial. See Pabst, 192 P.3d at 633. The state district court
denied relief and the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed. The supreme court ruled
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that Irigonegaray’s prosecutorial role conflicted with his role in representing the
decedent’s family in proceedings to terminate Defendant’s parental rights and
adopt the decedent’s child. But it concluded that the violation was not structural
error and the error was harmless. See id. at 637–40. It also held that Defendant
had not been deprived of effective assistance of either trial or appellate counsel.
See id. at 640–41.
III. DISCUSSION
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)
provides that when a claim has been adjudicated on the merits in a state court, a
federal court can grant habeas relief only if the applicant establishes that 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.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d)(1), (2). As we have explained:
Under the “contrary to” clause, we grant relief only if the state court
arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court
on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently
than the [Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable
facts.
Gipson v. Jordan, 376 F.3d 1193, 1196 (10th Cir. 2004) (brackets and internal
quotation marks omitted). Relief is provided under the “unreasonable
application” clause only if the state court identifies the correct governing legal
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principle from the Supreme Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that
principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case. Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted). “Thus we may not issue a habeas writ simply because we conclude in
our independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly
established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must
also be reasonable.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted.)
Defendant’s first contention is that Irigonegaray’s conflicted role in his
murder trial violated constitutional due process. On this issue we need not rely
on AEDPA deference to the state court. We held in Erikson v. Pawnee County
Board of County Commissioners, 263 F.3d 1151 (10th Cir. 2001), that “the
participation of a privately-retained attorney in a state criminal prosecution does
not violate the defendant’s right to due process under federal law unless the
private attorney effectively controlled critical prosecutorial decisions,” id. at
1154. Here, both the state trial court and the federal district court found that
Irigonegaray did not have such control. Accordingly, this contention fails.
Defendant next contends that his trial counsel’s failure to move for
Irigonegaray’s removal as an associate prosecutor denied him effective assistance
of counsel. To establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Defendant
must show (1) that his counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness, i.e., that “counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not
functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment,”
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and (2) that Defendant was prejudiced by the deficient performance. Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). The Kansas Supreme Court applied this
standard in reviewing Defendant’s claim. See Pabst, 192 P.3d at 640. It ruled
that Defendant had not overcome the strong presumption that his trial counsel’s
performance was adequate because there was no testimony on the issue by
Defendant’s trial counsel and trial counsel may well have preferred Irigonegaray
to an alternative who might have replaced him. See id. at 641. Defendant has not
persuaded us that the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling was unreasonable, so we
affirm the district court’s rejection of this contention.
Finally, Defendant contends that his appellate counsel was constitutionally
ineffective for failing to raise on direct appeal that Irigonegaray operated under a
conflict of interest at his second murder trial. But the Kansas Supreme Court
ultimately ruled in Defendant’s postconviction proceedings that the error created
by Irigonegaray’s conflict was harmless. Thus, if Defendant’s appellate attorney
had pursued the issue, he would have failed to obtain relief. Because Defendant
cannot show prejudice, we affirm the district court’s denial of relief on this
contention.
IV. CONCLUSION
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We AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Defendant’s application for relief
under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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