FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
OCT 06 2017
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CARLOS LUIS, No. 16-55596
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:14-cv-08617-ODW-JPR
v.
W. L. MONTGOMERY, Acting Warden, MEMORANDUM*
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 2, 2017
Pasadena, California
Before: RAWLINSON and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,**
District Judge.
Carlos Luis appeals the denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief under
22 U.S.C. § 2254. We have jurisdiction under 22 U.S.C. § 2253(a), and we affirm.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
1. Luis fails to identify any error in the instructions on first-degree murder and
second-degree fetal murder—the offenses on which he was convicted. Under these
circumstances, we can find no due process violation. Errors in state-law jury
instructions alone will not sustain a federal due process claim. Estelle v. McGuire,
502 U.S. 62, 71-72 (1991). Although he claims that error in the instructions on
lesser-included offenses infected his trial, he offers no explanation for how the
alleged errors relieved the government of its obligation to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt all elements of the offenses on which he was actually convicted.
Middleton v. McNeil, 541 U.S. 433, 437 (2004).
2. Luis has not identified any independent due process right to have the jury
correctly instructed on all lesser-included offenses. The Ninth Circuit has long
rejected this type of habeas claim in non-capital cases, because the United States
Supreme Court has expressly left this issue undecided. See Solis v. Garcia, 219
F.3d 922, 928 (9th Cir. 2000).
Even assuming such a claim existed, the California Court of Appeal found
no error in the disputed instructions. People v. Luis, B240741, 2013 WL 4223695,
at *11 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 13, 2013). Moreover, the California Court of Appeal
determined that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. Luis has not
demonstrated that these conclusions were unreasonable. See Davis v. Ayala, 135 S.
2
Ct. 2187, 2198-99 (2015) (holding that where a state court applies the harmless
beyond a reasonable doubt standard “a federal court may not award habeas relief
under § 2254 unless the harmlessness determination itself was unreasonable.”
(emphasis in original) (quoting Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 119 (2007))).
AFFIRMED.
3