by Sam Rutherford

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California’s order denying a prisoner’s habeas corpus petition based on his claim that the prosecutor allowed a jailhouse informant to falsely testify that he received no benefit in exchange for his testimony against the prisoner and instead testified that his motive for cooperating with the prosecution was purely altruistic.

Background

Charles Clements was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 18 years after a state jury convicted him of two counts of kidnapping to commit robbery (aggravated kidnapping), three counts of second-degree robbery, and related enhancements. Donald Boeker, a jailhouse informant, testified at trial that Clements solicited him to kill a key prosecution witness while they were both prisoners at the Orange County Jail in 2010. Boeker testified at Clements’ trial that he did not receive any benefit for his testimony and that he cooperated with law enforcement for purely altruistic reasons.

In 2016, a scandal came to light revealing the pervasive use of jailhouse informants at the Orange County Jail. A federal investigation followed, establishing that the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office routinely used informants to obtain incriminating evidence against defendants and then suppressed exculpatory information related to these practices, including hiding benefits these informants received for cooperating. The investigation also revealed that law enforcement knew or should have known that the evidence these informants provided was oftentimes false. See Tschirhart, Benjamin. “Convictions at Any Cost: DOJ Report Slams Three Decades of Snitches and Due Process Violations in California’s Orange County.” Prison Legal News, Feb. 1, 2023, pg 1.

Boeker was one of the informants involved in the scandal and revealed that he had been a snitch for multiple agencies since the mid-1990s. Clements subsequently discovered that Boeker was “working with the DA to put Charles Clements … aways [sic] for life.” Records also revealed that the Sheriff’s Office purposely placed Boeker near Clements, so he could obtain incriminating information despite knowing that Boeker heard voices, was “basically mental,” and “a little crazy.” Clements also discovered that Boeker received parole consideration for his testimony at trial.

Clements filed a habeas corpus petition in the Orange County Superior Court arguing, among other things, that the prosecution failed to disclose exculpatory evidence related to Boeker and allowed Boeker to testify falsely that he received no benefit from the State for his testimony against Clements. The superior court denied the petition, ruling that Boeker’s false testimony was not sufficiently prejudicial to merit a new trial because there was no “reasonable probability that, had it not been introduced, the result would have been different.”

The California Court of Appeal and Supreme Court upheld this decision without providing an explanation. Clements then petitioned the U.S. District Court court for habeas relief. While the District Court agreed with Clements that the superior court applied the wrong prejudice standard to his claims related to Boeker’s false testimony, it nonetheless denied relief because “there is no reasonable likelihood that Boeker’s allegedly false testimony affected the jury’s judgment as to the aggravated kidnapping or robbery.”

Clements sought review in the Ninth Circuit, which reversed and remanded in a divided opinion with instructions to grant habeas relief.

Analysis

In Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state prosecutors cannot knowingly use false testimony in an attempt to obtain a conviction and that the failure to correct such false testimony constitutes a denial of the defendant’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The “same result obtains when the State, although not soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorrected when it appears.” Id. Furthermore, that the false testimony related solely to the witness’ credibility and the fact that other impeachment evidence was admitted at trial does not alter this conclusion. Id. Reversal is required “if there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury.” United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97 (1976).

While other types of due process violations by the prosecution, such as the nondisclosure of favorable evidence, require the defendant to show that the result of his trial “would” have been different absent the violation, Napue errors only require the defendant to show that the result “could” have been different if the false testimony had not been presented, the Court explained. Jackson v. Brown, 513 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir. 2008); see also Agurs. This standard of prejudice, or materiality, is more lenient than other types of due process claims “‘not just because [Napue cases] involve prosecutorial misconduct, but more importantly because they involve a corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process.’” Dickey v. Davis, 69 F.4th 624 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Agurs). The prejudicial impact of multiple instances of false testimony is considered collectively under Napue’s more lenient standard. Jackson.

Normally, state prisoners like Clements must show that the state court decision rejecting their federal constitutional claims was either “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of” controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Federal courts apply this standard by looking through summary denials to the last reasoned, written explanation of a state court rejecting the claim. Wilson v. Sellers, 584 U.S. 122 (2018). When a state court decision is either contrary to or involves an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, federal habeas courts will review the claim de novo. Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007); Frantz v. Hazey, 533 F.3d 724 (9th cir. 2008) (en banc).

The last reasoned state court decision to address Clements’ Napue claim was the Orange County Superior Court order rejecting it. The Court stated that decision was contrary to U.S. Supreme Court precedent because it relied on an incorrect prejudice standard. The state court assessed the prejudicial impact of Boeker’s perjured testimony by asking whether it “would have” affected the jury’s verdict. However, as noted above, U.S. Supreme Court case law requires courts to assess the materiality of false testimony by asking whether there is “any” reasonable likelihood it “could have” affected the verdict. Agurs; Jackson.

The state court decision in Clements’ case was an unreasonable application of federal law because, as the Court explained, because “‘would have’ is not the same as ‘could have.’” Consequently, the Court reviewed the merits of Clements’ Napue claim de novo.

The State did not dispute that Boeker testified falsely at trial. He initially said that the parole board offered him a one-year sentence for a parole violation, but he rejected the offer. Two months later, he was offered and accepted an eight-month sentence. The prosecutor asked Boeker on direct examination whether he was “given any type of break on your sentence for parole” for assisting in Clements’ cases. Boeker responded, “No, I wasn’t.”

However, the Court noted that the truth was “multiple members of the law enforcement team working on Clements’s case were involved in obtaining the exact parole sentence Boeker desired and were in touch with Boeker about their efforts to obtain leniency.” In fact, the record showed that both detectives and investigators contacted the parole board on Boeker’s behalf and also sent memos to the prosecutor detailing these efforts. Thus, the Court concluded that under Napue, the prosecution knew or should have known that Boeker’s testimony was false and should have corrected it.

Clements argued that the false testimony was prejudicial as to his kidnapping convictions because Boeker’s testimony was highly probative of Clements’ consciousness of guilt and the identity of the victims on those counts, and knowledge that Beoker lied on the stand about his motive for testifying could have convinced the jury that he fabricated all his testimony to as a quid pro quo with the prosecution. The Court agreed because Boeker was central to the prosecution’s case on the kidnapping charges, especially in light of the fact the jury requested those portions of his testimony to be reread during deliberations.

Although recognizing that it was possible the jury could have convicted Clements without Boeker’s testimony, the Court reiterated that the relevant inquiry turns on whether there is a “reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury.” Agurs. Such a likelihood existed in Clements’s case because “the trial record demonstrates that members of the jury found Boeker to be credible and were willing to rely on his testimony to sustain a conviction,” according to the Court. Thus, the Court held that Clements established a Napue violation entitling him to a new trial based on “Boeker’s false testimony, the prosecution’s failure to correct it, and the resulting impact on Clements’s ability to impeach his credibility [which] could have affected the jury’s judgment on the aggravated kidnapping charges.”

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed the District Court’s order denying Clements’ habeas petition and remanded the case to the District Court with instructions that it grant the writ with respect to the aggravated kidnaping charges. See: Clements v. Madden, 112 F.4th 792 (9th Cir. 2024). 

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