Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Thomas Johnson sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 from a twenty-eight-year sentence imposed in California. The sentence rested in part on a prior out-of-state conviction for attempted armed robbery, which was treated as a prior serious felony and a first strike under California's Three Strikes Law, Cal. Penal Code § 667(a)(1), (e)(1). Johnson argued that the enhanced sentence violated the Sixth Amendment as interpreted in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 489-90 (2000).
His specific complaint was that the California Court of Appeal misapprehended the facts. According to Johnson, that court wrongly concluded that he had admitted, during his plea colloquy in the earlier case, to personal use of a dangerous or deadly weapon, and it affirmed the enhanced sentence on that basis. The Southern District of California denied the petition, and Johnson appealed.
The Ninth Circuit panel decided the appeal without oral argument after submission on October 22, 2026, and filed its disposition on October 28, 2026. It stated that it had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(c). Because the parties were familiar with the factual and procedural history, the memorandum does not recount it.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed. It reviewed the denial of the petition de novo and recited the AEDPA standard. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), relief is unavailable unless the state court's adjudication was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court law, or rested on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the state-court record.
The panel did not decide whether Johnson satisfied that standard. It said it need not decide whether the state court decision was contrary to clearly established federal law. Assuming a constitutional violation, the court held that Johnson failed to show prejudice. An Apprendi error warrants habeas relief only if it had a substantial and injurious effect on the sentence, citing Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993), and Estrella v. Ollison, 668 F.3d 593, 598-600 (9th Cir. 2011). The court noted that Johnson made no attempt to establish grave doubt that a jury would have reached the same conclusion.
The only disposition is affirmance of the denial of the petition. The memorandum does not decide whether the plea colloquy actually supported a finding of weapon use, and it does not decide whether the state court's reading of that colloquy was factually unreasonable. It also does not hold that Apprendi was or was not violated. The panel declined to reach those questions.
Key Takeaways
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief on prejudice grounds and expressly left the underlying Apprendi and AEDPA questions undecided.
- Even assuming a constitutional error, a habeas petitioner must show it had a substantial and injurious effect on the sentence under Brecht and Estrella.
- Johnson lost in part because he made no attempt to show grave doubt that a jury would have reached the same conclusion.
- The court did not decide whether the California Court of Appeal misread Johnson's plea colloquy, so that factual dispute remains unresolved by this panel.
- The disposition is a non-precedential memorandum, not for publication, and may be cited only as permitted by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Why It Matters
The memorandum shows how a federal habeas court can resolve an Apprendi challenge to a recidivist enhancement without deciding the harder AEDPA question. When the petitioner cannot show prejudice under Brecht, the panel can affirm without ruling on the state court's treatment of a plea colloquy or the scope of clearly established law.
Because the decision is unpublished, it carries no precedential weight and offers no holding on Apprendi's application to out-of-state prior convictions. Its practical lesson for petitioners is procedural: a claim that a state court misread a prior plea record should be paired with a developed argument that a properly instructed jury could not reasonably have reached the same conclusion.