Venson v. Lewis

Full title: Clifford Allan VENSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gail LEWIS…

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Date published: Apr 25, 2003

62 F. App'x 186 (9th Cir. 2003)

Opinion

62 Fed.Appx. 186 (9th Cir. 2003) Clifford Allan VENSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Gail LEWIS, Respondent-Appellee. No. 01-56285. D.C. No. CV-99-04909-CM. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. April 25, 2003

Submitted March 10, 2003. ^*

* This panel unanimously finds this case suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).

NOT FOR PUBLICATION. (See Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 36-3)

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Carlos R. Moreno, District Judge, Presiding.

Page 187.

Before CANBY, O'SCANNLAIN and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges.

MEMORANDUM ^**

** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

California state prisoner Clifford Allan Venson appeals pro se the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for writ of habeas corpus, challenging his sentences for unlawfully driving a vehicle and evading an officer, in violation of Cal. Vehicle Code §§ 10851(A) and 2800.2. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253. We affirm.

Venson contends that his two concurrent sentences of 25 years to life under California's three strikes law, Cal.Penal Code Ann. § 667 (West 1999), constitute cruel and unusual punishment. This contention was recently foreclosed by the Supreme Court's decisions in Lockyer v. Andrade, 538U.S. 63, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 1175, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003) (holding that a state court's affirmance of two consecutive 25-years-to-life sentences for petty theft was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law), and Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11, 123 S.Ct. 1179, 1190, 155 L.Ed.2d 108 (2003) (holding that petitioner's 25 years to life sentence under the California three strikes law did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment).

Therefore, it was not an unreasonable application of Federal law for the California courts to affirm Venson's 25 years to life sentences, and the district court properly denied his petition. See § 2254(d); Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 123 S.Ct. 357, 361, 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) (per curiam) (stating that the federal habeas scheme "authorizes federal-court intervention only when a state-court decision is objectively unreasonable"), reh'g denied, 537 U.S. 1149, 123 S.Ct. 957, 154 L.Ed.2d 855 (2003).

AFFIRMED.