Cortez-Lazcano v. Whitten, No. 22-5031 (10th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this CasePetitioner-appellant Daniel Cortez-Lazcano was convicted by jury of child sexual abuse. After unsuccessfully appealing his conviction to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), Cortez-Lazcano sought habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in federal court. He argued, among other things: (1) the prosecution used its peremptory strikes to remove prospective jurors based on their race, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986); and (2) that defense counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to notify him of a favorable plea offer, in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Applying the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, the district court denied habeas relief but granted Cortez-Lazcano a certificate of appealability (COA) on his Batson and Strickland claims. Because the OCCA’s decision did not involve an unreasonable application of federal law or rest on an unreasonable determination of the facts, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
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