Mitchell Carlton Sims v. Jill Brown, Warden

RYMER, Circuit Judge:

In 1987, Mitchell Carlton Sims was convicted of the first degree murder of John Harrigan, a Domino’s Pizza employee who delivered a pizza to Sims and his girlfriend, Ruby Padgett, at their motel room in Glendale, and the attempted murders of two other Domino’s employees, Kory Spi-roff and Edward Sicam. He was sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court affirmed. People v. Sims, 5 Cal.4th 405, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 537, 853 P.2d 992 (1993), cert. denied, Sims v. California, 512 U.S. 1253, 114 S.Ct. 2782, 129 L.Ed.2d 893 (1994). After the supreme court denied Sims’s petition…