United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

FILED No. 23-20435 January 17, 2025 ____________ Lyle W. Cayce Feanyichi E. Uvukansi, Clerk

Petitioner—Appellant,

versus Eric Guerrero, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division,

Respondent—Appellee. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas USDC No. 4:21-CV-1624 ______________________________ Before Southwick, Haynes, and Douglas, Circuit Judges. Leslie H. Southwick, Circuit Judge: A Texas state prisoner brought a Section 2254 application that chal- lenged his capital murder conviction. He is currently serving a sentence of life without parole. At trial, the sole identification witness testified he had no agreement with prosecutors regarding his testimony. The witness, though, did have an agreement. In state habeas proceedings, the court determined that jurors learned enough about the agreement from another witness to make the false testimony immaterial. The federal district court dismissed Uvukansi’s application, holding that the state court’s decision was not Case: 23-20435 Document: 92-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/17/2025

No. 23-20435

contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court precedent. We AFFIRM. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In 2012, three people were shot and killed outside a nightclub in Hou- ston, Texas. Uvukansi v. State, No. 01-14-00527-CR, 2016 WL 3162166, at *1–2 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] June 2, 2016, pet. ref’d). An eyewit- ness named Jeresano claimed he saw the shooter’s face and picked Uvukansi out of a photo array. Id. A jury found Uvukansi guilty of capital murder. Id. at *1. Because the state had not sought the death penalty, he was automati- cally sentenced to life without parole. Id. His conviction was affirmed on direct appeal. Id. Jeresano was the sole identification witness at trial. The prosecutor later stated that Jeresano testified “with such conviction his testimony alone convinced the jury of [Uvukansi’s] guilt.” As a federal judge put it, Jeresano “made [the] case. A triple murderer got convicted because of [him], basi- cally.” Undoubtedly, Jeresano’s testimony was critical to the State’s case. Uvukansi argues he was not allowed at trial to elicit the facts that would have called Jeresano’s credibility into question. Jeresano had pled guilty to federal drug charges. It is now clear that an agreement had been reached that if Jeresano testified against Uvukansi, the state prosecutor would write a letter to the sentencing judge detailing his cooperation, and the federal prosecutor would move for a sentence below the ten-year statutory minimum.1 The state prosecutor’s help plausibly led to Jeresano’s being sen- tenced only to three years of probation in the federal prosecution.

_____________________ 1 This motion is referred to as a “5K1.1 motion,” after Section 5K1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. That provision allows for a departure below the recommended

2 Case: 23-20435 Document: 9