UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT TERRY EUGENE IVERSEN, No. 22-35076

Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:20-cv- 01524-AA v. DAVE PEDRO, OPINION

Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Ann L. Aiken, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 7, 2023 Portland, Oregon

Filed March 27, 2024

Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Eric D. Miller, Circuit Judges, and Frank Montalvo, * District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Montalvo

* The Honorable Frank Montalvo, United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation. 2 IVERSEN V. PEDRO

SUMMARY **

Habeas Corpus

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Terry Eugene Iversen’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a case in which the district court rejected Iversen’s claim that a life without parole (LWOP) sentence, imposed after Iversen pleaded guilty to public indecency, was grossly disproportionate to his offense in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Applying the demanding standard required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and acknowledging that some fair-minded jurists may disagree on the correctness of Iversen’s LWOP sentence, the panel held that the Oregon state court’s decision concerning Iversen’s sentence is not contrary to the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. The panel could not conclude that Iversen’s sentence raises an inference of gross disproportionality, and held that the sentence pursuant to Oregon’s legislatively-mandated sex offender recidivism statute is not constitutionally infirm in light of the gravity of Iversen’s offense and criminal history.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. IVERSEN V. PEDRO 3

COUNSEL Stephen R. Sady (argued), Chief Deputy Federal Public Defender; Tihanne K. Mar-Shall, Assistant Federal Public Defender; Federal Public Defender’s Office, Portland, Oregon; for Petitioner-Appellant. Rolf C. Moan (argued), Senior Assistant Attorney General; Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General; Ellen F. Rosenblum, Oregon Attorney General; Oregon Department of Justice, Office of the Oregon Attorney General (Salem), Salem, Oregon; for Respondent-Appellee. Walter Fonseca, Oregon Justice Resource Center, Portland, Oregon, for Amicus Curiae Oregon Justice Resource Center.

OPINION MONTALVO, District Judge:

Oregon inmate Terry Eugene Iversen appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He maintains the district court erred in rejecting a claim that a life without parole (LWOP) sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to public indecency was grossly disproportionate to his offense. I We have jurisdiction over Iversen’s appeal under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We review de novo the district court’s denial of his habeas petition. Murray v. Schriro, 745 F.3d 984, 996 (9th Cir. 2014). But we are constrained by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which governs habeas review of state convictions. Valerio v. 4 IVERSEN V. PEDRO

Crawford, 306 F.3d 742, 763 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc). Under AEDPA, we must defer to the last state court’s reasoned decision on any claim that was adjudicated on the merits unless that decision is (1) “contrary to, or involved an unreasona