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Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3047

STEVEN D. LISLE, JR.,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

GUY PIERCE,

Respondent-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 13-4025 — James E. Shadid, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 28, 2015 — DECIDED AUGUST 11, 2016

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and

HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Steven D. Lisle, Jr. was 

convicted of first degree murder and aggravated battery with 

a firearm and was sentenced to 37 years in prison. He seeks a 

writ of habeas corpus because he contends that the state trial 

court admitted as evidence testimonial statements made by 

the surviving victim in violation of the Confrontation Clause 

of the Sixth Amendment. The district court denied the writ, 

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and we affirm. The state courts did not apply Supreme Court 

precedent unreasonably in holding that the testimony in 

question, about a wounded man’s statement to his aunt while 

waiting for an ambulance that Lisle had shot him, was not a 

“testimonial” out-of-court statement and thus was permitted 

under the Confrontation Clause.

I. Facts

A. The Shootings and the Hearsay Testimony

On September 15, 2003, in Rock Island, Illinois, LaRoy Owens was shot and killed and Ronald Hearn was wounded. Petitioner Lisle was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. 

Our focus is on trial testimony of Angela Lee, who is 

Hearn’s aunt. She was asleep at home on the morning of September 15, 2003 when Hearn woke her up by yelling outside 

her back door. With five through-and-through bullet wounds, 

Hearn had somehow managed to walk to Lee’s house a few 

blocks from the scene of the shootings. Lee called 911 and she 

and Hearn waited outside for help. While they waited, Lee 

asked Hearn some questions. The focus of Lisle’s Confrontation Clause claim is the following testimony: 

A I told him that he wasn’t going to die. You 

know, he said numerous of [sic] times that he 

was going to die, and I told him that he wasn’t. 

I told him he was a soldier. Soldiers didn’t die. 

But deep down inside, I didn’t think he was going to make it. Looking at him, I didn’t think he 

was going to make it.

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Q Okay. You didn’t think he was going to 

make it. Out there in the chair by the van, did 

you ask him anything? 

A Yes, I did.

Q What did you ask him? 

A I asked him who did that to him. 

Q What did he say?

A I said: Nell, who did this to you? And he 

said – And I asked him again. I said: Who did 

this to you? And he said: “Auntie,” he said, “Roy 

shot, Auntie. Roy shot.” And then I said: “Roy 

did this to you?” He said: “No, Auntie. Roy 

shot. Roy shot.” And I said: “Nell, tell me who 

did this to you. Tell me.” And he grabbed me—

I kind—I kind of leaned down, and he says: 

“Steve.” And he said: “And Korey was with 

him.” 

Hearn himself did not testify in Lisle’s criminal trial. He was 

not shown to have been unavailable, but neither the prosecution nor defense called him. The jury found Lisle guilty of 

first-degree murder and aggravated battery.

B. State Appeals and Federal Court Proceedings

In his direct appeal, Lisle argued that allowing Lee to testify about Hearn’s out-of-court statement that “Steve” (Lisle) 

had shot him violated his Confrontation Clause rights. The 

state appellate court affirmed in an opinion issued October 5, 

2007. The date is important because it is the date of the state 

courts’ last decision on the merits of Lisle’s federal claim. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), the issue is whether the state court’s 

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decision was an unreasonable application of Supreme Court 

precedent at that time. The Illinois Supreme Court denied 

Lisle’s petition for leave to appeal.

After unsuccessful efforts to obtain post-conviction relief 

in the state courts, Lisle filed a federal habeas corpus petition 

in 2013. He raised several claims, but the claim that was 

properly before the federal court was his Confrontation 

Clause claim based on Lee’s testimony about Hearn’s out-ofcourt statement that Lisle had been the shooter. The district 

court denied relief, finding that the state appellate court’s decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of 

Supreme Court precedent. The district court declined to issue 

a certificate of appealability. We granted a certificate on the 

Confrontation Clause claim, and we appointed counsel who 

have ably represented Lisle. 

II. Discussion

We explain first that the state courts did not apply Supreme Court precedent unreasonably in rejecting Lisle’s Confrontation Clause claim. We conclude by addressing a procedural issue regarding Lisle’s exhaustion of state court remedies.

A. The Confrontation Clause Claim

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 

“An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall 

not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated 

on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim—(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary 

to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of 

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the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based 

on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the 

evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 

U.S.C. § 2254(d). We review de novo the district court’s legal 

conclusions. Jones v. Basinger, 635 F.3d 1030, 1040 (7th Cir. 

2011).

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy 

the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” 

Fitting that right together with exceptions to the general prohibition on hearsay has long provided work for the nation’s 

courts. Since 2004, that debate has been defined by the Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 

(2004), and cases following it. Lisle contends that Hearn’s answer to his aunt’s question was “testimonial” hearsay under 

Crawford so that its admission violated his Confrontation 

Clause rights.

In Crawford, the issue was whether the Confrontation 

Clause was violated by admitting as evidence the recorded 

statement a wife gave to a police officer about her husband’s 

participation in a fight. Id. at 38–41. The Court found a constitutional violation and drew a critical but undefined line between “testimonial” and “nontestimonial” hearsay. The Court 

explained:

Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is 

wholly consistent with the Framers’ design to 

afford the States flexibility in their development 

of hearsay law—as does Roberts, and as would 

an approach that exempted such statements 

from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. 

Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, 

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the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior 

opportunity for cross-examination.

541 U.S. at 68, citing Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980). The 

Court left “for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of ‘testimonial.’” Id. The Court said the 

term applies “at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to 

police interrogations.” Id. The wife’s recorded statement was 

part of a police interrogation, so it was testimonial and its admission violated the Confrontation Clause. See id. at 65–69.

In 2006, before the state courts rejected Lisle’s claim, the 

Court addressed in more detail when a hearsay statement is 

“testimonial” in Davis v. Washington:

Statements are nontestimonial when made in 

the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary 

purpose of the interrogation is to enable police 

assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They 

are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing 

emergency, and that the primary purpose of the 

interrogation is to establish or prove past events 

potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. 

547 U.S. 813, 822 (2006). The Davis opinion actually decided 

two cases, Davis itself and Hammon v. Indiana, No. 05-5705, 

and the different outcomes in the two cases helped sharpen 

the difference between testimonial and non-testimonial hearsay. In Davis itself, the victim of domestic violence acts called 

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911 and said that a former boyfriend was “jumpin’ on me 

again.” Id. at 817. During the call, the woman said that her 

attacker had just run out the door. Davis was charged with a 

felony violation of a domestic no-contact order. At trial, the 

woman did not testify. Over Davis’s objection based on the 

Confrontation Clause, the recording of the woman’s 911 call 

was played for the jury.

In Hammon v. Indiana, No. 05-5705, police arrived at a 

home to respond to a “reported domestic disturbance.” Davis, 

547 U.S. at 819 (quotation marks omitted). When the police 

asked the woman sitting outside what was going on, she originally said that “nothing was the matter.” After an officer 

talked with her further, she explained that she had been in a 

physical altercation with her husband, Hammon. The State 

charged Hammon with domestic battery and with violating 

his probation. The State subpoenaed the woman, but she did 

not appear for the bench trial. Instead the officer who had 

questioned the woman testified about what she told him and 

authenticated her affidavit. Hammon objected on Confrontation Clause grounds. The trial court admitted the affidavit as 

a “present sense impression” and the woman’s statements as 

“excited utterances” that “are expressly permitted in these 

kinds of cases even if the declarant is not available to testify.” 

Hammon was found guilty on both charges. Id. at 821.

The Supreme Court affirmed Davis’s conviction but reversed Hammon’s. The Court explained that the statements to 

police in Davis were nontestimonial because they were made 

as the events were happening, rather than describing past 

events. 547 U.S. at 827. By contrast, the statements to police in 

Hammon were more similar to the statements in Crawford, 

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made “hours after the events” described, rendering them testimonial. Id. at 827, 829. The Court said that the interrogation 

in Hammon was part of the investigation into possible criminal 

past conduct and there was no emergency in progress. Id. at 

829. The responding officer was seeking to determine “what 

happened,” not “what is happening.” Id. at 830. 

Crawford, Davis, and Hammon all involved statements 

made to law enforcement. At the time of the last state court 

decision in this case in 2007, and even up until now, the Supreme Court has not yet applied Crawford to statements made 

to people who are not law enforcement officers. The Court 

also has declined to adopt a “categorical rule excluding ...

from the Sixth Amendment’s reach” statements made to individuals who are not law enforcement officers, see Ohio v. 

Clark, 576 U.S. —,—,135 S. Ct. 2173, 2180—81 (2015), citing Davis, 547 U.S. at 823 n.2, so that question remains open in Supreme Court jurisprudence. 

Our inquiry under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) is whether the 

state court’s rejection of Lisle’s Confrontation Clause claim 

was an “unreasonable application” of controlling Supreme 

Court precedent in 2007, meaning that it was “so lacking in 

justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 

103 (2011). Lisle cannot satisfy this demanding standard.

Apart from the problem that the Supreme Court had not 

held in 2007 that a statement to someone other than a law enforcement officer can be testimonial under Crawford, the statement falls at best in between the two statements in Davis and 

Hammond. Under those circumstances, we cannot say that the 

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state court’s decision was an unreasonable application of 

those precedents.

The state appellate court found that Hearn’s out-of-court 

accusation was non-testimonial under Crawford. The state

court reasoned that Hearn, like the victim in Davis, “was also 

in dire need of medical attention. Had Hearn made the exact

same statement to a 911 operator, Davis would mandate that 

we find the statement non-testimonial in nature.” 877 N.E.2d 

119, 131–32 (Ill. App. 2007). The state court also applied the 

“objective circumstances” test that the Illinois Supreme Court 

had adopted in People v. Stechly, 870 N.E.2d 333 (Ill. 2007).

In Stechly, the Illinois Supreme Court said that “the Court 

clearly stated that the proper inquiry is what ‘the circumstances objectively indicate’ the purpose of the interrogation 

to be.” 870 N.E.2d at 361, quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 822. The 

court continued:

There is no reason to believe that the applicability of the confrontation clause would depend on 

objective manifestations of intent when the 

statement is the product of police interrogation, 

but would depend on actual subjective intent 

outside of this context. Accordingly, in our view, 

the proper question is not whether the declarant 

actually did intend or foresee that his statement 

would be used in prosecution. Rather, the question is whether the objective circumstances indicate that a reasonable person in the declarant’s 

position would have anticipated that his statement likely would be used in prosecution.

870 N.E.2d at 361.

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Following this test, the appellate court said in Lisle’s case: 

a reasonable person shot five times who has just 

made his way to his aunt’s house and who has 

not received protection from his assailant or 

medical attention would not have anticipated 

that the statement to his aunt would be used in 

prosecution. He would, undoubtedly, have anticipated that identifying his assailant to his 

aunt would allow his aunt to take precautionary 

measures should the assailant also arrive at her 

residence. Therefore, Hearn’s statement to Lee 

was nontestimonial in nature. 

877 N.E.2d at 132. 

Lisle argues that Lee’s questions to the wounded Hearn 

were like the police questions to the battered wife in Hammon: 

questions seeking information about past events for use in a 

future prosecution. No reasonable speaker or questioner, he 

says, could think that knowing the identity of the shooter 

would help medical personnel in treating Hearn. In Lisle’s 

view, no objective evidence indicated that Hearn’s statement 

to Lee was for the purpose of resolving an emergency. Instead, 

Lee wanted the information only to bring justice in the event 

Hearn did not survive the shooting.

There is room for fair argument on these points, but Lisle 

has not shown that the state court decision was an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, in 2007 or even 

today. In light of Davis and factual differences between this 

case and Hammon, it was not unreasonable for the state court 

to find that Hearn’s statement to Lee was part of an effort to 

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deal with an ongoing emergency and thus was nontestimonial. Hearn arrived at Lee’s home about 4:00 a.m. She had no 

idea what provoked the shooting or whether the person who 

shot Hearn was looking for him to ensure that he was mortally wounded. Recall that Hearn referred to Roy, Steve, and 

Korey by only their first names, implying that Lee knew them. 

With the information on who had done the shooting, Lee 

could flee immediately if she saw them coming. The state 

courts could reasonably treat the emergency as continuing. 

Emergency responders had not yet arrived.

The fact that Lee had called emergency personnel before 

she began asking Hearn questions does not change the result. 

The state courts could reasonably think that Lee or a reasonable person in her situation would have been concerned about 

the shooter following Hearn and arriving at her house before 

emergency responders arrived. Hearn’s statement to his aunt 

is similar to the 911 call in Davis. The woman in Davis was 

describing events as they were still happening. So was Hearn, 

reporting events from a few minutes earlier, so recent that 

they could reasonably be considered ongoing. 

Federal habeas law does not require state courts to predict 

what the Supreme Court will do in future cases, but we must 

note that the state courts here correctly anticipated the Supreme Court’s holding in Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344 

(2011). In Bryant, the Court held that a statement to police officers in a “nondomestic dispute, involving a victim found in 

a public location, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound, and 

a perpetrator whose location was unknown at the time the police located the victim” was not testimonial. Id. at 359, 377–78. 

The Court adopted an objective test: “To determine whether 

the ‘primary purpose’ of an interrogation is ‘to enable police 

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assistance to meet an ongoing emergency,’ Davis, 547 U.S. at 

822, which would render the resulting statements nontestimonial, we objectively evaluate the circumstances in which the 

encounter occurs and the statements and actions of the parties.” 562 U.S. at 359 (emphasis added). 

Bryant explained that the “existence of an ongoing emergency is relevant to determining the primary purpose of the 

interrogation because an emergency focuses the participants 

on something other than ‘proving past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.’” Id. at 361, quoting Davis, 

547 U.S. at 822 (brackets and footnote omitted). Whether “an 

emergency exists and is ongoing is a highly context-dependent inquiry.” Id. at 363. The Court said that “the statements 

and actions of both the declarant and interrogators provide 

objective evidence of the primary purpose of the interrogation.” Id. at 367. Therefore, 

when a court must determine whether the Confrontation Clause bars the admission of a statement at trial, it should determine the ‘primary 

purpose of the interrogation’ by objectively 

evaluating the statements and actions of the 

parties to the encounter, in light of the circumstances in which the interrogation occurs. The 

existence of an emergency or the parties’ perception that an emergency is ongoing is among 

the most important circumstances that courts 

must take into account in determining whether 

an interrogation is testimonial because statements made to assist police in addressing an onCase: 14-3047 Document: 55 Filed: 08/11/2016 Pages: 15
No. 14-3047 13

going emergency presumably lack the testimonial purpose that would subject them to the requirement of confrontation.

Id. at 370 (footnote omitted).

Because the state court’s rejection of Lisle’s Confrontation 

Clause claim was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent in 2007, the district court 

correctly denied federal habeas relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 

2254(d)(1). Hearn made his statement to someone other than 

a law-enforcement officer, while he was still waiting for an 

ambulance, bleeding from five through-and-through shots, 

just eighteen minutes after the shootings. Under an objective 

circumstances inquiry, it does not matter whether Lee or 

Hearn thought he was going to survive. The admitted hearsay 

was non-testimonial and its admission did not violate the 

Confrontation Clause. 

B. Exhaustion of State Remedies

Before concluding, we must address a procedural issue. A 

federal habeas corpus petitioner is required to exhaust his 

available state remedies before seeking federal relief. 28 

U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). Federal courts must often wrestle with 

problems posed by so-called “mixed” petitions, which combine exhausted and unexhausted claims. See, e.g., Rhines v. 

Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509 (1982) 

(imposing “total exhaustion” requirement).

At the time of oral argument in this appeal, Lisle still had 

two post-conviction matters pending in state courts, though 

neither involved his Confrontation Clause claim. We requested supplemental briefing on whether Lisle had exCase: 14-3047 Document: 55 Filed: 08/11/2016 Pages: 15
14 No. 14-3047

hausted all available state court remedies concerning his federal habeas petition, which included claims other than the 

Confrontation Clause claim in the district court. Both sides 

agreed that Lisle’s pending state petitions do not render his 

federal habeas petition a mixed petition that would preclude 

our review. We explain briefly our agreement. 

When Lisle filed his federal habeas petition in 2013, he had 

exhausted state remedies on his Confrontation Clause claim, 

having raised it in his direct appeal and his petition for leave 

to appeal to the state supreme court. However, the presence 

of even one unexhausted claim in a federal petition can prevent a federal court from reviewing the petition, even as to 

exhausted claims. See Rhines, 544 U.S. at 275; Rose, 455 U.S. at 

522. When Lisle filed his federal habeas petition, he had two 

collateral review proceedings still pending in state courts, 

which raised the prospect that his federal petition might have 

combined exhausted and unexhausted claims.

The two pending proceedings are a motion for leave to file 

a successive post-conviction petition, and an appeal from the 

denial of a motion for relief from judgment. The parties’ supplemental briefs have provided the details on those pending 

matters, and we agree that they do not overlap with any of the 

claims in Lisle’s federal petition. The successive petition he is 

seeking leave to file does not present any federal claim that 

overlaps with his 2013 federal habeas petition. The other 

pending state court matter was a petition for relief from judgment pursuant to 735 ILCS 5/2-1401. The petition raised three 

claims that also do not overlap at all with the federal claims 

in Lisle’s federal petition. Accordingly, our concerns about a 

possible mixed petition have been resolved. The ConfrontaCase: 14-3047 Document: 55 Filed: 08/11/2016 Pages: 15
No. 14-3047 15

tion Clause question for which we granted a certificate of appealability was properly before the district court and is 

properly before us. 

The judgment of the district court denying Lisle’s petition 

for a writ of habeas corpus is AFFIRMED.

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