Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-15-01829/USCOURTS-ca6-15-01829-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alexander Aceval
Appellant
Duncan MacLaren
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 16a0664n.06

Case No. 15-1829

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

ALEXANDER ACEVAL,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

DUNCAN MACLAREN,

Respondent-Appellee.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF 

MICHIGAN 

BEFORE: SUTTON and COOK, Circuit Judges; MARBLEY, District Judge.*

PER CURIAM. We previously remanded Alexander Aceval’s habeas petition to the 

district court so that it could determine whether he had a valid due process claim. Because no 

clearly established federal law supports that claim, we affirm the district court’s denial of it.

During Aceval’s first trial, “the prosecutor and judge knowingly allowed witnesses to lie 

in an effort to conceal the identity of a confidential informant involved in Aceval’s arrest. 

Neither the defendant nor the jury learned of this misconduct, and the trial ended when the court 

declared a mistrial because the jury could not reach a verdict.” Aceval v. MacLaren, 578 F. 

App’x 480, 481 (6th Cir. 2014). After the mistrial, the misconduct came to light, and Michigan 

 

* The Honorable Algenon L. Marbley, United States District Judge for the Southern District of 

Ohio, sitting by designation.

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scheduled a new trial in front of a different judge. Before that retrial, Aceval pleaded guilty. He 

now claims that retrying him after the flawed first trial violates the Due Process Clause.

The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected this claim on direct review. It held that, 

although the trial court and prosecutor denied Aceval due process in the first trial, a new fair trial 

was “the appropriate remedy.” People v. Aceval, 764 N.W.2d 285, 294 (Mich. Ct. App. 2009).

We may not grant Aceval’s federal habeas petition unless the Michigan Court of 

Appeals’ decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly 

established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2254(d)(1). The problem for Aceval is that his claim is a novel one. No Supreme Court 

precedent prevented Michigan from retrying Aceval after his mistrial. To the contrary: The 

Court has long held that a mistrial based on a hung jury “constitutes no bar to further 

proceedings, and gives no right of exemption to the prisoner from being again put upon trial.” 

United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 579, 580 (1824). For these reasons, the Double 

Jeopardy Clause does not bar retrial in such circumstances. See Renico v. Lett, 559 U.S. 766, 

773 (2010); Aceval, 578 F. App’x at 483. There is no reason to think that the Due Process 

Clause works differently, and at all events there is no Supreme Court decision that says 

otherwise.

The Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision, it follows, was not contrary to or an 

unreasonable application of federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. See Renico, 

559 U.S. at 772–73. Confirming the point is the reality that the only Supreme Court decision 

that Aceval invokes in support of his position is Justice Brandeis’s dissent in Olmstead v. United 

States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928). Unfortunately for Aceval, Justice Brandeis’s exhortation that the 

judiciary “should resolutely set its face” against government malfeasance, while correct, 

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addresses the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 485 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). It thus does not amount 

to a clearly established due process precedent that bars retrial following an unrelated mistrial for 

a hung jury, see Aceval, 578 F. App’x at 483, even after his dissent was accepted by a majority 

of the Court, see Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 352–53 (1967).

For these reasons, we must affirm the district court’s denial of Aceval’s habeas petition 

and deny Aceval and MacLaren’s motions as moot.

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