United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 19-2064

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Kemen Lavatos Taylor, II

lllllllllllllllllllllPetitioner - Appellant

v.

Governor Mark Dayton; Tom Roy, Commissioner of Corrections

lllllllllllllllllllllRespondents - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota

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 Submitted: June 18, 2020

Filed: August 4, 2020

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Before GRUENDER, WOLLMAN, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. 

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KOBES, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Kemen Lavatos Taylor II on one count of first-degree murder

and two counts of attempted first-degree murder arising from the deaths of three

teenagers in a planned, gang-related shooting. The Minnesota Supreme Court

affirmed his convictions. State v. Taylor, 869 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Minn. 2015). Relevant

here, the state trial court “issued a list of ‘basic rules’ for spectators at trial” that
prohibited “profanity, threatening gestures, gum chewing, and cell phones,” and it

“required spectators to show photographic identification before being allowed entry

into the courtroom.” Id. at 10. On direct appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court

rejected Taylor’s argument that the identification requirement violated his Sixth

Amendment public trial right. Id. The district court1

 dismissed Taylor’s petition for

a writ of habeas corpus but granted a certificate of appealability on his “open trialright claim.” D. Ct. Dkt. 38 at 7. We affirm. 

To grant a state prisoner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect

to a claim adjudicated on the merits, the prisoner must show that the state court

judgment “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 the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state court’s decision is contrary

to clearly established law “if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the

governing law set forth” by Supreme Court cases or “if the state court confronts facts

that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and

arrives at” an opposite result. Bell v. Cone, 543 U.S. 447, 452–53 (2005) (quoting

Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000)). An unreasonable application of

clearly established law results “when a state court correctly identifies the governing

legal standard but either unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular case or

unreasonably extends or refuses to extend the legal standard to a new context.” Munt

v. Grandlienard, 829 F.3d 610, 614 (8th Cir. 2016) (citing Williams, 529 U.S. at 407). 

Unreasonable does not mean that the state court decision is merely incorrect: the

prisoner must show it is “so lacking in justification that there was an error well

understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded

disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 103 (2011). 

1

 The Honorable David S. Doty, United States District Judge for the District of

Minnesota, adopting the report and recommendations of the Honorable Leo I.

Brisbois, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota.

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Taylor claims the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision is both contrary to and

an unreasonable application of Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39 (1984) and Presley v.

Georgia, 558 U.S. 209 (2010) (per curiam). It is neither. Both Waller and Presley

involved undisputed courtroom closures, and as Presley makes clear, they provide

“standards for courts to apply before excluding the public from any stage of a

criminal trial.” 558 U.S. at 213–14. In contrast, the Minnesota Supreme Court held

that no closure occurred because “there is simply no evidence that the requirement

was enforced, or, if so, that even a single individual—identifiable or not—was

actually excluded.” Taylor, 869 N.W.2d at 11–12. The court emphasized that it did

“not ‘uphold’ the trial court’s photo identification order,” and only held “that the

record simply does not support reversal.” Id. at n.4. As a result, the Minnesota

Supreme Court decided “whether a closure meriting Sixth Amendment concern has

occurred at all,” D. Ct. Dkt. 38 at 5, and did not need to evaluate whether the state

trial court properly applied the standards for closing a courtroom set forth in Waller

and Presley. Taylor points to no other alleged violation of Supreme Court precedent,

and we hold that his petition was properly denied. 

Taylor also claims the Minnesota courts improperly barred him from

supplementing the record post-conviction to show that the photographic identification

requirement barred some spectators from the courtroom. The district court denied the

claim as procedurally defaulted and did not grant a certificate of appealability on it. 

D. Ct. Dkt. 38 at 5, 7. Although our jurisdiction depends on a certificate issuing, the

failure of a certificate to specify an issue is not a jurisdictional bar to our review. 

Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 143 (2012). We may exercise our discretion to

address an issue outside the scope of the certificate in appropriate circumstances,

Armstrong v. Hobbs, 698 F.3d 1063, 1068–69 (8th Cir. 2012), but we decline to

expand the certificate of appealability here. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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