Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-826_p702.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

25 

Opinion of the Court 

view, the state court improperly ignored the possibility that
Mr. Davenport’s shackling might have influenced the jury
toward  a  conviction  for  first-degree  murder  rather  than
second-degree murder.  But Mr. Davenport never presented
this theory to the Michigan Court of Appeals.  See Brief for 
Appellant  in  People  v.  Davenport,  No.  306868,  pp. 22–24
(arguing only that Mr. Davenport’s shackling influenced ju-
rors’ receptiveness to his self-defense theory).  Nor does it 
directly  respond  to  what  the  state  court  called  the  “over-
whelmin[g]”  record  evidence  he  committed  murder  in  the 
first  degree.  In  these  circumstances  we  cannot  say  that 
every  fairminded  court  would  have  both  identified  and 
adopted Mr. Davenport’s forfeited theory. 

* 

Even  assuming  Mr.  Davenport  met  his  burden  under 
Brecht, he cannot do so under AEDPA.  And a federal court 
cannot grant habeas relief unless a state prisoner like Mr.
Davenport satisfies both this Court’s equitable precedents 
and Congress’s statute.  The judgment of the Court of Ap-
peals is 

Reversed.