Opinion ID: 2647805
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The AEDPA and the Chambers Arguments

Text: The AEDPA sets forth the standards for review of a federal claim adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Under the AEDPA, an application for habeas corpus is not to be granted with respect to such a claim unless the state court's adjudication of the claim either: (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 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. Id. In contrast, a state court decision that does not address the federal claim on the merits falls beyond the ambit of -16- AEDPA. Clements v. Clarke, 592 F.3d 45, 52 (1st Cir. 2010). This court reviews federal claims raised but unadjudicated in state court de novo. Lynch v. Ficco, 438 F.3d 35, 44 (1st Cir. 2006). And where there is no explicit discussion of the articulated federal constitutional issue amidst the discussion of issues in the state court opinion, the federal court must presume the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits. Johnson, 133 S. Ct. at 109596. The district court held that the MAC did not adjudicate petitioner's due process claims as presented at trial on the merits. We disagree. The fact that the MAC did not expressly cite to Chambers or to Holmes does not resolve the question. This court has recognized repeatedly that a state court may decide a federal constitutional claim by reference to state court decisions dealing with federal constitutional issues. DiBenedetto v. Hall, 272 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2001); see also Clements, 592 F.3d at 54 (finding MAC had adjudicated claim on the merits where it cited state high court decision citing and applying U.S. Supreme Court decision, and so was entitled to AEDPA deference). Moreover, where the state court's holding squarely addressed the merits of overlapping state and federal claims, it would elevate form over substance to impose some sort of requirement that busy state judges provide case citations to federal law . . . before federal courts will give -17- deference to state court reasoning. Zuluaga v. Spencer, 585 F.3d 27, 31 (1st Cir. 2009); see also id. (Such formalism would be contrary to the congressional intent expressed in AEDPA.). In this case, the MAC's holding adequately addressed the merits of petitioner's admissibility arguments raised at trial and argued on appeal. The MAC expressly described and rejected petitioner's contention that Francis's statements were inculpatory as to Francis. Francis, 936 N.E.2d at  n.3. In addition, the MAC found that Francis's statements lacked all indicia of reliability. Id. at . These findings go to the heart of Hodge's federal claims that due process required admission of Francis's credible confessions. When the MAC found the evidence lacked indicia of trustworthiness, it articulated the reason the Chambers claims failed. See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 300 (observing that the confessions at issue in that case were made under circumstances assur[ing] . . . reliability). The MAC cited Hearn, a case in which the MAC rejected arguments similar to petitioner's on both state and federal constitutional grounds. Id. In particular, Hearn rejected very similar Chambers due process claims: The defendant's due process claims based on Chambers[, 410 U.S. at 302], and Green v. Georgia, 442 U.S. 95, 97[ (1979)], also fail. As stated in Commonwealth v. Drew, 397 Mass. [65, ]72 n. 6, 489 N.E.2d 1233[, 1239 (1986)], Generally, Chambers based claims have been consistently rejected by the courts. It is only in rare and unique circumstances that -18- the exclusion of evidence under hearsay rules defeats the ends of justice and thereby violates the due process clause. Id. at 72, 489 N.E.2d 1233. There was here none of the indicia of trustworthiness of evidence such that its exclusion violated fundamental fairness. Hearn, 583 N.E.2d at 283. Under Chambers, due process will sometimes require admission of hearsay statements made under circumstances that provided considerable assurance of their reliability. 410 U.S. at 300. Here, the circumstances of Francis's statements provide no assurance of reliability whatsoever. Indeed, Hodge himself went so far as to characterize Francis's statements to Cunha as patently false. 9 Tr. 220. As the trial judge and the MAC correctly observed, Francis's statements were exculpatory, not inculpatory, as to Francis. Francis, 936 N.E.2d at  & n.3. Francis's statements contrast sharply with the multiple confessions at issue in Chambers. 410 U.S. at 300-01 (noting that each confession here was in a very real sense self-incriminatory and unquestionably against interest). And while the confessions in Chambers were made to a close acquaintance, id. at 300, each of the statements here was, as the trial court observed, made to partisans of codefendant Hodge. In these circumstances, we conclude that the MAC considered and rejected on the merits petitioner's Chambers claims raised at trial. Even if our conclusion were subject to question, -19- the Johnson presumption would, in the absence of contrary evidence presented by Hodge, require us to treat the federal claims as having been adjudicated on the merits. 133 S. Ct. at 1095-96. To the extent the grant of habeas was predicated upon those preserved Chambers claims, Hodge's petition for habeas must fail unless the MAC's 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). We find no such error by the MAC here. In addition, petitioner makes no claim, nor could he, that the MAC's decision was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding. Id. B. Third-Party Culprit Evidence Theory of Admissibility In footnote 4 of its opinion, quoted earlier, the MAC held that petitioner's theory, advanced to the MAC, that Francis's statements were admissible as third-party culprit statements were not made at trial, were not apt, and the exclusion created no risk of a miscarriage of justice (which is a state law exception providing relief from procedural default). Francis, 936 N.E.2d at  n.4. The MAC did not say whether it considered the new thirdparty culprit theory to be a separate doctrinal rule of no constitutional dimension or another attempted bite at the Chambers apple, which it had just rejected. Nor did it need to do so. -20- The district court, as said, erroneously construed footnote 4's procedural default holding to extend to all of petitioner's due process claims. Hodge, 2013 WL 3070660, at -4. The MAC, though, did not use the term third party culprit evidence as shorthand for Hodge's preserved argument under Chambers that the Due Process Clause trumped state evidentiary rules. Rather, it considered and rejected on the merits Hodge's due process arguments made at trial. To the extent that petitioner's due process claims on federal habeas review are predicated upon a new third-party culprit theory, we are barred from habeas review. Footnote 4 of the MAC's opinion invokes the principle that [i]n all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred absent a showing of cause and actual prejudice or a demonstrat[ion] that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). Hodge makes no attempt to show cause and actual prejudice on appeal. Nor does Hodge specifically argue that failure to consider the claim[] will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Id. The remaining question, then, is whether the federal courts are barred from giving relief based on this third-party -21- culprit argument by the independent and adequate state ground doctrine. See id. at 730 (In the habeas context, the application of the independent and adequate state ground doctrine is grounded in concerns of comity and federalism.). Typically, the fact that a claim is procedurally defaulted in state court is an adequate and independent state ground precluding federal habeas relief. Walker v. Russo, 506 F.3d 19, 21 (1st Cir. 2007). At the same time, [t]he question whether a state procedural ruling is adequate is itself a question of federal law. Beard v. Kindler, 558 U.S. 53, 60 (2009). We lay out the various steps in the adequacy of a procedural bar analysis. First, [t]o be considered an 'adequate' ground to bar habeas review, the state procedural rule that is the basis for a procedural default ruling must be regularly and consistently enforced by the state courts. Pina v. Maloney, 565 F.3d 48, 53 (1st Cir. 2009). Ordinarily, violation of [a] 'firmly established and regularly followed' state rule[] . . . will be adequate to foreclose review of a federal claim. Lee v. Kemna, 534 U.S. 362, 376 (2002) (quoting James v. Kentucky, 466 U.S. 341, 348 (1984)). There is no doubt the procedural bar ruling by the MAC here meets those requirements. In fact, the state procedural bar at issue here bears none of the hallmarks of inadequacy that would allow us to reach the merits. It was neither sporadically applied, see, e.g., Barr v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 146, 149 -22- (1964); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Flowers, 377 U.S. 288, 301-02 (1964); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 457-58 (1958), nor irregularly put into practice, see Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 423-24 (1991). We have held, with a regularity bordering on the monotonous, that the Massachusetts requirement for contemporaneous objections is an independent and adequate state procedural ground, firmly established in the state's jurisprudence and regularly followed in its courts. Janosky v. St. Amand, 594 F.3d 39, 44 (1st Cir. 2010); see also Gunter v. Maloney, 291 F.3d 74, 79 (1st Cir. 2002) (finding that Massachusetts courts regularly enforce[] the rule that a claim not raised is waived).7 The Supreme Court has repeatedly counseled that restraint is necessary to accord appropriate respect to the sovereignty of the States in our federal system. Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 281 (1989) (quoting Ulster Cnty. Ct. v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 154 (1979)). 7 There are, however, exceptional cases in which exorbitant application of a generally sound rule renders the state ground inadequate to stop consideration of a federal question. Kemna, 534 U.S. at 376; see also Holmes, 547 U.S. at 324 (Th[e] right [to present a full defense] is abridged by evidence rules that 'infring[e] upon a weighty interest of the accused' and are 'arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.' (quoting United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308 (1998))); Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302 (In these circumstances, where constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice.). -23- Under these circumstances, a federal habeas court must limit its review of a state court's procedural bar ruling to review for exorbitant application of state law. Kemna, 534 U.S. at 376. The circuits agree that Kemna means such a procedural bar ruling must stand in all but exceptional circumstances. See, e.g., Downs v. Lape, 657 F.3d 97, 107 (2d Cir. 2011) (Even if we agreed with the dissent that its characterization of counsel's statement was 'more likely,' the existence of a plausible contrary view [by the state court] leads us to conclude that the application of the rule is not exorbitant.); Barnett v. Roper, 541 F.3d 804, 811 (8th Cir. 2008) (Because no . . . unforeseeable circumstances justifying a relaxation of the [procedural] requirements were present in [petitioner]'s case, we cannot say that the [state] Court's application of [the state procedural rule] was 'exorbitant.'). On our de novo review of the district court's decision under the Kemna standard, we see no basis to upset the MAC's procedural default holding. The MAC's conclusion that a thirdparty culprit theory of admissibility was waived was certainly reasonable and its application of the procedural bar rule was not close to being exorbitant. We have carefully reviewed the record ourselves and see no mention by Hodge's counsel of a third-party culprit theory at trial. The theories of admissibility offered at trial did not include this argument. And in light of the MAC's reasonable rejection of Hodge's due process claims in the body of -24- its opinion, there was no harm to Hodge from his counsel's failure to articulate that third-party culprit theory at trial. We add a final word. The Supreme Court decision in Johnson noted that state appellate courts carrying heavy caseloads have adopted many mechanisms to handle their case load expeditiously, including short opinions. 133 S. Ct. at 1094-96. Federal habeas courts are required to keep in mind the burdens faced by those courts, including the MAC. [F]ederal courts have no authority to impose mandatory opinion-writing standards on state courts. Id. at 1095.