Opinion ID: 2974680
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: standard of review

Text: Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas to a petitioner in state custody with respect to any claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless (1) the state court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court” . . . or (2) the state court’s decision “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceedings.” Taylor v. Withrow, 288 F.3d 846, 850 (6th Cir. 2002) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)). This standard requires that federal courts give considerable deference to state-court decisions. Herbert v. Billy, 160 F.3d 1131, 1135 (6th Cir. 1998) (“[AEDPA] tells federal courts: Hands off, unless the judgment in place is based on an error grave enough to be called unreasonable.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted). The first line of analysis under AEDPA involves the consistency of the state-court decision with existing federal law. A state-court decision is considered “contrary to . . . clearly established Federal law” if it is “diametrically different, opposite in character or nature, or mutually opposed.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000) (quotation marks omitted). Alternatively, to be found an “unreasonable application of . . . clearly established Federal law,” the state-court decision must be “objectively unreasonable” and not simply erroneous or incorrect. Id. at 409-11. The second line of analysis under AEDPA concerns findings of fact made by the state courts. AEDPA requires federal courts to accord a high degree of deference to such factual determinations. “A federal court is to apply a presumption of correctness to state court findings of fact for habeas No. 05-3122 Benge v. Johnson Page 5 corpus purposes unless clear and convincing evidence is offered to rebut this presumption. The appeals court gives complete deference to the federal district court’s and state court’s findings of fact supported by the evidence.” McAdoo v. Elo, 365 F.3d 487, 493-94 (6th Cir. 2004) (citations omitted).