Opinion ID: 2981700
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: Where a district court has denied a habeas petition, and issued a certificate of appealability, “we review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error.” Hanna v. Ishee, 694 F.3d 596, 605 (6th Cir. 2012) (citing Smith v. Mitchell, 567 F.3d 246, 255 (6th Cir. 2009)). The district court’s findings of fact are clearly erroneous when “we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Canipe, 569 F.3d 597, 600 (6th Cir. 2009) (citing United States v. Ellis, 497 F.3d 606, 611 (6th Cir. 2007)). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus with respect to any claim adjudicated on the merits in state court2 unless the state adjudication: (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. 2 The government does not contest the district court’s ruling that Defendant’s claims are exhausted. 5 No. 11-1893 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). A federal court may not issue the writ “simply because it concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411 (2000). “[C]learly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” refers to the holdings, rather than dicta, of the decisions of the Supreme Court. Howes v. Fields, --- U.S. ---, 132 S. Ct 1181, 1187 (2012) (citing Williams, 529 U.S. at 362). A decision is “contrary to” clearly established federal law where “the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law . . . [or] confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at [the opposite] result.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 405. A decision involves an unreasonable application “if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme Court] has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.” Id. at 412–13. Furthermore, an unreasonable application must be distinguished from an incorrect application. Harrington v. Richter, --- U.S. ---, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785 (2011) (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 410). A state court decision which is merely incorrect, rather than unreasonable, is still entitled to deference by a federal court in a habeas proceeding. Id. “Our task is not to determine whether the state court reached the correct outcome, but rather to determine whether the court’s application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable—‘a substantially higher threshold.’” Hereford v. Warren, 536 F.3d 523, 527 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473, 127 S. Ct. 1933, 1939 (2007)). As a result, the more general the rule, the greater the leeway accorded to a state court’s decision under federal habeas review. Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786. 6 No. 11-1893 Under AEDPA, this Court examines the last state court decision on the merits. Jackson v. Bradshaw, 681 F.3d 753, 760 (6th Cir. 2012). In this case, that decision is the judgment of the Michigan Court of Appeals, People v. Phelps, No. 262367, 2006 WL 3498424, (Mich. Ct. App. 2006).
“Any criminal defendant . . . being tried by a jury is entitled to the uncoerced verdict of that body.” Lowenfeld v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 241 (1988). “The due-process ‘principle that jurors may not be coerced into surrendering views conscientiously held is so clear as to require no elaboration.’” Lyell v. Renico, 470 F.3d 1177, 1182 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting Jenkins v. United States, 380 U.S. 445, 446 (1965) (per curiam)). Nevertheless, the use of a supplemental jury charge has been explicitly sanctioned by courts for over a century. In Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501 (1896), the Supreme Court upheld a verdict where the court had given a lengthy instruction to a deadlocked jury. In that case, the court held that: While, undoubtedly, the verdict of the jury should represent the opinion of each individual juror, it by no means follows that opinions may not be changed by conference in the jury room. The very object of the jury system is to secure unanimity by a comparison of views, and by arguments among the jurors themselves. Id. Since that decision, every circuit has approved at least some supplemental charge. Lowenfeld, 484 U.S. at 238 n.1 (collecting cases). Whether a judge’s statement to a jury is coercive is considered “in its context and under all the circumstances.” Jenkins 380 U.S. at 446; accord Lowenfeld, 484 U.S. at 237. Because of the fact-intensive nature of the inquiry into jury coercion, federal habeas review is particularly deferential to the findings of the state court in this area of law. In Early v. Packer, 537 7 No. 11-1893 U.S. 3 (2002), the Supreme Court approved a state court decision that held that there was no coercion where—after twenty-eight hours of deliberations—the judge read aloud a note from the jury identifying the sole hold-out, in which the other jurors questioned her capacity for reason. Id. at 4–6. In that decision, the Supreme Court concluded its decision by stating that “[e]ven if we agreed . . . that there was jury coercion, it is at least reasonable to conclude that there was not, which means that the state court’s determination to that effect must stand.” Id. at 11. In Hardaway v. Robinson, 655 F.3d 445 (6th Cir. 2011), this Court held that even where “the trial court’s statement that ‘you will deliberate for as long as necessary’” was “similar to the mandatory language held to be coercive in Jenkins,” there was no unreasonable application of federal law. Id. at 448. In addition, even in some of the circumstances in which the United States Supreme Court has found jury coercion based on a judge’s instructions, it has not created “clearly established law” that is applicable to state law proceedings. The results in Jenkins and Gypsum were both based on the Court’s supervisory power, rather than on constitutional law.3 Early, 537 U.S. at 10; see generally United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422 (1978). See also Wong v. Smith, 131 S. Ct. 10, 11 (2010) (“The clearly established law relevant to this case is sparse.”) (Alito, J., dissenting from a denial of a writ of certiorari.) 3 In Jenkins, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded an armed robbery conviction in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where the district court judge told the jury that “[y]ou have got to reach a decision in this case.” Jenkins, 380 U.S. at 446. The case never mentioned the Due Process Clause. See id. In United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., manufacturers were convicted in federal court under the Sherman Act, and the Supreme Court found that a judge’s ex parte meeting alone with the foreman of the jury, in which the discussion turned into a substantive supplemental instruction, was sufficient grounds for a Court of Appeals to overturn a verdict. Gypsum, 438 U.S. at 461–62. The court noted, however, that the fact of the meeting alone was not sufficient. Id. at 462. As in Jenkins, there was no discussion of the Due Process Clause. See id. 8 No. 11-1893 While federal review of this area is deferential, certain factors tend to increase the likelihood that a particular instruction was coercive. In its supervisory capacity, the Supreme Court has held that a federal court of appeals should overturn a verdict if it was reached after the trial court polled the jury. Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 450 (1926); see also Lyell, 470 F.3d at 1190 (Clay, J., concurring). While this per se rule has not been extended to habeas review of state court convictions, see, e.g. Lowenfeld, 484 U.S. at 238 n.3; Lyell at 1190, the Supreme Court has suggested that combinations of polling with other circumstances might constitute coercion. Lowenfeld at 241; Lyell, 470 F.3d at 1182–83. If the court has inquired into the numerical division of the jurors, and received an answer, it is more likely that there was error requiring reversal. See Lyell, 470 F.3d at 1182–83 (discussing Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448 (1926)). But if the court has not inquired as to which side may prevail in the voting, even polling the jury may not amount to coercion. See, e.g., Early, 537 U.S. at 6. In this case, the state court’s finding that the instruction was not coercive was not an unreasonable one. The court, in essence, repeated an unobjectionable part of its instructions which had been given before the jury began deliberations. Furthermore, it did not poll the jury or inquire into its numerical division. And whatever evidence could point to coercion, such as returning the next day with a mixed verdict, could also be reasonably interpreted as a lack of coercion. For example, while one might make the conjecture that the jurors, feeling pressure to return a verdict, compromised with one another and returned a verdict convicting on only the second-degree charges, one could also see this as evidence that no jurors felt pressure to convict on the higher counts. Finally, while the instructions were given ex parte, there is no evidence that the jury felt pressured, 9 No. 11-1893 or reacted to the absence of counsel in any way, especially because the instruction given was a repetition of earlier instructions.4 Accordingly, the state court’s decision was reasonable and this Court will not disturb it.