Opinion ID: 5648768
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: AEDPA: Michael Williams and Pinholster

Text: In Michael Williams, the Court held that when the state courts have not adjudicated a habeas petitioner’s claims on the merits and the petitioner diligently attempted to develop the facts of that claim in state courts, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) permits federal courts to hold an evidentiary hearing for that claim. See Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 437. Michael Wayne Williams was convicted of a capital crime. See id. at 426. He petitioned for postconviction relief in the Virginia courts, alleging that the Commonwealth had failed to disclose its unofficial deal with one of the witnesses. See id. at 427. The Virginia Supreme Court dismissed the petition. See id. Williams sought federal habeas relief. See id. He reraised his undisclosed-agreement claim and set forth three new claims. Williams now alleged that Virginia violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by failing to disclose a pretrial psychiatric examination of the same witness. Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 427. He also raised a juror-bias claim and a prosecutorial-misconduct claim. See id. One of Williams’s jurors was formerly married to a witness for Virginia, and one of the prosecutors had represented the juror in the divorce proceedings. See id. at 440–41. At voir dire, when the judge asked if any of the Nos. 11-3005/20-3429 Cunningham v. Shoop Page 11 prospective jurors were related to the witnesses, the juror said nothing. See id. And when the judge asked if any of the prospective jurors had been represented by the attorneys involved in the case, both the juror and the prosecutor remained silent. See id. at 441. The Michael Williams Court addressed whether 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) barred a federal habeas court from holding an evidentiary hearing for these four claims. See id. at 432. Per that provision, “[i]f the applicant has failed to develop the factual basis of a claim in State court proceedings, the [federal habeas] court shall not hold an evidentiary hearing on the claim unless the applicant shows that” they meet both exceptions listed in § 2254(e)(2)(A) and (B). 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). The Court underscored that “failed to develop” turned on “diligence.” Michael Williams, 529 U.S. at 432. Because Williams diligently explored the facts underlying his juror-bias and prosecutorial-bias claims, the Court concluded that the federal courts could hold a § 2254(e)(2) evidentiary hearing for those two claims. See id. at 440–44. But the Court determined that Williams had not diligently developed his Brady claim. See id. at 437–38. The Court also punted Williams’s failure-to-disclose claim. See id. at 444. Unlike the three new federal habeas claims, the Virginia Court of Appeals had rejected the failure-to-disclose claim on the merits, implicating 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)’s deferential standards of review of state courts’ merits decisions. The Michael Williams Court therefore found it “unnecessary to reach the question whether § 2254(e)(2) would permit a hearing on th[at] claim.” Id. The Court addressed the relationship between § 2254(d)(1) and (e)(2) more than a decade later in Pinholster. There, the Court concluded that federal courts must limit their review of a state court’s merits adjudication to the record before that state court. Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 181. Thus, federal courts cannot consider evidence yielded at federal habeas evidentiary hearings when reviewing state courts’ merits decisions. See id. at 185–86.2 2The Pinholster Court reiterated Michael Williams’s analysis of § 2254(e)(2)’s application to claims that had not been adjudicated by state courts on the merits and reasoned further that Michael Williams’s leaving open the § 2254(d)(1) question “supported” the outcome in Pinholster. See Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 183–86. Nos. 11-3005/20-3429 Cunningham v. Shoop Page 12 Faithfully applying Remmer, Michael Williams, and Pinholster, we conclude that Cunningham is entitled to an evidentiary hearing for both his juror-bias claims.