Opinion ID: 223677
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: State Court Opinion

Text: In adjudicating Petitioner's Brady claim, the last reasoned decision of the Ohio state court found that Petitioner asserted that the state wrongfully withheld exculpatory evidence that on March 12, 1986 ... Debra Ogle was seen alive in the parking lot of her apartment complex by [several] witnesses who went to high school with her. Montgomery, 482 F.Supp.2d at 976 (quoting State v. Montgomery, 1999 WL 55852, at , 1999 Ohio App. LEXIS 266, at  (Ohio Ct.App.1999)). The Ohio court concluded that this isolated information, recorded in the course of an ongoing investigation when all of the facts were still being pieced together and in the face of overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Ogle had been killed on March 8, 1986, did not undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial. Id. As previously discussed, AEDPA mandates that in evaluating a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, we consider whether the [state court's] decision applies a rule that contradicts such law and how the decision confronts the set of facts that were before the state court. If the state[ ]court decision identifies the correct governing legal principle in existence at the time, a federal court must assess whether the decision unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case, Cullen, 131 S.Ct. at 1399, by determin[ing] what arguments or theories supported, or ... could have supported, the state court's decision; and then it must ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of th[e Supreme] Court. Harrington, 131 S.Ct. at 786. In this case, in contrast to Harrington, the state court explained its basis for denying Petitioner's habeas claim. See id. (Under § 2254(d), a habeas court must determine what arguments or theories supported or, as here [where the state court disposed of a claim in a summary order], could have supported the state court's decision.) If the state court articulated its reasons, the habeas court must identify and evaluate those reasons under § 2254(d); only if the state court did not articulate its reasons must the habeas court hypothesize as to the state court's reasoning, and evaluate those hypothetical reasons. See id. In evaluating the state court decision in this case pursuant to AEDPA, we need not hypothesize as to the state court's reasoning. Instead, we base our decision on the reasoning articulated by the state supreme court. As explained by the district court, the state court stressed, in dismissing Petitioner's Brady claim, that the report was immaterial in the face of overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Ogle had been killed on March 8, 1986. Montgomery, 482 F.Supp.2d at 976. This analysis constituted an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. It overlooked the Supreme Court's admonition that Brady materiality is not a sufficiency of evidence test, Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555, and missed the relevant legal question under Brady and its progeny, namely, whether the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict. Id. at 435, 115 S.Ct. 1555. By ignoring the nature of the evidence, and focusing entirely on the quantum of available evidence, the state court confused Brady materiality with a test for sufficiency of the evidence, thus unreasonably applying the Brady materiality standard to the facts of this case. Although the majority's analysis attempts to explain that the state court's dismissal of Petitioner's Brady claim was reasonable, as discussed more fully below, the majority is unable to muster any persuasive arguments that the state court's decision was a reasonable application of established Supreme Court precedent. When the facts of this case are assessed through the narrow Brady materiality rule, the state supreme court's determination falls short of satisfying even the exceedingly deferential AEDPA standard of review applicable in this case. The majority's argument, which relies on numerous factual and legal errors to reach its conclusion that the state supreme court's decision was not an unreasonable application of federal law, does not demonstrate the contrary.