Opinion ID: 795324
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: aedpa relief may be available for reserved issues

Text: 87 I concur in Part I of the opinion, with the understanding that the Supreme Court's reservation of a specific question, expressly or otherwise, does not, in itself, preclude habeas review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In these situations, federal courts may still test the state court decision against clearly established underlying constitutional principles, as laid out by the Supreme Court. Ferrizz v. Giurbino, 432 F.3d 990, 993 (9th Cir.2005). 88 The footnote found in Estelle v. McGuire as to reservation of the propensity evidence question does not preclude AEDPA review; instead, it simply points out that nothing in Estelle is intended to resolve that issue: We express no opinion on whether a state law would violate the Due Process Clause if it permitted the use of `prior crimes' evidence to show propensity to commit a charged crime because we need not reach the issue to decide the case. 502 U.S. 62, 75 n. 5, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991); see also Ferrizz, 432 F.3d at 993 (holding a similar type footnote did not preclude AEDPA review). 89 The question then is whether the Supreme Court has `broken sufficient legal ground to establish [the] asked-for constitutional principle, [because] the lower federal courts cannot themselves establish such a principle with clarity sufficient to satisfy the AEDPA bar.' Ferrizz, 432 F.3d at 993-94(quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 381, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)). The Supreme Court has not spoken directly on whether propensity evidence violates the Constitution's guarantee of due process found in the Fourteenth Amendment. Significantly, the current reach of due process for propensity evidence does not extend past the generic and very narrow standard of fundamental fairness or fundamental conceptions of justice, Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 352-53, 110 S.Ct. 668, 107 L.Ed.2d 708 (1990), which, for the purposes of AEDPA's clearly established federal law requirement, is barely one step removed from the Constitution's recitation of due process itself. The scant supply of Supreme Court precedent applicable to the propensity evidence issue does not, in my opinion, provide sufficient clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States under § 2254(d)(1). 90 Given the current posture of Supreme Court precedent, I concur that the Nevada Supreme Court did not violate AEDPA in deciding this claim. Although the most general standard of due process is not sufficient to meet the clearly established federal law requirement for propensity evidence, we must be mindful that when there is applicable and clearly established federal law in Supreme Court precedent, it should be applied on habeas review, even if the Supreme Court expressly declined to decide the specific issue. Robinson v. Ignacio, 360 F.3d 1044, 1057 (9th Cir.2004) (`rules of law may be sufficiently clear for habeas purposes even when they are expressed in terms of a generalized standard rather than as a bright-line rule') (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 382, 120 S.Ct. 1495). The proverbial take a pass footnote alone should not prevent AEDPA review. 91