Opinion ID: 782391
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contrary to or Unreasonable Application of

Text: 32 With respect to the first prong of the AEDPA standard, we note that, although Supreme Court precedent clearly establishes the general contours of a criminal defendant's right to present potentially exculpatory evidence, the Court has not articulated the specific set of circumstances under which a criminal defendant must be permitted to introduce evidence of potential third-party culpability. Instead the Court has found that such evidence must be admitted when, under the facts and circumstances of the individual case, its exclusion deprived the defendant of a fair trial. Chambers, 410 U.S. at 303, 93 S.Ct. 1038. In adjudicating Wade's claim, the Appellate Division, acknowledging a criminal defendant's general right to present a defense, did not reach a different conclusion than the Supreme Court on a question of law. Nor has the Court arrived at a decision different from the Appellate Division's on materially indistinguishable facts. Accordingly, we conclude that the state court's decision was not contrary to Supreme Court precedent. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 412-13, 120 S.Ct. 1495. 33 Turning to the second prong of the AEDPA standard, we consider whether the Appellate Division's decision constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law governing a criminal defendant's right to present a complete defense. As the district court correctly observed, in determining whether the exclusion of defense evidence violated this right, we have previously considered on several occasions the determinative question to be whether the omitted evidence would have created reasonable doubt. In Justice v. Hoke, 90 F.3d 43 (2d Cir.1996), for example, a pre-AEDPA case upon which the district court relied, we granted habeas relief based on a trial court's evidentiary rulings that effectively prohibited the defense from attacking the credibility and factual account of the sole prosecution witness. We held that whether the exclusion of the defense witnesses' testimony violated Justice's right to present a defense depends upon whether `the omitted evidence [evaluated in the context of the entire record] creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist' and concluded that it did. Justice, 90 F.3d at 47 (quoting United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976) (alteration in Justice )). 34 This test applies post-AEDPA. In Jones v. Stinson, 229 F.3d 112 (2d Cir. 2000), for example, Jones was convicted of selling three vials of a controlled substance, which combined contained a minuscule amount (one grain) of cocaine. Jones claimed that he did not have the requisite criminal intent because he meant only to sell beat, i.e., fake, crack cocaine. We concluded that the trial court's preclusion of Jones's testimony that he had previously been arrested several times for selling a controlled substance but released each time after laboratory tests revealed that the substance in the vials did not contain cocaine, did not warrant habeas relief because 35 [a]ssuming that the testimony should have been admitted and that its exclusion was clear error, viewing the record as a whole, we cannot conclude that it would so certainly have created new ground for reasonable doubt that the appellate division's decision [that the exclusion was not constitutional error] was objectively unreasonable. Id. at 120. 6 36 In light of this precedent, the district court's approach was understandable; yet it glossed over a more elementary concern, which, in this case, we find to be ultimately dispositive, namely: the propriety of the trial court's evidentiary ruling. Although a focus on the materiality of excluded testimony in the context of the entire record is ultimately necessary before it may be determined that a trial court's exclusion of evidence amounts to constitutional error warranting habeas relief, see, e.g., Jones, 229 F.3d at 120; Schriver, 255 F.3d at 59, that inquiry may be premature if the trial court's ruling was proper. 7 37 This approach is particularly appropriate in this case. Under AEDPA, we must conduct a deferential review of the Appellate Division's decision, which resolved the constitutional claim on the merits. The Appellate Division rejected Wade's claim not because the excluded evidence, if admitted, would not have created reasonable doubt, but because it found that the trial court properly excluded the testimony. Consequently, habeas relief may not be granted unless this determination was objectively unreasonable. 38 Moreover, the type of evidentiary ruling challenged in this case is afforded wide latitude by the Constitution. In evaluating claims of violation of the right to present a complete defense, the Supreme Court has found the Constitution to be principally (but not always) concerned with state evidentiary rules leading to the blanket exclusion, Crane, 476 U.S. at 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, of categories of evidence when their application is `arbitrary' or `disproportionate to the purposes the [rules] are designed to serve.' Scheffer, 523 U.S. at 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261 (quoting Rock, 483 U.S. at 56, 107 S.Ct. 2704). Rather than involving the application of such a rule, the ruling at issue is one of those ordinary evidentiary rulings by state trial courts concerning the admissibility of evidence, upon which the Court is traditional[ly] reluctan[t] to impose constitutional constraints. Crane, 476 U.S. at 689, 106 S.Ct. 2142. 39 In any given criminal case the trial judge is called upon to make dozens, sometimes hundreds, of decisions concerning the admissibility of evidence. As we reaffirmed earlier this Term, the Constitution leaves to the judges who must make these decisions wide latitude to exclude evidence that is repetitive. . ., only marginally relevant or poses an undue risk of harassment, prejudice, [or] confusion of the issues. 40 Id. at 689-90, 106 S.Ct. 2142 (quoting Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986) (alterations in Crane )). 41 The trial court excluded Folk's testimony because it determined that the testimony was largely irrelevant and that any marginal relevance was outweighed by dangers of juror prejudice and confusion. After defense counsel questioned Jones concerning Bryant's gang membership and problems with gang members, the court ruled that, absent a satisfactory offer of proof, it would not permit further testimony regarding Bryant's gang associations because such evidence was speculative and irrelevant. Later, the court entertained defense counsel's offer of proof concerning Folk's testimony that he had witnessed a shoot-out between Bryant and Gene but agreed with the prosecution that the proposed testimony was irrelevant and inflammatory. 42 That a third party may have borne animus towards the victim, standing alone, does little to establish that the third party committed the crime. See United States v. Diaz, 176 F.3d 52, 82 (2d Cir.1999) (finding that claim that court erroneously excluded evidence that murder victim had assaulted inmate while in jail, which suggested motive by a third party, was creative conjecturing and the court properly exercised its discretion in excluding such speculative evidence). Folk's testimony would at most have suggested that a third party had motive to murder Bryant, but neither the testimony nor the defense proffer tended to show that this third party had the opportunity to commit the murder. And even if opportunity could be inferred, nothing linked this third party to Bryant's murder. Accordingly, Folk's testimony would not have materially assisted the determination of Wade's guilt or innocence. See DiBenedetto v. Hall, 272 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2001) (Evidence that tends to prove a person other than the defendant committed a crime is relevant, but there must be evidence that there is a connection between the other perpetrators and the crime, not mere speculation on the part of the defendant.). 43 Wade contends that Folk's testimony was relevant not merely because it would have tended to show third-party culpability but also because it would have undermined the testimony of Jones, the state's only compelling eyewitness. Wade argues that in light of the fact that Jones was assaulted by members of the gang the night after the murder (before he implicated Wade), evidence that a member of the gang bore animus toward Bryant may be said to have some probative value in establishing that Jones had motivation to fabricate his testimony. 44 But this theory rests on a series of inferences without a sufficient factual predicate. The defense proffered that three or four weeks before the murder, Folk witnessed a shoot-out between Bryant and Gene. No details were offered concerning the circumstances of this incident. From the fact of its occurrence, a juror would have had to conclude that three or four weeks later Bryant was killed by members of the gang to which Gene belonged, that Jones was assaulted to intimidate him, and that he implicated Wade because of this intimidation. Although Wade's attempt to put this testimony before the jury is understandable, the desired conclusion rests at the end of a brittle chain of inferences. 8 45 Weighed against the limited probative value of the proffered testimony were dangers that the jury could have been misled or confused by the testimony. Although the trial court did permit limited inquiry into Bryant's, Jones's and Wade's gang associations, it was evidently concerned that allowing questioning into an event between the deceased and another individual occurring well before the murder, in the absence of any evidence linking the event to the murder, would invite testimony that was both distracting and inflammatory. Speculation into Bryant's gang associations and illicit activities posed a danger of turning attention away from issues of Wade's culpability to those of Bryant's character and propensity for violence. 46 The potential for speculation into theories of third-party culpability to open the door to tangential testimony raises serious concerns: 47 In the course of weighing probative value and adverse dangers, courts must be sensitive to the special problems presented by alternative perpetrator evidence. Although there is no doubt that a defendant has a right to attempt to establish his innocence by showing that someone else did the crime, a defendant still must show that his proffered evidence on the alleged alternative perpetrator is sufficient, on its own or in combination with other evidence in the record, to show a nexus between the crime charged and the asserted alternative perpetrator. It is not sufficient for a defendant merely to offer up unsupported speculation that another person may have done the crime. Such speculative blaming intensifies the grave risk of jury confusion, and it invites the jury to render its findings based on emotion or prejudice. 48 United States v. McVeigh, 153 F.3d 1166, 1191 (10th Cir.1998) (citation omitted). 49 In light of the limited relevance of the proposed testimony and the substantial countervailing dangers it posed, the trial court's decision to exclude it was not arbitrary, Scheffer, 523 U.S. at 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261, under standard rules of evidence governing admissibility, Taylor, 484 U.S. at 410, 108 S.Ct. 646. The Appellate Division's determination that the trial court's evidentiary ruling did not violate Wade's right to present a defense was, therefore, not objectively unreasonable. 50 Wade contends, however, that in reaching this conclusion the Appellate Division relied on the discredited-and unconstitutional — clear link test. The effort of New York courts to develop a test for when a defendant's proffered evidence of third-party culpability is sufficiently probative to overshadow the dangers posed by its admission led to the development of the clear link and clear connection terminology. See Primo, 96 N.Y.2d 351, 728 N.Y.S.2d 735, 753 N.E.2d 164. We share the concern articulated by the New York Court of Appeals in Primo that this test may turn a showing of third-party culpability into an exotic category of proof, rather than simply encapsulating conventional evidentiary principles. Id. at 355, 728 N.Y.S.2d 735, 753 N.E.2d 164. We doubt, although we have no occasion to decide it here, whether categorically requiring evidence of third-party culpability to meet a heightened showing of probity comports with the constitutional guarantee of the right to present a complete defense. 51 But this is not what occurred. Rather, although referring to the clear link and clear connection test, it is apparent that the trial court weighed the limited probative value of the testimony against the adverse dangers of its presentation to the jury—it, in other words, applied standard rules of evidence concerning admissibility, Taylor, 484 U.S. at 410, 108 S.Ct. 646 — and concluded that the latter outweighed the former. 9 In light of the latitude afforded such rulings by the Constitution, see Crane, 476 U.S. at 689, 106 S.Ct. 2142; Delaware, 475 U.S. at 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431, the Appellate Division's conclusion that the exclusion did not offend Wade's constitutional right to present a complete defense is not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.