Opinion ID: 2974187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: AEDPA standard

Text: As the majority acknowledges, Getsy must also demonstrate that the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court is contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court. See 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13 (2000). A legal principle is clearly established only if it constitutes an “old rule” under Teague. See id. at 412 (explaining that “whatever would qualify as an old rule under [the Court’s] Teague jurisprudence will constitute clearly established Federal law . . . under § 2254(d)(1)”) (quotation marks omitted). For the reasons set forth above, I believe that the majority’s rule is new, rather than old, and that the questionable principle announced today does not constitute clearly established federal law. To the extent that the majority relies on the fact that the Supreme Court has not squarely rejected the rule adopted today, that fact admits to the inconsistency of the majority’s holding with the requirements of AEDPA because it demonstrates that the Court has not yet addressed the issue. The majority insists that relevant Supreme Court “precedents include not only bright-line rules but also the legal principles and standards flowing from precedent.” Maj. Op. at 5 (quoting Ruimveld v. Birkett, 404 F.3d 1006, 1010 (6th Cir. 2005)). But whatever the breadth of those “legal principles and standards” may be, this court has held that “[t]he Supreme Court’s silence on a particular issue cannot constitute ‘clearly established’ Federal law.” Hill v. Hofbauer, 337 F.3d 706, 712 n.3 (6th Cir. 2003); see also Taylor v. Withrow, 288 F.3d 846, 855 (6th Cir. 2002) (Boggs, J., concurring) (opining that “the silence of the Supreme Court may not be construed as clearly established law sufficient to allow a federal court to reverse a state determination”). Even if the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Powell did not signal the death knell for the rule of consistency, and even if McCleskey and Pulley did not definitively reject the idea of comparative proportionality review, all the majority can say is that the Court has not yet spoken to the rule articulated today. But this court’s cases make abundantly clear that the Supreme Court’s silence on an issue is simply not enough to reverse a state-court decision under AEDPA. I therefore believe that the majority has erred in granting habeas relief on the basis of ambiguities that it perceives to exist (and I do not) in the Court’s caselaw. No. 03-3200 Getsy v. Mitchell Page 32