Opinion ID: 182274
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clearly Established Law on the Right to Present a Defense

Text: As noted, the petitioner does not rely exclusively on Van Arsdall in pursuing habeas relief. He also argues that the restrictions on his cross-examination of Officer Gouveia and Officer Smith impaired his right, protected by clearly established law under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, to present a complete defense. He suggests that testimony from the officers describing both Smith's post-arrest statement and the subsequent police investigation of Bettencourt was needed not only to impeach Lynch's in-court and out-of-court identifications of the petitioner, but also to demonstrate to the jury the likelihood that Bettencourt was the true culprit and to invite reasonable doubt based on inadequacies in the police investigation. He therefore challenges the objective reasonableness of the Appeals Court's conclusion that he was not prejudiced by the restrictions on cross-examination. It is well established that a state's broad latitude to define rules for the exclusion of evidence and to apply those rules to criminal defendants has constitutional limits. See Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735, 789, 126 S.Ct. 2709, 165 L.Ed.2d 842 (2006). Evidentiary restrictions that hinder a defendant's ability to present defense evidence can, in some circumstances, be severe enough to violate due process. See Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038. Whether rooted directly in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or in the Compulsory Process or Confrontation clauses of the Sixth Amendment, the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants `a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.' [12] Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (quoting California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984)) (internal citations omitted). The Supreme Court has described this right as a fundamental element of due process of law, Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967), which is abridged by evidence rules that `infring[e] upon a weighty interest of the accused' and are `arbitrary' or `disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.' Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 324, 126 S.Ct. 1727, 164 L.Ed.2d 503 (2006) (quoting United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Even a generally defensible rule of evidence may be applied so as to produce an unconstitutional infringement. White v. Coplan, 399 F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir. 2005). It is also clear that a defendant's right to elicit exculpatory defense evidence through cross-examination falls within the ambit of this longstanding right. See, e.g., Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038 (holding that a defendant was denied a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense where he was allowed neither to cross-examine an alternative suspect in the case nor to call witnesses for the purpose of impeaching that suspect's testimony); Catalan-Roman, 585 F.3d at 465-66 (evaluating a defendant's right to present extrinsic impeachment evidence as a due process claim where the defendant's failure to address adverse precedent had waived his argument under the Confrontation Clause). Despite the generality of these principles, AEDPA does not `require state and federal courts to wait for some nearly identical factual pattern before a legal rule must be applied.' Panetti, 551 U.S. at 953, 127 S.Ct. 2842 (quoting Musladin, 549 U.S. at 81, 127 S.Ct. 649 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment)). Nevertheless, in order to be entitled to relief, the petitioner must meet his burden of demonstrating that the Appeals Court's decision reflects an unreasonable application of the clearly established arbitrary and disproportionate standard to the facts of his case.