Opinion ID: 2784687
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prosecution “Tactics”

Text: Olson also contends that she is entitled to habeas relief because the prosecution purportedly engaged in “improper tactics” that denied her a fair trial and due process. At trial, the prosecution called Crabtree as a witness. Crabtree testified that Dressman admitted to killing Snellen7 and that Crabtree never made any statements to Roberts about whether Crabtree was 7 Crabtree testified: “I asked [Dressman] a few questions about what I had been hearing about him. I didn’t — I just told him I heard that he had done some things and that — he looked at me kind of funny and I — I said — I said you killed that woman, didn’t you? And he — he was about to cry when he said, yea, he killed that woman.” 20 involved in the murder.8 As a result of this testimony, the prosecution was able to introduce Roberts’s otherwise inadmissible hearsay—i.e., Crabtree’s confession to Roberts—as a prior inconsistent statement to impeach Crabtree.9 Olson argues that the prosecution cannot deliberately solicit testimony it knows to be false solely for the purpose of admitting otherwise inadmissible hearsay. See Appellant Br. 36. The parties dispute whether Olson fairly presented this as a federal claim in state court and, thus, whether the claim is exhausted. Olson maintains that she presented a federal prosecutorial-misconduct claim but that the Kentucky Supreme Court simply did not address it. See Appellant Br. 36–37. Kentucky, in turn, asserts that the state supreme court did not address a federal claim because Olson did not fairly present one. The Kentucky Supreme Court addressed Olson’s claim regarding the prosecution’s impeachment of Crabtree as one of evidentiary error. See Olson, 2008 WL 746651, at –6. It held that the prosecution properly impeached Crabtree, its own witness. Id. at . The state supreme court explained that Kentucky’s rules of evidence, unlike the federal rules, allow prior inconsistent statements to be used both for impeachment purposes and as substantive evidence. Ibid. It, therefore, held that counsel does not assist in the falsification of evidence by impeaching 8 Counsel asked Crabtree: “Did you tell [Roberts] that you were involved in the murder of Diane Snellen?” Crabtree responded: “No.” Counsel asked Crabtree: “Did you tell Richard Roberts that Diane made a gargling sound after she was stabbed?” Crabtree responded: “No.” Counsel asked Crabtree: “Did you say that the knife was thrown in Elkhorn Creek after the murder?” Crabtree responded: “No, I didn’t.” Counsel asked Crabtree: “Did you tell Richard Roberts that Dressman could cost you twenty to life if he talked?” Crabtree responded: “No.” Counsel asked Crabtree: “Did you ask Richard Roberts to help you in murdering David Dressman and getting rid of his body?” Crabtree responded: “No.” 9 Prior to Crabtree’s testimony, Olson objected to the Commonwealth calling Crabtree as a witness on several grounds: the prosecution would be calling Crabtree to give what they believed to be perjured testimony, the purpose of calling Crabtree was merely to impeach him later with Richard Roberts’s testimony, and the testimony Crabtree would give about Dressman’s statements would violate the Confrontation Clause. 21 the false testimony of his own witness. Ibid. The state court did not address a prosecutorialmisconduct claim under federal law, but unlike with Olson’s Confrontation Clause claim, we cannot presume that the court adjudicated the claim on the merits without first addressing whether Olson fairly presented the claim in her direct appeal. The district court determined that Olson did not fairly present a federal constitutional claim to the state court. See Olson, 2012 WL 2970487, at . In the alternative, the district court determined that Olson would not be entitled to relief on this ground because she does not satisfy the federal prosecutorial-misconduct standard. See id. at . Federal courts may not entertain a claim in habeas that the state court has not had an opportunity to address. Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 251 (1886). Federal courts must ensure that the habeas “applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State.” § 2254(b). In order to satisfy § 2254(b)’s exhaustion requirement, the prisoner must have “fairly presented” to the state court the “substance of a federal habeas corpus claim.” Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275, 278 (1971); accord Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 6 (1982). Additionally, the state court must have had a “fair opportunity to apply controlling legal principles to the facts bearing upon [the] constitutional claim.” Anderson, 459 U.S. at 6 (internal quotation marks omitted). Federal courts assess the state-court record and the arguments to determine if a prisoner fairly presented a federal claim in state court. Picard, 404 U.S. at 276. We have said that when examining a habeas petitioner’s state-court brief, courts should specifically look at: (1) reliance upon federal cases employing constitutional analysis; (2) reliance upon state cases employing federal constitutional analysis; (3) phrasing the claim in terms of constitutional law or in terms sufficiently particular to allege a denial of a specific constitutional right; or (4) alleging facts well within the mainstream of constitutional law. 22 Whiting v. Burt, 395 F.3d 602, 613 (6th Cir. 2005). After reviewing Olson’s state-court brief, we conclude that Olson did not “fairly present” a federal prosecutorial-misconduct claim to the Kentucky Supreme Court. The relevant heading in Olson’s state-court brief stated: “Appellant was denied her right to a fair trial when the court allowed the Commonwealth to call Timothy Crabtree to the stand to give what they believed to be perjured testimony in order to impeach him with Richards Roberts’s testimony.” (capitalization altered). As part of that argument, Olson stated: “By soliciting perjured testimony through the guise of a plea agreement, the Commonwealth undermined the judicial process and committed prosecutorial misconduct.” The argument section also contains a footnote in which Olson cites the American Bar Association’s and the Kentucky Bar Association’s ethical standards relating to prosecutors suborning false testimony, but it does not include any reference to cases applying these standards in the context of constitutional rights. Reading Olson’s entire argument section in context, we are satisfied that Olson’s statecourt claim is properly understood as an evidentiary one: that the Kentucky Supreme Court should adopt the “primary purpose test,” as used by federal courts for evaluating whether a party may properly impeach its own witness under Federal Rule of Evidence 607. Under this federal standard, the prosecution may not call a witness for the primary purpose of placing inadmissible evidence before the jury under the guise of impeachment. Kentucky had previously declined to adopt the federal primary-purpose test, and Olson’s state-court argument was that Kentucky should revisit the issue. There is no indication that Olson was presenting a claim that any prosecutorial misconduct deprived her of her federal constitutional fair-trial right. The single federal case cited by Olson, United States v. Gomez-Gallardo, 915 F.2d 553 (9th Cir. 1990), is a Ninth 23 Circuit case that serves as an example of the application of the primary-purpose test. GomezGallardo employs no constitutional analysis and does not reference a federal prosecutorialmisconduct claim.10 See id. at 555–56. Further, she did not cite any state-court cases that rely on federal cases discussing prosecutorial misconduct. See Whiting, 395 F.3d at 613. The best case Olson can make is that the heading in her state-court brief referenced “her right to a fair trial.” Although a habeas “petitioner need not cite chapter and verse of constitutional law,” “general allegations of the denial of rights to a ‘fair trial’ and ‘due process’ do not ‘fairly present claims’ that specific constitutional rights were violated.” Blackmon v. Booker, 394 F.3d 399, 400 (6th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks, citations, and alterations omitted). Here, Olson’s barebones “fair trial” reference was insufficient to alert the state court to a federal prosecutorial-misconduct claim. Olson concedes that she “did not cite a case setting forth the prosecutorial misconduct standard.” Appellant Br. 40. Nor did Olson reference the constitutional prosecutorial-misconduct standard in any way. Olson’s federal constitutional claim—as currently presented on habeas—rests on Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972), and Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), but she did not reference these cases in state court. Olson contends that she “made a showing of the requirements” outlined in these cases, but that too is not enough. Although Olson’s state-court brief contained factual allegations that might conceivably underlie a Giglio claim, the state court must “be given the opportunity to see both the factual and legal basis for each claim.” Wagner v. Smith, 581 F.3d 410, 415 (6th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added); see also Alley v. Bell, 307 F.3d 380, 386 (6th Cir. 2002). Olson did not give the state court an opportunity to see the legal basis for a federal prosecutorial-misconduct claim. 10 In Olson’s reply brief, she also has one citation to United States v. Morlang, 531 F.2d 183, 189 (4th Cir. 1975). This too, in the context of Olson’s brief, does not fairly present a federal prosecutorial-misconduct claim. 24 Lastly, Olson relies on her petition for rehearing to the Kentucky Supreme Court to show that she fairly presented a federal-law claim. In the petition, Olson goes one slight step further than she took in her initial briefs and states that the prosecution tactics “constituted prosecutorial misconduct which deprived him [sic] of a fair trial and due process contrary to the 6 th and 14th Amendments, United States Constitution. See United States v. Gomez-Gallardo, 915 F.2d 553, 556 (9th Circuit 1990).” A petition for rehearing to the Kentucky Supreme Court, in the context of this case, was not a proper place to raise a new federal issue. “[W]here [a] claim has been presented for the first and only time in a procedural context in which its merits will not be considered unless there are special and important reasons therefor, [it does not] constitute fair presentation.” Castille v. Peoples, 489 U.S. 346, 351 (1989) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). In Castille, the petitioner raised new federal issues for the first time to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a petition for allocatur.11 Under Pennsylvania law, such allocatur review was “not a matter of right, but of sound judicial discretion, and an appeal will be allowed only when there are special and important reasons therefor.” Id. at 347 (quoting Pa. R. App. P. 1114). Castille requires federal habeas courts to examine the procedural context in which a claim is raised to determine whether it is one in which the merits are considered as of right or only in exceptional circumstances. Here, the controlling rule is Kentucky Rule of Civil Procedure 76.32, which addresses when the Kentucky Supreme Court should consider the merits of a petition for rehearing. “Except in extraordinary cases when justice demands it, a petition for rehearing shall be limited 11 “Allocatur” simply refers to the allowance of a pleading. It means: “It is allowed. This word formerly indicated that a writ, bill, or other pleading was allowed.” Black’s Law Dictionary 83 (8th ed.) (1999). In Pennsylvania, however, the word is “still used today . . . to denote permission to appeal.” Ibid. 25 to a consideration of the issues argued on the appeal and will be granted only when it appears that the court . . . has misconceived the issues presented on the appeal . . . .” Ky. R. Civ. P. 76.32. In other words, the Kentucky Supreme Court only grants a petition for rehearing when there are “special or important reasons” for doing so. See Castille, 489 U.S. at 351. Because no such reasons existed, the rule of Castille controls. Olson’s claim that was raised, if at all, “for the first and only time” in her petition for rehearing does not constitute fair presentation.12 Ibid. Olson argues that the actual standard used by the Kentucky Supreme Court for reviewing petitions for rehearing is less strict than the language of Rule 76.32 suggests. See Reply Br. 16– 17. That is, Olson argues that Kentucky has judicially modified—and lightened—the standard. We have examined the two Kentucky cases Olson cites, and we do not believe they alter Rule 76.32’s import.13 To the contrary, Rule 76.32 “is only to be used to simply point out and have inaccuracies corrected, or to have the opinion extended to address matters that were in issue but not discussed.” Gormley v. Judicial Conduct Comm’n, 332 S.W.3d 717, 731 (Ky. 2010) 12 Because this area of law is admittedly nuanced, we offer two clarifying points. First, whether § 2254(b)’s exhaustion requirement is satisfied turns only on whether a “federal claim has been fairly presented to the state courts”—not whether the state court actually addressed the claim. Castille, 489 U.S. at 351. A state court’s failure to address a claim does not render the claim unexhausted, for § 2254(b) does not “turn upon whether a state appellate court chooses to ignore in its opinion a federal constitutional claim squarely raised in petitioner’s brief.” Id. at 350; accord Clinkscale v. Carter, 375 F.3d 430, 438 (6th Cir. 2004) (“[I]t is beyond peradventure that exhaustion does not require a state court adjudication on the merits of the claim at issue.”). Second, we do not suggest that a federal claim raised for the first time in a petition for rehearing to a state supreme court can never satisfy the fair-presentation requirement. The analysis depends on both the state procedural rule and the application of that rule to the facts of the case. 13 In one case, the state supreme court determined that the court of appeals correctly applied Rule 76.32 when it extended a prior decision to “reflect what the law and the evidence had clearly established.” Morgan v. Scott, 291 S.W.3d 622, 635 (Ky. 2009). In the other case, the state supreme court denied a petition for rehearing but modified its opinion in light of “extraordinary grounds.” Beaumont v. Commonwealth, 295 S.W.3d 60, 66 (Ky. 2009). Both cases involve straightforward application of Rule 76.32. Neither case suggests that Kentucky has “interpreted its own rule to permit a grant of rehearing on grounds which were raised to a lesser extent” than the text of Rule 76.32 suggests. Reply Br. 17. 26 (Schroder, J., concurring in result only). We therefore conclude that the claim was not fairly presented to the Kentucky court. We note that there is also a question as to whether the statement in Olson’s petition, aside from its placement in a petition for rehearing, was in itself sufficient to present a federal-law claim. Cf. Castillo v. McFadden, 399 F.3d 993, 1003 (9th Cir. 2004) (“Exhaustion demands more than drive-by citation, detached from any articulation of an underlying federal legal theory.”).14 The statement is immediately followed by a citation to Gomez-Gallardo, which, as noted above, employs no constitutional analysis and does not reference a federal prosecutorialmisconduct claim. In any event, because we have determined that the petition for rehearing was not a proper place for Olson to raise a new federal issue, we need not rest our holding that Olson’s claim was not fairly presented to the state court on this ground.