Opinion ID: 149119
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applying AEDPA Deference

Text: First, under AEDPA, we are constrained to inquire whether the state court decision is contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent at the relevant juncture. Even assuming arguendo that the relevant time frame is when Miller's conviction became final (i.e., applying the Stevens rule), Miller cannot meet this standard. In Crawford, the Supreme Court established that testimonial hearsay from an unavailable witness violated the Confrontation Clause, but pointedly le[ft] for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of `testimonial.' 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. All that Crawford clearly established with respect to what constitutes testimonial hearsay is that [w]hatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations i.e., the modern practices with closest kinship to the abuses at which the Confrontation Clause was directed. Ibid. While the Crawford Court listed various generalized definitions of testimonial proposed by the petitioner, an amicus, and a concurrence by Justice Thomas, it did not select among them; nor did it state that those were the only possible definitions. The type of hearsay at issue herea suicide note, in a sealed envelope, addressed to one's parentswas obviously not directly at issue in Crawford. Nor does it fall into any of the classes of hearsay which the Crawford Court conclusively identified as testimonial. As for the Court's three proposed definitions of testimonial, the suicide note qualifies under at most one (and even this is doubtful, as I discuss below)statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Id. at 52, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (quoting Brief for Nat'l Ass'n of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as Amici Curiae at 3). However, in light of the open-endedness of the Court's holding, it would not be an unreasonable application of Crawford to use one of the other two proposed definitions, or another definition entirely, under which the suicide note would not qualify. Under AEDPA, our inquiry ends here.