Opinion ID: 4529389
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standard of review

Text: We review a district court’s ruling on a petition for habeas corpus relief de novo. See Cummings v. Sec’y for the Dep’t of Corr., 588 F.3d 1331, 1355 (11th Cir. 2009). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), we are prohibited from granting a state prisoner’s habeas corpus petition unless the relevant state court decision on the merits of the petitioner’s claim “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2). A decision is “contrary to” clearly established federal law if the state court applied a rule that contradicts governing Supreme Court precedent, or if it reached a different conclusion than the Supreme Court did in a case involving materially indistinguishable facts. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412–13 (2000). A state court decision involves an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal 3 Our review is limited to the issue specified in our certificate of appealability. See, e.g., Williams v. Allen, 598 F.3d 778, 795 (11th Cir. 2010). We therefore decline to address James’s argument that the district court should have held an evidentiary hearing before ruling on his § 2254 petition. 12 Case: 17-11855 Date Filed: 04/28/2020 Page: 13 of 18 law if the court identifies the correct legal principle but applies it unreasonably to the facts before it. Id. “The question under AEDPA is not whether a federal court believes the state court’s determination was incorrect but whether that determination was unreasonable—a substantially higher threshold.” Schriro v. Landrigan, 550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007). “A state court’s application of clearly established federal law or its determination of the facts is unreasonable only if no ‘fairminded jurist’ could agree with the state court’s determination or conclusion.” McNabb v. Comm’r Alabama Dep’t of Corr., 727 F.3d 1334, 1339 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation omitted).