Opinion ID: 787126
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Procedural Default Consideration on Direct Review

Text: 46 Before the district court, respondent argued that, to the extent petitioner fairly presented his Confrontation Clause claim to the state courts on direct review by virtue of presenting the factual basis underlying his prosecutorial misconduct claim, petitioner, nevertheless, procedurally defaulted that claim. As respondent pointed out, the Michigan Court of Appeals, on direct review, found that petitioner had procedurally defaulted his prosecutorial misconduct claim by failing to object at trial to its underlying factual predicate — the prosecutor's opening statement relaying petitioner's purported confession. Respondent further argued that trial counsel's failure to object to this alleged Confrontation Clause violation did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel so as to excuse any such default. Respondent asserted that petitioner's trial counsel chose not to object or move for a mistrial when the state failed to produce Brand as a matter of trial strategy. Specifically, respondent maintained that the failure of Brand to appear was a fortunate turn of events because Brand's testimony would only have strengthened the prosecution's case. Moreover, according to respondent, had trial counsel objected and received a mistrial, there would have been the risk that the government, at the re-trial, would have been able to produce Brand as a witness. 47 The district court held that, in case the Michigan Court of Appeals, on direct review, found petitioner's Confrontation Clause claim procedurally defaulted due to his trial counsel's failure to object to that underlying violation at trial, 12 that failure constituted ineffective assistance and, thus, excused any such procedural default. After conducting an evidentiary hearing on the matter, the district court agreed with petitioner that trial counsel's assistance was objectively unreasonable for the following reasons: 1) it should have been obvious to him that the prosecutor's failure to produce Brand at trial violated petitioner's right to confrontation; 2) he had no strategic reason not to object to this Confrontation Clause violation; 3) his purported reason for failing to object — that he did not want the prosecution to produce Brand as a witness at any re-trial — was unreasonable and wholly unsupported by the record due to the availability of substantial impeachment material against Brand; 13 and 4) he did not even obtain an adequate curative instruction because the instruction that the trial court gave did not reference Brand as the jail inmate to whom petitioner allegedly confessed. Id. at 712-13. The district court found that, because the prosecutor's unsupported opening statement violated petitioner's right to confront the witnesses against him, trial counsel's deficient representation sufficiently prejudiced petitioner. Id. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), the district court further found that the prior-state court adjudication denying petitioner's ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim on the merits constituted an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the pertinent, clearly-established Supreme Court precedent. Id. Thus, the district court found the procedural default doctrine did not bar its review of petitioner's Confrontation Clause claim on the merits. Id.