Opinion ID: 2620359
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: confrontation-clause claim

Text: On appeal, Ivy argues that the state trial court violated his federal constitutional right to confront the victim about her possible bias and motive to lie when the court limited his cross-examination of the victim. Ivy contends that the state trial court should have permitted him to question the victim about a pretrial 6 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 7 of 16 forensic interview where she made conflicting statements about visiting the beach and swimming with sea creatures. The State argues that Ivy failed to exhaust this federal confrontation-clause claim in state court and that, consequently, the claim is procedurally barred. Generally, in considering an appeal by an unsuccessful habeas petitioner, our review is limited to the issues specified in the COA. Penney v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 707 F.3d 1239, 1243 (11th Cir. 2013). “We construe these issues in the COA, however, to include procedural questions that ‘must be resolved’ before we can reach the merits.” Id. at 1243; see, e.g., id. at 1243-44 (reviewing the issue of whether a petitioner’s § 2254(d)(2) motion was timely filed because the petitioner did not “properly file” a state post-conviction motion within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2), despite the issue not being specified in the COA); Wright v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 278 F.3d 1245, 1258 (11th Cir. 2002) (reviewing the issue of whether a petitioner had procedurally defaulted a claim by failing to raise it on direct appeal, despite the issue not being specified in the COA).
“Habeas petitioners generally cannot raise claims in federal court if those claims were not first exhausted in state court.” McNair v. Campbell, 416 F.3d 1291, 1302 (11th Cir. 2005) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)). For a claim to be exhausted, the claim “must be fairly presented to the state courts,” which requires 7 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 8 of 16 the petitioner to “present the state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Although “we do not require a verbatim restatement of the claims brought in state court, we do require that a petitioner presented his claims to the state court such that a reasonable reader would understand each claim’s particular legal basis and specific factual foundation.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). However, “the exhaustion doctrine requires a habeas applicant to do more than scatter some makeshift needles in the haystack of the state court record.” Id. at 1303 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). In McNair, we decided that a petitioner had failed to exhaust his claim that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when jurors improperly considered extraneous evidence during the penalty phase of his state criminal case. Id. at 1301-02. In McNair’s initial brief to the state appellate court, McNair claimed that the jury improperly considered and relied on extraneous evidence in violation of state law. Id. at 1302. In making this argument, he “relied almost exclusively on state law.” Id. at 1303. McNair’s brief only made two references to federal law. Id. The first was a citation to a federal case, and the second came in the closing paragraph of McNair’s argument, when he stated that his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were violated based on the jurors consideration of extraneous evidence. Id. We 8 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 9 of 16 concluded that McNair had failed to “fairly present” his federal constitutional claim to the state court and, therefore, had failed to exhaust his state court remedies. Id. at 1304. When a petitioner has failed to exhaust his claim and the state court remedy is no longer available, that failure to exhaust is a procedural default, “which will bar federal habeas relief, unless either the cause and prejudice or the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception is established.” Smith v. Jones, 256 F.3d 1135, 1138 (11th Cir. 2001). As in McNair, Ivy failed to properly exhaust his federal confrontation-clause claim. See McNair, 416 F.3d at 1302-04 (concluding that petitioner had failed to fairly present his federal constitutional claim to the state court where he relied almost exclusively on state law and only cited federal law twice). Although Ivy summarily claimed on direct appeal of his state conviction that the state trial court violated his constitutional right to a full and fair cross-examination of his accuser, Ivy failed to indicate that this claim was federal in nature. He never labeled this claim as a federal claim. He did not cite the U.S. Constitution, a federal statute, or federal case law in support of this claim. He cited only state case law. And, the state case law he cited did not address federal law. Moreover, Ivy did not raise a 9 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 10 of 16 claim alleging a violation of his federal right to confront witnesses in any of his post-conviction motions. Thus, Ivy has failed to properly exhaust this claim. 3 Furthermore, Ivy’s confrontation-clause claim can no longer be brought in state court because he failed to raise the claim in his state direct appeal. In Florida, a prisoner is foreclosed from raising a claim in a Rule 3.850 motion if that claim is based upon grounds that either could or should have been raised on direct appeal. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850(c); Baker v. State, 878 So.2d 1236, 1242 (Fla. 2004) (explaining the purpose of a Rule 3.850 motion). Likewise, in terms of a state habeas corpus petition, the Florida Supreme Court has explained that it will deny any petition as “unauthorized,” inter alia, if a petitioner raises claims that “could have been raised at trial or, if properly preserved, on direct appeal of the judgment and sentence . . . .” Id. at 1245-46. Accordingly, Ivy’s failure to exhaust his claim resulted in a procedural default because “it is apparent that the Florida courts would now refuse to hear this claim. . . .” Smith v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 572 F.3d 1327, 1342 (11th Cir. 2009). Thus, we conclude that Ivy’s claim is procedurally barred and that the district court could have properly dismissed Ivy’s claim on the basis of that procedural bar. 3 As noted above, “[a] habeas petitioner can only evade the exhaustion requirement by showing cause for and actual prejudice resulting from the default or by establishing a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” McNair, 416 F.3d at 1304 n.9. Here, Ivy has not argued, or attempted to show, excusable cause, but only argued that he adequately raised his federal claim in state court. 10 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 11 of 16
Even if Ivy were able to overcome the procedural bar to his federal confrontation-clause claim, we conclude that he has failed to show that he was entitled to habeas relief on the merits of his claim. 4 Pursuant to § 2254, we may grant habeas relief on a claim that the state court adjudicated on the merits only if the state court decision was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state court’s summary, unexplained rejection of a constitutional issue qualifies as an adjudication that is entitled to deference. Wright, 278 F.3d at 1254. A state court decision can be “contrary to” established federal law in two ways: (1) if the state court applies a rule that contradicts clearly established U.S. Supreme Court precedent; or (2) if a state court confronts facts that are “materially indistinguishable” from relevant U.S. Supreme Court precedent but arrives at an opposite result from that arrived at by the U.S. Supreme Court. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1519-20 (2000). A state court decision is an “unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law if the 4 We review de novo the district court’s denial of a habeas corpus petition. McNair, 416 F.3d at 1297. Although a district court’s decision is reviewed de novo, we owe deference to the final judgment of a state court. Reed v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 593 F.3d 1217, 1239 (11th Cir. 2010). 11 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 12 of 16 state court unreasonably applies the correct law to the facts of a case. Id. at 407, 120 S. Ct. at 1520. “The Confrontation Clause guarantees criminal defendants an opportunity to impeach through cross-examination the testimony of witnesses for the prosecution.” United States v. Baptista-Rodriguez, 17 F.3d 1354, 1370 (11th Cir. 1994). The right to cross-examine is not, however, absolute. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679, 106 S. Ct. 1431, 1435 (1986). Specifically, the Supreme Court has held that “trial judges retain wide latitude . . . to impose reasonable limits on such cross-examination based on concerns about, among other things, harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues, the witness’ safety, or interrogation that is repetitive or only marginally relevant.” Id. Further, the Supreme Court has never decided that the Confrontation Clause affords a defendant the right to cross-examine a witness as to irrelevant matters. Moreover, we have held that the “the Sixth Amendment only protects crossexamination that is relevant.” Jones v. Goodwin, 982 F.2d 464, 469 (11th Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). For evidence to be relevant for impeachment purposes, it must actually contradict or impeach the witness’s testimony at trial or evidence presented in the state’s case. See id. at 469-70 (providing that, because the jury received no evidence of the victim’s pre-rape virginity, the petitioner’s desire to impeach the victim’s out-of-court virginity 12 Case: 13-11740 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 13 of 16 statement was of “no constitutional moment”; the petitioner merely sought to establish that the victim had previously told an “out of court lie”). Here, even if Ivy adequately raised a federal confrontation-clause claim in his direct appeal to the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal, Ivy has not shown that he is entitled to a habeas relief. The questions that Ivy sought to ask the victim were not relevant to whether Ivy had committed the alleged acts. Although Ivy asserts that the questions addressed the victim’s potential bias and motive to lie, the proffered testimony would have neither contradicted nor impeached anything presented in the state’s case on direct examination. See id. at 469. Rather, Ivy merely sought to establish that the victim had previously told an “out of court lie.” See id. at 470. Such evidence was not relevant as impeachment evidence. See id. We thus cannot say that the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal’s decision—declining to find that Ivy had a right under the Confrontation Clause to cross-examine a witness as to irrelevant matters—was either contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Williams, 529 U.S. at 405-06, 120 S. Ct. at 1519-20; Wright, 278 F.3d at 1254. Rather, this decision was consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.