Court Opinion

ID: 9492360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:39:32.661216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:16.387586
License: Public Domain

MOORE,
concurring in the result.
I concur in this court’s decision to affirm the district court, but for reasons that differ from those of the majority. I disagree with the majority that the Michigan appellate court’s decision to exclude Dr. DeBoer’s testimony was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; however, I concur in the result because I believe the error was harmless.
The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that though the trial court had given an erroneous reason for excluding Dr. De-Boer’s testimony, the error was harmless because the testimony would have been cumulative of Blanton’s own. Dr. De-Boer’s testimony, however, would have been quite different from Blanton’s. Blan-ton could only say what he thought he saw and what he was feeling at the time of the events in question; presumably Dr. De-Boer would have identified a recognized psychological condition consistent with Blanton’s claim and explained why it was possible or even reasonable for him to be seeing and feeling the things he described. Such testimony was crucial to Blanton’s claim of self-defense, which, under Michigan law, requires an honest and reasonable belief that one is in danger of serious bodily harm or death. Blanton’s position is similar to a defendant offering an alibi defense such as “I was with Mary” and then being precluded from bringing Mary to the stand on grounds of cumulativeness. Cumulative evidence is additional evidence “which goes to prove what has already been established by other evidence.” BlacK’s Law DiotionaRY 380 (6th ed.1990). A defense is not established by the defendant’s say-so, and expert medical testimony to support Blanton’s explanation can hardly be considered cumulative in this context. The Michigan Court of Appeals’s determination, made on a cold record, that the testimony of Dr. DeBoer would have been cumulative to Blanton’s own is error; moreover, this error “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).
Blanton claims that the state appeals court’s decision to exclude the evidence infringed on a clearly-established constitutional right under pre-existing Supreme Court precedent. I agree. The majority in this case quotes the relevant language from Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986), about a *717criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense. In Crane, the trial court had excluded “competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence [was] central to the defendant’s claim of innocence,” id. at 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, but the Supreme Court held that its exclusion deprived Crane of a fair trial. In Crane, too, the state court had offered a reason for excluding the evidence, but the Supreme Court found the reason invalid and in the absence of a valid reason for exclusion, the defendant’s constitutional right was violated.
The majority in this case goes on to say Dr. DeBoer’s proffered testimony was “competent, reliable evidence ... central to the defendant’s claim of innocence” but applies the AEDPA language to the decision of the state appeals court to deem it cumulative, and, finding no Supreme Court case on cumulative evidence, upholds the decision. But the relevant question for AEDPA purposes is whether the decision to exclude the evidence violated Blanton’s clearly-established right to present a complete defense. Like the evidence in Crane, it “was all but indispensable to any chance of [Blanton’s defense] succeeding.” Id. at 691, 106 S.Ct. 2142. Without it, Blanton could not make a showing that his perceptions at the time were not only honest (entailing an evaluation of his own credibility) but reasonable (presumably entailing an evaluation from a more objective source). Because the exclusion of this evidence seriously compromised Blanton’s ability to present a complete defense, the decision to exclude it involved an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
Even if Blanton had been given an opportunity to present a complete defense, however, I cannot conclude that the error “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) (quoted in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993)). This circuit recently held that the Brecht standard applies to harmless error review in habeas cases even in cases where the federal habeas court is the first to conduct harmless error review. See Gilliam v. Mitchell, 179 F.3d 990 (6th Cir.1999). Under this standard, less strict than the harmless error standard available on direct review, I conclude that the erroneous exclusion of Dr. De-Boer’s testimony was harmless. Although the jury should have been allowed to hear the evidence, on the facts of this case I cannot conclude that the absence of this expert testimony substantially influenced the verdict.