Court Opinion

ID: 9495170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:56:24.055659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:51.717202
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the state courts unreasonably applied controlling Supreme Court precedent in rejecting Petitioner’s claim that she was denied her Fifth Amendment right to present a complete defense by excluding evidence' of Edward Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons, I would affirm the district court’s order granting Petitioner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus. Evidence of Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons was at the core of Petitioner’s “talk therapy” defense, such that without this evidence, Petitioner’s defense had little chance of appearing meritorious in the eyes of the jury.
The Supreme Court has instructed that “an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law,” and that a federal court may not grant a writ of habeas corpus under § 2254 because the court concludes in its independent judgment that the state court applied clearly established federal law “erroneously or incorrectly.” See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). The Court went on to recognize that “unreasonable” is “no doubt difficult to define,” but also noted that “it is a common term in the legal world, and, accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning.” Id. When considering Petitioner’s claim in the matter at hand, the “unreasonableness,” as that term is commonly known, of the Michigan courts’ decisions under prevailing Supreme Court precedent could not be more clear. By excluding evidence of the very basis for Petitioner’s “talk therapy” defense, the Michigan courts “unreasonably” denied Petitioner her constitutional right to present a “complete defense.”
The district court’s reasoning in granting the petition in this case is both sound and persuasive, and the majority’s attempt to show otherwise falls short. For example, the majority rejects the district court’s reliance on Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974) to show that the Michigan courts unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent to the facts of Petitioner’s case. However, the majority’s reasoning simply amounts to a distinction without a difference inasmuch as in Dams, as well as in the matter at hand, the defendant was not allowed to present all evidence to show the “accuracy and truthfulness” as to the testimony of a key witness which went to key elements of the prosecution’s claim. Specifically, in Davis, the petitioner argued that evidence regarding the veracity of the, testimony from a key witness for the prosecution should not have been excluded from trial. Id. at 317, 94 S.Ct. 1105. In agreeing with the petitioner, the Supreme Court found that “the jurors were entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them so that they could make an informed judgment as to the weight to place on [the witness’] testimony which provided a crucial link in the proof ... of petitioner’s act;”- Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Court reasoned that “[t]he accuracy and truthfulness of [the witness’] testimony were key elements *514in the State’s claim against the petitioner.” Id.
Similarly, in the matter at hand, the accuracy of Petitioner’s testimony went to a key element in the state’s claim against her inasmuch as whether the talk of killing Rockwell was an agreement for purposes of securing a conspiracy conviction depended upon whether the jury believed Petitioner’s “therapy defense.” The credibility of Petitioner’s testimony in presenting this defense, in turn, depended upon whether the jury was aware of all of the evidence supporting it-including evidence of Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse-so that the jury “could make an informed judgment as to the weight to place on” Petitioner’s testimony. See Davis, 415 U.S. at 317, 94 S.Ct. 1105. Although it is true that in Davis, the credibility of the testimony at issue was that of a key witness for the prosecution, while in the matter at hand the credibility of the testimony at issue is that of Petitioner, the end result of limiting the jury’s basis for judging the credibility of the key witness is the same.
The majority contends that the result is not the same inasmuch as evidence of Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse, according to the majority, “was being proffered to not show bias on the part of a crucial witness against [Petitioner], but to shore up [Petitioner’s] own projected testimony about her ‘therapy.’ ” The shortsightedness of this contention is that Petitioner’s testimony as to the reason for'her “talk therapy” was that of a crucial witness, albeit a witness for the defense and not the prosecution, whose testimony went directly to the state’s claim against her. Contrary to the majority’s reasoning, it, is of no moment whether the excluded evidence went to determining the credibility of testimony proffered against the petitioner (as was the case in Davis), or whether the evidence went to the credibility of testimony proffered in favor of the petitioner (as is the case here). See, e.g., Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967) (“Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution’s witnesses for the purpose of challenging their, testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law.”). In each instance the testimony went to determining the petitioner’s guilt and, therefore, in each instance “the jurors were entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them so that they could make an informed judgment as to the weight to place on [the witness’] testimony which provided a crucial link in the proof ... of petitioner’s act.” Davis, 415 U.S. at 317, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The majority also attempts to distinguish Davis by noting that' Davis involved the petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation, while the case at hand involves Petitioner’s Fifth Amendment right to present a defense. This distinction has no basis in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. See Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (“Whether rooted directly in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or in the Compulsory Process or Confrontation clauses of the Sixth Amendment, the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 684-85, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) (“The Constitution guarantees a fair trial through the Due Process Clauses, but it defines the basic elements of a fair trial largely through the several provisions of the Sixth Amendment....”). Accordingly, the fact that Davis involved the Sixth Amendment does *515nothing to change its applicability to the matter at hand inasmuch as the logic and reasoning for concluding that Petitioner was denied her due process right to present a defense is the same as that used to find the petitioner’s right to confrontation was denied in Davis.
To illustrate, although the petitioner in Davis premised his claim on a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation, the Court found that the right was violated because the petitioner had been prevented from fully presenting his defense by the limited cross-examination of a key witness. See Davis, 415 U.S. at 317-18, 94 S.Ct. 1105. Specifically, the Court opined:
The accuracy and truthfulness of Green’s [the key witness for the prosecution] testimony were key elements in the State’s case against petitioner. The claim of bias which the defense sought to develop was admissible to afford a basis for an inference of undue pressure because of Green’s vulnerable status as a probationer, as well as Green’s possible concern that he might be a suspect in the investigation.
We cannot accept the Alaska Supreme Court’s conclusion that the cross-examination that was permitted defense counsel was adequate to develop the issue of bias properly to the jury. While counsel was permitted to ask Green whether he was biased, counsel was unable to make a record from which to argue why Green might have been biased or otherwise lacked that degree of impartiality expected of a witness at trial. On the basis of the limited cross-examination that was permitted, the jury might well have thought that defense counsel was engaged in a speculative and baseless line of attack on the credibility of an apparently blameless witness or, as the prosecutor’s objection put it, a ‘rehash’ of prior cross-examination. On these facts it seems clear to us that to make any such inquiry effective, defense counsel should have been permitted to expose to the jury the facts from which jurors, as the sole triers of fact and credibility, could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness. Petitioner was thus denied the right of effective cross-examination which “would be constitutional error of the first magnitude.... ”
Id. at 317-18, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (citations and footnote omitted).
Here, likewise, the “accuracy and truthfulness” of Petitioner’s testimony was, critical to the prosecution’s case against her, and because defense counsel was limited in his examination of Petitioner as to her “talk therapy” defense, “the jury might well have thought that defense counsel was engaged in a speculative” theory of defense. See Davis, 415 U.S. at 317-18, 94 S.Ct. 1105. However, had defense counsel been able to examine Petitioner, regarding the basis for her “talk therapy” theory, the jury might well have thought otherwise. Indeed, without more,. Petitioner’s “talk therapy” as a basis for the boys to vent their hatred for their father may very well have worked against Petitioner inasmuch as the jury may have. believed that Petitioner’s sons hated their father because he demanded that they excel in school, or strictly prevented them from using drugs or alcohol. In other words, without more, the jury may have thought the sons hated Rockwell because he was being a good, albeit perhaps strict, father, such that Petitioner’s approval of the boys speaking' of killing Rockwell as a form of “talk therapy” may have hurt her defense as opposed to helping it. Without knowing the reason behind the boys’ hatred of Rockwell, the jury may also have believed that the boys hated him at Petitioner’s behest, thereby *516adding credence to the prosecution’s claim that Petitioner formed an agreement with her sons to kill Rockwell. Simply put, without the evidence at issue, defense counsel was unable to fully defend Petitioner. See Davis, 415 U.S. at 318, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (finding that without evidence of bias on the part of the accuser, defense counsel was unable to fully defend the petitioner). In light of this, the state courts unreasonably applied the principles behind Davis to the facts of this case under an objective standard.
Crane v. Kentucky, provides further grounds for concluding that the state courts unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent in excluding testimony of Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons. In Crane, the Court held that the exclusion of testimony regarding the circumstances under which his confession was obtained deprived the petitioner of this fundamental constitutional right— whether under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or under the Compulsory Process or Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth Amendment — to present a defense. See 476 U.S. at 690-91, 106 S.Ct. 2142. In doing so, the Court noted that it was “breaking] no new ground in observing' that an essential component of procedural fairness is an opportunity to be heard.” See id. at 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142 (citing In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 273, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394, 34 S.Ct. 779, 58 L.Ed. 1363 (1914)). To that end, the Court found that this “opportunity would be an empty one if the State were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the defendant’s claim of innocence.” Id. As a result, the Court concluded that “[i]n the absence of any valid state justification, exclusion of this kind of exculpatory evidence deprives a defendant of the basic right to have the prosecutor’s case encounter and ‘survive the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.’ ” Id. at 690-91, 106 S.Ct. 2142 (quoting United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 656, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984)).
The Court went on to find that under the facts of the case before it, “the Kentucky courts [had] erred in foreclosing petitioner’s efforts to introduce testimony about the environment in which the police secured his confession.” Crane, 476 U.S. at 691, 106 S.Ct. 2142. The Court opined that
evidence about the manner in which a confession was obtained is often highly relevant to its reliability and credibility. Such evidence was especially relevant in the rather peculiar circumstances of this case. Petitioner’s entire defense was that there was no physical evidence to link him to the crime and that, for a variety of reasons, his earlier admission of guilt was not to be believed. To support that defense, he sought to paint a picture of a young, uneducated boy who was kept against his will in a small, windowless room for a protracted period of time until he confessed to every unsolved crime in the county, including the one for which he now stands convicted. We do not, of course, pass on the strength or merits of that defense. We do, however, think it plain that introducing evidence of the physical circumstances that yielded the confession was all but indispensable to any chance of its succeeding.

Id.

Likewise, in the matter at hand, evidence of the circumstances that caused Petitioner to engage in this “talk therapy” was “all but indispensable to any chance of [her defense] succeeding.” See Crane, 476 U.S. at 691, 106 S.Ct. 2142. Indeed, Petitioner’s entire defense was that she partic*517ipated in her sons’ discussions about killing Rockwell as a means of allowing the boys to vent their anger for Rockwell. These discussions, the defense goes, never amounted to an agreement to kill for purposes of securing a conspiracy conviction, but were Petitioner’s way of comforting her sons and preventing, not causing, the already volatile situation to escalate. To support this defense, Petitioner sought to introduce evidence of the reason for the boys’ hatred of their father — Rockwell’s many years of sexual abuse. Without this evidence, it is plain that Petitioner’s defense may have appeared much less credible in the eyes of the jury. The evidence, therefore, was highly relevant to Petitioner’s “talk therapy” defense, and the refusal to admit the evidence was objectively unreasonable in light of Crane.
On the issue of relevancy, the majority contends that in striking the balance between the evidence’s probative value versus its prejudicial effect as it did, “the Michigan court may or may not have erred, but we are not persuaded that it was applying Davis v. Alaska (or any other United States Supreme Court decision of which we are aware) in a way that could fairly be described as ‘objectively unreasonable.’ ” The discussions of Davis and Crane as set forth above illustrate why the Michigan courts were objectively unreasonable in finding that evidence Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons was more prejudicial than probative of Petitioner’s “talk therapy” defense; however, the case of Olden v. Kentucky, 488 U.S. 227, 109 S.Ct. 480, 102 L.Ed.2d 513 (1988) further illustrates the unreasonableness of the state courts’ rulings.
In Olden, the issue before the Court was whether the Kentucky state courts had violated the petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to cross-examination by ruling that evidence of the victim’s interracial relationship with the petitioner was inadmissible as being more prejudicial than probative. See Olden, 488 U.S. at 232, 109 S.Ct. 480. Specifically, the Court opined:
The Kentucky Court of Appeals did not dispute, and indeed acknowledged, the relevance of the impeachment evidence. Nonetheless, ... the court held that petitioner’s right to effective cross-examination was outweighed by the danger that revealing [the victim’s] interracial relationship would prejudice the jury against her. While a trial court may, of course, impose reasonable limits on defense counsel’s inquiry into the potential bias of a prosecution witness, to take account of such factors as “harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues, the witness’ safety, or interrogation that [would be] repetitive or only marginally relevant,” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, [475 U.S. 673,] 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 [1986], the limitation here was beyond reason. Speculation as to the effect of jurors’ racial biases cannot justify exclusion of cross-examination with such strong potential to demonstrate the falsity of [the victim’s] testimony.

Id.

In the matter at hand, it is true that Petitioner sought to introduce evidence not to show bias of a witness, but to demonstrate the viability of her defense; however, in either case, the evidence sought to be introduced was relevant to demonstrating the truth or falsity of testimony critical to the petitioner’s guilt or innocence. And, where the evidence of Rockwell’s years of alleged sexual abuse of the boys provided the very basis for Petitioner’s “talk therapy,” speculation about how this evidence would have prejudiced the jury cannot serve to justify the exclusion of the evidence. See Olden, 488 U.S. at 232, 109 S.Ct. 480; see also Crane, 476 U.S. at 690, *518106 S.Ct. 2142 (finding that the right to' present a complete defense is firmly rooted in the Constitution, whether argued under the Fifth or Sixth Amendment). As a result, under an objective standard, the Michigan courts unreasonably applied Olden in excluding' evidence of Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons as being more prejudicial than-probative.
In light of the above analysis, it is difficult to comprehend the majority’s position. As noted at the outset of this dissent, the Supreme Court has guided, us that while the term “unreasonable” is “no doubt difficult to define,” it is nonetheless “a common term in the legal world, and, accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 411, 120 S.Ct. 1495. As I am familiar with the meaning of the term “unreasonable,” and as the term is known throughout the jurisprudence, it is abundantly clear that the Michigan courts unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent under an objective standard in refusing to allow testimony regarding Rockwell’s alleged sexual abuse of his sons into evidence because, in doing so, the state deprived Petitioner of her Fifth Amendment right to present a defense and effectively left Petitioner with no defense at all.'
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.