Court Opinion

ID: 9495019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:52:49.117975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:46.383320
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s judgment, but I write separately to address the standard of review that governs our consideration of this appeal.
As Judge Keith correctly observes, we have not directly analyzed AEDPA’s requirement that a state court adjudicate federal claims “on the merits” in order to warrant our deference. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). However, in Harris v. Stovall, 212 F.3d 940 (6th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 947, 121 S.Ct. 1415, 149 L.Ed.2d 356 (2001), we specifically held that the result of a state court’s decision controls when the state court fails to explain its reasoning; we stated that we could not “grant relief unless the state court’s result is not in keeping with the strictures of the AEDPA.” Id. at 943.
In Harris, the habeas petitioner claimed that the trial court had violated his due process rights by denying his request for the transcript of his co-defendants’ earlier trial. Harris, 212 F.3d at 941-42. No state court addressed Harris’s due process claim. Id. at 943. We ultimately held:
[T]he result of the decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals to affirm petitioner’s conviction was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court precedent on [a defendant’s right to a free copy of a transcript of his co-defendants’ previous trial to use for the impeachment of witnesses] was not clearly established.
Id. at 945.
The Harris court could have distinguished the state court’s apparent failure to address the federal due process claim at all in that case from a state court’s mere failure to explain the explicit rejection of a federal claim in another case. The fact that in Harris we focused instead on the result of the state court decision necessarily controlled our analysis in Doan v. Brigano, 237 F.3d 722 (6th Cir.2001), where the habeas petitioner argued that his right to a fair trial had been violated because the jury had considered evidence not presented at trial. Id. at 729-30. Instead of addressing this argument, the state court relied on a state evidentiary rule that required outside evidence of juror misconduct. Id. at 730. On habeas, we noted that “the Ohio Court of Appeals did not even identify in its opinion that Doan had a federal constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury that considers in its deliber*842ations only the evidence presented against him at trial.” Id. We then held that the “contrary to” rather than the “unreasonable application” prong of § 2254(d)(1) should govern because the state court “did not, as the Supreme Court defined an unreasonable application, correctly identify the governing legal principle only to unreasonably apply that principle to the particular facts of the case at hand.” Id.
A sister circuit has since pointed out that our view of § 2254’s unreasonable application prong in Doan is in tension with our conclusion in Harris, where we held that the state court had not erred under AEDPA. Sellan v. Kuhlman, 261 F.3d 303, 313 n. 5 (2d Cir.2001). As quoted above, however, Harris denied habeas relief because the Supreme Court had not clearly established a defendant’s right to a free copy of a transcript of his co-defendants’ previous trial for the impeachment of witnesses in the defendant’s trial. Harris, 212 F.3d at 945. In contrast, the defendant in Doan had a clearly established Sixth Amendment right to a fail' and impartial jury. Therefore, the language in Harris about the state court’s unreasonable application of federal law was dicta, and Doan’s “contrary to” analysis controls.
Under Harris and Doan, then, we must defer to state court decisions that do not address federal claims, but only if their results are not contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Given developments in our sister circuits, however, I agree with Judge Keith that we may wish to consider en banc whether the pre-AEDPA standard of review should be applicable to state court decisions that do not mention or address federal claims at all. See Norde v. Keane, No. 01-2049, 2002 WL 483488, at *7-*8 (2d Cir. Mar.29, 2002) (when state court failed to indicate it had considered federal constitutional claims, the claims were not adjudicated on the merits, and federal court should review de novo); Greene v. Lambert, No. 01-35595, 2002 WL 453215, at *6 (9th Cir. Mar.26, 2002) (“If there is no such decision on the merits [explaining reason for decision of federal claim], ... there is nothing to which to defer.”); Robinson v. Crist, 278 F.3d 862, 865 (8th Cir.2002) (suggesting that federal courts “likely should apply the pre-AEDPA standard of review” when state courts fail to adjudicate claims on the merits); Fortini v. Murphy, 257 F.3d 39, 47 (1st Cir.2001) (“[W]e can hardly defer to the state court on an issue that the state court did not address.”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1609, 152 L.Ed.2d 623 (2002); Romine v. Head, 253 F.3d 1349, 1365 (11th Cir.2001) (“[W]hen there is grave doubt about whether the state court applied the correct rule of governing federal law [because state court did not refer to federal law], § 2254(d)(1) does not apply.”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1593, 152 L.Ed.2d 509 (2002); Hameen v. Delaware, 212 F.3d 226, 248 (3d Cir.2000) (holding that the “exercise [of] pre-AEDPA independent judgment” is appropriate when a defendant presents a state court with the opportunity to decide a federal constitutional claim and the court does not do so), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 924, 121 S.Ct. 1365, 149 L.Ed.2d 293 (2001); Mueller v. Angelone, 181 F.3d 557, 570 n. 9 (4th Cir.) (“[A] claim that was not adjudicated on the merits, even in a summary fashion, and which is not procedurally defaulted, would seem to fall outside the new section 2254(d) and its limitations on the scope of the habeas remedy.”), cert. denied, 527 U.S. 1065, 120 S.Ct. 37, 144 L.Ed.2d 839 (1999); Mercadel v. Cain, 179 F.3d 271, 274-75 (5th Cir.1999) (holding “that the AEDPA deference scheme ... does not apply” when a state court denies *843relief through a one-word order that is likely based on procedural grounds).