Court Opinion

ID: 9814126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 23:36:39.892761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:34:43.558654
License: Public Domain

R. GUY COLE, JR., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s opinion, but write separately because I believe this Court should reach Harris’s sufficiency of the evidence claim. I agree with the majority that Harris’s claim must fail on the merits.
The majority declines to reach Harris’s sufficiency of the evidence claim, finding that his claim is not exhausted because it was not presented as a federal constitutional claim in the state courts. (Maj. Op. 321-22.) However, as the majority notes, this Court does reach claims that allege “facts well within the mainstream of constitutional law.” (Maj. Op. at 322.) Although Harris failed to couch his claim in terms of federal law before the state *324courts, success of his sufficiency of the evidence claim in the state system would necessarily implicate federal due process concerns. I thus find Harris’s claim to be within the mainstream of constitutional law and would reach the claim’s merits.
In any event, I agree with the majority’s analysis and finding regarding the merits of this claim (Maj. Op. at 328) and concur with the result of the opinion.