The Great Writ

Proponents of habeas corpus have been fighting a losing battle against those seeking to restrict the writ to its narrowest possible application.  The biggest blow to habeas was certainly wielded by Congress with the passage of the AEDPA in 1996.  Since then, the Supreme Court has contributed to the demise of the writ by steadily narrowing the kinds of state court “errors” which the federal courts are permitted to review.  By reciting the mantra of federalism, state sovereignty, and deference, the Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to have meaningful federal review of any but the most egregious (and obvious) state court errors.  This is what makes the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Chandler v. Brown all that more astonishing.

In Chandler, the defendant was charged with criminal sexual contact related to allegations of sexual abuse by a foster child staying in Chandler’s home.  There were many issues regarding the credibility of the victims claims and these credibility questions were framed by the defendant as a pattern of allegations made by the victim when it appeared that the foster parents in questions sought to adopt the victim.  The defendant had a number of witnesses who could testify to the victim’s history of unfounded accusations along with an expert witness who was prepared to put some psychological framework on the victim’s conduct.  The defense was also burdened by an “accelerated docket” which made disclosure of relevant evidence within rigid time limits very difficult.  The case contains a plethora of factual allegations and evidentiary claims – far more than can be adequately discussed here.  All of this became relevant when the trial court excluded all of the witnesses and denied repeated requests to continue the case in light of recently discovered evidence and witnesses.  Chandler was convicted without being permitted to call any of his proposed witnesses.  The state appellate court – recognizing that the trial had overstepped its boundaries in barring defendant’s witnesses and declining to continue the case – nevertheless upheld the verdict, claiming that a new trial wasn’t warranted given that it was not  “more probable than not that the error was outcome determinative.”

The issue raised in habeas and addressed by the Sixth Circuit was whether these “state court” errors had constitutional significance.  What sort of trial is a defendant assured of by the terms of the constitution?  The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that whatever constitutional trial rights the defendant might be entitled were satisfied because the defendant was represented by counsel and he had the ability to cross examine his accuser.  The Sixth Circuit viewed this as far too restrictive and concluded first of all that state court trial actions could be unconstitutional if they were arbitrary and failed to serve and discernable purpose.  Constitutionally, a defendant is entitled to a fair trial – not a flawless one.  This means that the actions taken by the trial court in the state court trial must deprive the defendant of meaningful adversarial testing of the state’s case.  Ultimately, the Sixth Circuit concluded that, in order to grant relief, a court must hold that no reasonable juror could dispute that the excluded evidence was central to the defendant’s claim of innocence, and its exclusion could not be defended by any valid state justification.

The Sixth Circuit concluded that Chandler’s due process rights were violated and that the errors in question weren’t harmless. The significance of this case is first the manner in which the constitutional rule was discerned and second the consequence of such a finding for the scope of habeas relief.  There is no single provision within the constitution which clearly defines the right which Chandler is asserting.  Rather, the due process clause is relied upon as the constitutional foundation.  In addition, there is no single case that establishes the “fair trial” aspects of due process.  The Sixth Circuit aggregated several cases involving individual instances of denial of the right to present a “complete defense” when crafting the rule applied herein.  Applying the newly crafted rule to Chandler, the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that there is a “very high bar” to clear in these types of cases and that the AEDPA makes it even more difficult to conclude that the defendant’s constitutional rights were impaired.  The Court states that “the trial court’s decision must have been ‘so arbitrary or capricious’ as to fall outside ‘the universe of plausible evidentiary rulings.  … [i]n our view, this is the extraordinary case in which this threshold is met.”  

This ruling suggests that state court evidentiary rulings and decisions pertaining to docket control now have such constitutional import as to allow a federal court, acting in habeas, to overturn the trial result and compel a new trial.  This is – quite frankly – a shocking decision.  Historically, courts have viewed the scope of habeas review to narrowly apply to those state court decisions that were contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.  One question which must be asked is whether the “right to present a complete defense” is a clearly established federal law.  Does the aggregation of these fairly isolated cases create a rule?  In a dissent to a denial of a request for an en banc hearing before the entire Sixth Circuit, the dissenting judges characterize these cases as involving “novel or antiquated rules of evidence or procedure.”  As such, their aggregation cannot be a “clearly established rule.”  Even if we can aggregate cases to establish a rule, the rule is still one associated with a very general constitutional mandate – that of due process.  Were this ruling to stand, state court evidentiary decisions as well as rulings on requested continuances and other scheduling issues could become questions of constitutional import for purposes of federal habeas review.  As one can imagine, those who favor a very narrow reading of habeas corpus find this ruling catastrophic.  As the dissenting judges noted, this ruling undermines state sovereignty and imposes “profound societal costs.”  One wonders if the Supreme Court can resist reviewing this decision if certiorari is sought.