Zuluaga v. Spencer

• Decision Date: 19 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-1402.,08-1402.
• Citation: 585 F.3d 27
• Parties: Luis ZULUAGA, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Luis SPENCER, Respondent, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

585 F.3d 27

Luis ZULUAGA, Petitioner, Appellant, v. Luis SPENCER, Respondent, Appellee.

No. 08-1402.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard September 9, 2009.

Decided October 19, 2009.

Raymond E. Gillespie on brief for petitioner.

Jennifer L. Sullivan, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Bureau, with whom Martha Coakley, Attorney General, was on brief for respondent.

Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, GAJARSA^* and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

LYNCH, Chief Judge.

Luis Zuluaga appeals from the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging his rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), were violated in the state criminal proceedings. Zuluaga v. Spencer, No. Civ. A. 05-CV-11856 (D.Mass. Jan. 31, 2008). His state conviction in October 1994 was on the charge of trafficking in over two hundred grams of cocaine; his two later motions for new trial were denied.

The petitioner's theory is that the prosecutors violated Brady by not disclosing before his 1994 trial that a certain State Trooper had been found by a superior court judge in 1981 to have testified falsely before a grand jury in 1980 in an unrelated matter. Zuluaga says the state trial court erred in rejecting his second motion for new trial and that the state appeals court erroneously affirmed, on the grounds that he was not prejudiced. The state courts held this information about the Trooper was inadmissible on two separate grounds and that Zuluaga thus could not show prejudice because the evidence could not have affected the outcome of his case.

Because neither state court cited any state or federal case law, the question arose as to whether these courts had addressed the merits of the federal Brady claim. This issue would affect the lens— de novo or deferential review—through which we view his habeas petition. When a habeas claim has been adjudicated on its merits in state court, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, mandates highly deferential federal court review of state court holdings. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 403, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). When it has not been adjudicated on the merits, under circuit law, the federal habeas court does not owe deference to the state court reasoning, but reviews the state court adjudication de novo. Pina v. Maloney, 565 F.3d 48, 54 (1st Cir.2009).

This seemingly simple rule has proven not so simple. It raises the question of whether the state court has adjudicated a federal claim on the merits when the state court has not explicitly said it has done so. We have addressed the issue when the state court cites only state law. McCambridge v. Hall, 303 F.3d 24, 35 (1st Cir. 2002) (en banc). Here, the issue is what happens when the state court cites no law, state or federal. Importantly, AEDPA's text does not say deference is owed only when the state court cites to a case.

Petitioner says he was prejudiced because he could have used the fact of the Trooper's 1980 false testimony before his own trial to cast doubt on the Trooper's affidavit in support of a body wire, that this would have led to a different outcome in the hearing to suppress the fruits of the recording, and that the evidence would have been suppressed. Absent the suppressed evidence, petitioner argues, the outcome of the trial likely would have been affected.

The basic facts and analysis are set forth in the district court's thoughtful opinion. We affirm largely on the basis of that opinion and add our own holdings on two issues. First, we affirm the district court's ruling that deferential review is required when it is clear that the state courts either used their own state standard, which is more generous than the federal standard, or used the federal standard, although the state courts did not cite to any case law. Second, we hold that even if the petitioner were entitled to de novo review on habeas, his petition still must be denied.

I.

We review de novo a district court's denial of habeas relief, including its determination of the appropriate standard of review of the state court proceeding. See Lynch v. Ficco, 438 F.3d 35, 44 (1st Cir.2006).

Much of petitioner's argument on appeal is devoted to his claim that his habeas petition is entitled to de novo review. The district court thoroughly evaluated this argument and properly concluded that deferential review was appropriate under AEDPA because the state court had addressed the merits of his federal claim. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 404-05, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (holding that AEDPA deference precludes habeas relief absent a showing that the state court's holding was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law"). A state court decision is "contrary to" the Supreme Court's clearly established precedents if it either applies a rule that contradicts the governing law or resolves a case differently from the Court on materially indistinguishable facts. Williams, 529 U.S. at 405, 409, 120 S.Ct. 1495. A state court decision is "an unreasonable application" of Supreme Court case law only "if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's case." Id. at 413, 120 S.Ct. 1495.¹

AEDPA deference is appropriate "with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings." Goodrich v. Hall, 448 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). By contrast, if the state court does not address the merits of a federal claim, we owe no such deference and our review is de novo. See Fortini v. Murphy, 257 F.3d 39, 47 (1st Cir.2001); see also Ellsworth v. Warden, 333 F.3d 1, 4 n. 1 (1st Cir.2003) (en banc).²

Still, we have recognized that adjudication of a constitutional claim on its merits encompasses situations in which a petitioner's claim was resolved under a state standard "that is more favorable to defendants than the federal standard." McCambridge, 303 F.3d at 35. We specifically applied the McCambridge rule to a Brady claim by a habeas petitioner in Norton v. Spencer, 351 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2003). There the state court had cited only state law, but because that state law was more generous to defendants than corresponding federal law, we held that the subsumed federal claims had been addressed on the merits. Id. at 5.

In state court, petitioner presented the claim at issue as a Brady claim, not as a state law claim. The Massachusetts state law standard under Commonwealth v. Tucceri, 412 Mass. 401, 589 N.E.2d 1216 (1992), is more favorable to criminal defendants on the prejudice prong of Brady analysis. To prevail on a federal Brady claim, "a habeas petitioner must demonstrate: (1) the evidence at issue is favorable to him because it is exculpatory or impeaching; (2) the Government suppressed the evidence; and (3) prejudice ensued from the suppression (i.e., the suppressed evidence was material to guilt or punishment)." Conley v. United States, 415 F.3d 183, 188 (1st Cir.2005) (citing Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281-82, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999)).

Under federal law, the prejudice prong of the Brady analysis turns on whether a reasonable probability exists that disclosure of the evidence at issue would have altered the result of the proceeding. See, e.g., McCambridge, 303 F.3d at 37. We have previously held that the Massachusetts prejudice standard is more favorable to defendants than its federal counterpart under Brady. See, e.g., Healy v. Spencer, 453 F.3d 21, 25 (1st Cir.2006) (noting the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts's use of what that court "has characterized as its more defendant-friendly state standard for prejudice") (citing Commonwealth v. Healy, 438 Mass. 672, 783 N.E.2d 428, 435 (2003)).

Although short on citation, the state court's holding squarely addressed the merits either of a possible state constitutional claim, which encompassed any federal claim, or of petitioner's federal Brady claim directly, or both. The trial court judge plainly stated that the evidence at the heart of petitioner's claim could not have prejudiced him at trial, as the prior bad acts that it purported to prove "never would have been admissible at any stage" of petitioner's proceedings, and that "even if they were [admissible], these prior bad acts ... were so remote in time to defendants [sic] prosecution, that they would carry no evidentiary weight." Finally, the state judge's to-the-point closing line spoke directly to the issue of prejudice, holding that "the newly discovered information could not possibly have affected the outcome of the case." That articulation covers either petitioner's Brady claim, an understanding of the claim phrased in terms of state law, or both. There is no other possibility.

In these circumstances, it would elevate form over substance to impose some sort of requirement that busy state judges provide case citations to federal law (or corresponding state law) before federal courts will give deference to state court reasoning. Such formalism would be contrary to the congressional intent expressed in AEDPA.

The Supreme Court faced a similar issue in Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 123 S.Ct. 362, 154 L.Ed.2d 263 (2002) (per curiam), in which it reversed the Ninth Circuit for imposing a rule that a state court decision that failed to cite to the relevant Supreme Court or other federal precedent was necessarily contrary to clearly established federal law. The Court held that "[a]voiding th[is] pitfall[ ] does not require citation of our cases—indeed, it does not even require awareness of our cases, so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the state-court decision contradicts them." Id. at 8, 123 S.Ct. 362; see also Knight v. Spencer, 447 F.3d 6, 12 (1st Cir.2006). While ...