13-b-4 Aedpa Standard of Relief: Showing the Federal Court That the State Court Was Incorrect in Refusing to Grant You Relief[71]

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

13-B-4. AEDPA Standard of Relief: Showing the Federal Court that the State Court Was Incorrect in Refusing to Grant You Relief[71]

If you are a state prisoner, once you have shown the court that your rights were violated and the violation was harmful, you will also need to convince the federal court that the state court was incorrect in failing to find that your rights were violated or that the violation did not harm you when it reviewed your habeas petition. In some cases, where the state court ruled on both of these elements, you will have to show the federal court that the state court was incorrect on both counts. (Remember, you must present your claims to a state court first, so you will only be filing a federal habeas petition if the state court has denied you relief).

In 1996, AEDPA altered 28 U.S.C. & 2254 and set a new "standard of review" for habeas relief for state court prisoners. A standard of review is the test that the federal court will use to decide whether to overrule the state court's decision denying you relief. Under AEDPA, you must prove that the state court decision rejecting your habeas petition was either "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,"⁷² or that it was based on an "unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding."⁷³This is a very high standard and it is not easily met. The federal courts do not like to overturn state court decisions. This means that to get federal habeas relief, you cannot just show the federal court that the state court was wrong-you must show that the state court's ruling was "unreasonable" or "contrary" to the Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law.

How the federal court will apply the AEDPA standard of review will depend on how the state court handled your state collateral attack.⁷⁴ If the state court made a determination about certain issues, then the federal court will apply the AEDPA standard of review to the state court's decision-making process. The federal court will look to see if the state court's decision was "unreasonable" or "contrary" to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law. In addition to demonstrating that the state court's decision-making process was incorrect, you still need to provide facts that show that the state court's ultimate determination was incorrect.

For example, if the state court rejected your collateral attack because it found that a constitutional violation did not occur, and it did not discuss the issue of harmless error, then the AEDPA standard of review will only apply to establishing the constitutional violation. Showing that the state court was incorrect will be subject to the AEDPA standard of review, so you will have to prove that the state court was "unreasonable" or "contrary" to the Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law. In order to do this, you must do two things:

(1) show the federal court that the state court was incorrect in failing to find that the violation occurred;

(2) show the federal court that a constitutional violation occurred by showing the standard used by the state court was met as discussed in Part B(2) of this Chapter.

If the state court did not rule on the next element of the habeas petition, harmless error, then you will not need to apply the AEDPA standard of review to the harmless error issue. In this example, because the state court never ruled on the harmless error issue, the federal court will look at the harmless error issue "de novo", which means that the federal court will look at the issue as if for the first time. The federal court will not consider whether the state court's decision was unreasonable. This would mean a lesser or less stringent standard of review. If, on the other hand, the state court found that a violation occurred, but that it was harmless, the federal court will apply AEDPA's unreasonableness standard of review to the harmless error issue. Also, the state court may have found that there was no constitutional violation but may have ruled on the harmless error issue anyway. Because in such a situation the state court ruled on both elements of the habeas petition, the federal court has to apply the AEDPA unreasonableness standard of review to both elements.

Sometimes state prisoners present habeas claims to federal courts that have not been previously presented to state courts. This happens when the claim falls under one of the exceptions to the exhaustion rule. You should see Part D(2) of this Chapter below for a discussion of the state exhaustion rule. In these rare circumstances, the AEDPA standard of review will not be used at all. If your claim falls under one of the exceptions to the exhaustion rule, you only need to show the federal court that your rights were violated and that the violation affected the outcome of the trial. Once you have shown this, you will have completed the substantive part of your habeas claim. However, there are still many procedural issues you will have to address to be granted habeas relief. These procedural issues are discussed below in Part D ("Procedures for Filing a Petition for Habeas Corpus") of this Chapter.

Assuming the state court has ruled on your claim, it will be subject, at least in part, to the AEDPA standard of review. This Section discusses this standard in more detail. Subsection (a) of this Section will discuss how to use the first AEDPA test-"contrary to, [or an] unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court." Subsection (b) will discuss the second AEDPA test-"unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented." To give your petition the best chance of success, you should always argue that your situation meets both the "contrary" standard and the "unreasonable application" standard.

(a) "Contrary to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court"⁷⁵

The Supreme Court explained this test in Williams v. Taylor.⁷⁶ In Williams, the petitioner claimed his attorney had provided ineffective assistance of counsel. The Court held that Mr. Williams had shown his counsel's performance was ineffective and went on to consider whether habeas relief should be granted under this standard.⁷⁷ The Court first held that to be successful, a petitioner must show that the claimed violation was based on federal law that was clearly established by the Supreme Court at the time the state court decided these claims. This means that before the court will consider your claim, you must show that the law you are relying on is not new and that the Supreme Court itself has interpreted the law at some point in the past.⁷⁸ Most of the examples of constitutional violations listed above are not new laws and would be considered for relief. There are some very limited exceptions that allow new law to be used. To learn more about these exceptions read Part C(3) ("Exceptions to the New Laws Rule") of this Chapter.

If you can show that you are relying on clearly established federal law, your next step is to show either that the state or trial court's decision was contrary to that federal law, or that the state or trial court applied the law in an unreasonable manner. Remember, the point of the federal habeas petition is to give the federal court a chance to correct a wrong decision by the state or trial court.

(i) "Contrary" Standard

The first way to show that the court's decision was wrong is to show that the court's decision was contrary to (conflicting with) clearly established federal law.⁷⁹ This is a difficult standard to meet. In Williams, the Court held that the contrary standard meant that habeas relief is deserved if the court "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases."⁸⁰ This means that the court must have either applied the wrong standard in a case or interpreted the standard incorrectly. For example, in a case on ineffective assistance of counsel, the Strickland standard governs.⁸¹ If the court applied a standard that was different from the Strickland standard, then it has applied a standard "contrary" to clearly established law. In this case, relief may be appropriate. Likewise, if the court interpreted the Strickland standard incorrectly, then the decision would also be contrary to federal law, and relief could be granted.⁸² However, it is difficult to persuade...