The Second Circuit issued a published opinion today, reversing a grant of habeas in the case of Watson v. Greene, 10-307-pr. The opinion was written by Lynch, ending his two-case streak of writing opinions in favor of habeas petitioners.
First, the details:
Watson v. Greene, 10-0307-pr
- Reversing Grant of Habeas; Published Opinion by Lynch
- Argued: 12/10/10
- Panel: Lynch, Chin, CJJ, Korman, DJ
- Lower Court Info: 06-CV-2212, 2009 WL 5172874 (EDNY Dec. 30, 2009) (CBA)
- In Circuit: Habeas Grant
- Issue: Improper curtailment of cross-examination
ANALYSIS: This decision is kind of in the spirit of the current Supreme Court term -- a very restrictive view of the availability of habeas corpus relief. The court here does rely, in part, on the Court's new highly restrictive language set forth in Richter.
But the court focuses more on the great amount of deference that must be given to state court decisions applying "general constitutional standards." It is not a novel concept by any means. But it is stated here quite restrictively for habeas petitioners. Lynch says, "Where state court decisions are guided only by general constitutional standards (as opposed to specific, bright-line rules), the “unreasonable application” standard is particularly difficult to meet, because such decisions are given a particularly generous benefit of the doubt." I guess this is the environment for habeas petitioners right now: everything is going to be viewed as restrictively as possible.
Lynch does give one fun nugget in the opinion. The issue centered on the trial court's curtailment of the defense's attempt to question witnesses about a note created by a police officer. In the note, the officer wrote that someone overheard conversations among a man named Harvey and Harvey's family members in which Harvey stated that he had a gun on the night of the murder for which Watson was charged and that the gun had gone off accidentally.
Lynch says that a trial court could reasonably conclude that a jury would be confused by the hearsay evidence in the note. However, he takes a little jab at the trial court in the process. Before explaining that a court could conclude that it would be reasonable for a judge to conclude that a jury could be misled or distracted by the suggestion that the note was substantive evidence, he states, "it is not clear exactly what the trial court meant when it characterized the Note as a 'red herring.'" He then drops a footnote in which he quotes the definition of "red herring" from the Oxford English Dictionary Online, presumably to show that the use of the term "red herring" was far off the mark. I found it entertaining.
Of course, the entire reference to the "red herring" comment was completely unnecessary. One point that Lynch made in his earlier discussion of the broad AEDPA deference was that any old reasonable justification, even one not used by the state courts, is enough to deny relief on habeas review. So in the new extraordinarily restrictive habeas environment, it does not really matter what anybody in state court actually said. Nevertheless, I am happy he included the reference to the red herring comment. It adds flavor to the opinion.
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