SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
NEVADA, et al., PETITIONERS
v.
CALVIN O’NEIL JACKSON
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 12–694. Decided June 3, 2013
Per Curiam.
In this case, the Court of Appeals held that
respondent, who was convicted of rape and other serious crimes, is
en- titled to relief under the federal habeas statute because the
Supreme Court of Nevada unreasonably applied clearly established
Supreme Court precedent regarding a crim- inal defendant’s
constitutional right to present a defense. At his trial, respondent
unsuccessfully sought to introduce evidence for the purpose of
showing that the rape victim previously reported that he had
assaulted her but that the police had been unable to substantiate
those allegations. The state supreme court held that this evidence
was properly excluded, and no prior decision of this Court clearly
establishes that the exclusion of this evidence violated
respondent’s federal constitutional rights. The decision of the
Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.
I
Respondent Calvin Jackson had a tumultuous
decade-long romantic relationship with Annette Heathmon. In 1998,
after several previous attempts to end the relationship, Heathmon
relocated to a new apartment in North Las Vegas without telling
respondent where she was mov- ing. Respondent learned of Heathmon’s
whereabouts, and on the night of October 21, 1998, he visited her
apartment. What happened next was the focus of respondent’s
trial.
Heathmon told police and later testified that
respondent forced his way into her apartment and threatened to kill
her with a screwdriver if she did not have sex with him. After
raping Heathmon, respondent hit her, stole a ring from her bedroom,
and dragged her out of the apartment and toward his car by the neck
and hair. A witness confronted the couple, and respondent fled.
Police observed injuries to Heathmon’s neck and scalp that were
consis-tent with her account of events, and respondent was
eventually arrested.
Although respondent did not testify at trial, he
discussed Heathmon’s allegations with police shortly after his
arrest, and his statements were admitted into evidence at trial.
Respondent acknowledged that Heathmon might have agreed to have sex
because the two were alone and “she was scared that [he] might do
something,” Tr. 305, but he claimed that the sex was consensual.
Respondent also admitted striking Heathmon inside the apartment but
denied pulling her outside by the neck and hair.
Shortly before trial, Heathmon sent the judge a
letter recanting her prior accusations and stating that she would
not testify. She went into hiding, but police eventually found her
and took her into custody as a material wit- ness. Once in custody,
Heathmon disavowed the letter and agreed to testify. When asked
about the letter at trial, she stated that three of respondent’s
associates had forced her to write it and had threatened to hurt
her if she appeared in court.
At trial, the theory of the defense was that
Heathmon had fabricated the sexual assault and had reported it to
police in an effort to control respondent. To support that theory,
the defense sought to introduce testimony and police reports
showing that Heathmon had called the police on several prior
occasions claiming that respondent had raped or otherwise assaulted
her. Police were unable to corroborate many of these prior
allegations, and in several cases they were skeptical of her
claims. Although the trial court gave the defense wide latitude to
cross-examine Heathmon about those prior incidents, it refused to
admit the police reports or to allow the defense to call as
witnesses the officers involved. The jury found respondent guilty,
and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Respondent appealed his conviction to the Nevada
Su- preme Court, arguing, among other things, that the trial
court’s refusal to admit extrinsic evidence relating to the prior
incidents violated his federal constitutional right to present a
complete defense, but the Nevada Supreme Court rejected that
argument.
After exhausting his remedies in state court,
respondent filed a federal habeas petition, again arguing that the
trial court’s ruling had violated his right to present a defense.
Applying AEDPA’s deferential standard of review, the District Court
denied relief, but a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed.
688 F.3d 1091 (2012). The majority held that extrinsic evidence of
Heathmon’s prior allegations was critical to respondent’s defense,
that the exclusion of that evidence violated respondent’s
constitutional right to present a defense, and that the Nevada
Supreme Court’s decision to the contrary was an unreasonable
application of this Court’s precedents.
Id., at 1097–1101.
Although it acknowledged that the state court had ruled that the
evidence was inadmissible as a matter of state law, the Ninth
Circuit concluded that the impact of the State’s rules of evidence
on the defense “was disproportionate to the state’s interest in
. . . exclusion.”
Id., at 1101–1104. Finding that
the trial court’s erroneous evidentiary ruling was not harmless,
id., at 1104–1106, the Ninth Circuit ordered the State
either to retry or to release respondent.
II
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act of 1996 (AEDPA) authorizes a federal habeas court to grant
relief to a prisoner whose state court conviction “involved an
unreasonable application of . . . clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1). It is settled that a
federal habeas court may overturn a state court’s application of
federal law only if it is so erroneous that “there is no
possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state
court’s decision conflicts with this Court’s precedents.”
Harrington v.
Richter, 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011)
(slip op., at 13). Applying that deferential standard, we conclude
that the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision was reasonable.
“[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal
defendants ‘a meaningful opportunity to present a complete
defense,’ ”
Crane v.
Kentucky,
476 U.S.
683, 690 (1986) (quoting
California v.
Trombetta,
467 U.S.
479, 485 (1984)), but we have also recognized that
“ ‘state and federal rulemakers have broad latitude under the
Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal
trials,’ ”
Holmes v.
South Carolina,
547 U.S.
319, 324 (2006) (quoting
United States v.
Scheffer,
523 U.S.
303, 308 (1998)). Only rarely have we held that the right to
present a complete defense was violated by the exclusion of defense
evidence under a state rule of evidence. See 547 U. S., at 331
(rule did not rationally serve any discernible purpose);
Rock v.
Arkansas,
483 U.S.
44, 61 (1987) (rule arbitrary);
Chambers v.
Mississippi,
410 U.S.
284, 302–303 (1973) (State did not even attempt to explain the
reason for its rule);
Washington v.
Texas,
388 U.S.
14, 22 (1967) (rule could not be rationally defended).
As the Ninth Circuit conceded, “[t]he Nevada
Supreme Court recognized and applied the correct legal principle.”
688 F. 3d, at 1097. But contrary to the Ninth Circuit’s
conclusion, the State Supreme Court’s application of our clearly
established precedents was reasonable. The starting point in the
state court’s analysis was a state statute that generally precludes
the admission of extrinsic evidence of “[s]pecific instances of the
conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting
the witness’ credibility, other than conviction of crime.” App. to
Pet. for Cert. 66; see Nev. Rev. Stat. §50.085(3) (2011). The
purpose of that rule, the Nevada Supreme Court has explained, “is
to focus the fact-finder on the most impor- tant facts and conserve
‘judicial resources by avoiding mini-trials on collateral
issues.’ ”
Abbott v.
State, 122 Nev. 715, 736,
138 P.3d 462, 476 (2006) (quoting
State v.
Long,
140 S.W.3d 27, 30 (Mo. 2004)). These are “good reason[s]” for
limiting the use of extrinsic evidence,
Clark v.
Arizona,
548 U.S.
735, 770 (2006), and the Nevada statute is akin to the widely
accepted rule of evidence law that generally precludes the
admission of evidence of specific instances of a witness’ conduct
to prove the witness’ character for untruthfulness. See Fed. Rule
Evid. 608(b); C. Mueller & L. Kirkpatrick, Evidence §6.27,
pp. 497–499 (4th ed. 2009). The constitutional propriety of
this rule cannot be seriously disputed.
As an exception to the prohibition contained in
Nev. Rev. Stat. §50.085(3), the Nevada Supreme Court held in
Miller v.
State, 105 Nev. 497, 499–500,
779 P.2d 87, 88–89 (1989), that “in a sexual assault case
defense counsel may cross-examine a complaining witness about
previous fab- ricated sexual assault accusations and, if the
witness denies making the allegations, may introduce extrinsic
evidence to prove that fabricated charges were made by that witness
in the past.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 66. But in order to introduce
evidence showing that the witness previously made false
allegations, the defendant must file written notice, and the trial
court must hold a hearing.
Miller,
supra, at 501, 779
P. 2d, at 90. Respondent did not file the requisite notice,
and the State Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of evidence of
prior sexual assault complaints on this basis.
No decision of this Court clearly establishes
that this notice requirement is unconstitutional. Nor, contrary to
the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit majority, see 688 F. 3d,
at 1103–1104, do our cases clearly establish that the Constitution
requires a case-by-case balancing of interests before such a rule
can be enforced. The decision on which the Ninth Circuit relied,
Michigan v.
Lucas,
500 U.S.
145 (1991), is very far afield. In that case, we reversed a
decision holding that the Sixth Amendment categorically prohibits
the enforcement of a rule that required a rape defendant to provide
pretrial notice if he wished to introduce evidence of his prior
sexual relationship with the complaining witness. The Court did not
even suggest, much less hold, that it is unconstitutional to
enforce such a rule unless a case-by-case balancing of interests
weighs in favor of enforcement. Instead, the Court “express[ed] no
opinion as to whether or not preclusion was justified in th[at]
case” and left it for the state courts to address that question in
the first instance.
Id., at 153. No fair-minded jurist could
think that
Lucas clearly establishes that the enforcement of
the Nevada rule in this case is inconsistent with the
Constitution.
Some of the evidence that respondent sought to
in- troduce concerned prior incidents in which the victim re-
ported that respondent beat her up but did not sexually assault
her, and the state supreme court did not view its
Miller
decision as applying in such circumstances. But the state court did
not simply invoke the rule set out in Nev. Rev. Stat. §50.085(3).
Rather, the court reasoned that the proffered evidence had little
impeachment value because at most it showed simply that the
victim’s reports could not be corroborated. The admission of
extrinsic evidence of specific instances of a witness’ conduct to
impeach the witness’ credibility may confuse the jury, unfairly
embarrass the victim, surprise the prosecution, and unduly prolong
the trial. No decision of this Court clearly establishes that the
exclusion of such evidence for such reasons in a particular case
violates the Constitution.
In holding that respondent is entitled to habeas
relief, the Ninth Circuit pointed to two of its own AEDPA decisions
in which it granted habeas relief to state prisoners who were not
allowed to conduct a full cross-examination of the witnesses
against them. 688 F. 3d, at 1098–1101 (discussing
Fowler v.
Sacramento Cty. Sheriff’s Dept.,
421 F.3d 1027, 1035–1038 (CA9 2005) and
Holley v.
Yarborough, 568 F.3d 1091, 1098–1101 (CA9 2009)). Those
cases in turn relied on Supreme Court decisions holding that
various restrictions on a defendant’s ability to
cross-examine witnesses violate the Confrontation Clause of
the Sixth Amendment. See,
e.g., Olden v.
Kentucky,
488 U.S.
227, 231 (1988) (
per curiam);
Delaware v.
Van
Arsdall,
475 U.S.
673, 678–679 (1986);
Davis v.
Alaska,
415 U.S.
308, 315–316 (1974). But this Court has never held that the
Confrontation Clause entitles a criminal defendant to introduce
extrinsic evidence for impeachment purposes. See
Delaware v.
Fensterer,
474 U.S.
15, 22 (1985) (
per curiam) (observing that “the
Confrontation Clause is generally satisfied when the defense is
given a full and fair opportunity to . . . expose
[testimonial] infirmities through cross-examination”). See also
Jordan v.
Warden, 675 F.3d 586, 596 (CA6 2012);
Brown v.
Ruane, 630 F.3d 62, 70 (CA1 2011).
The Ninth Circuit elided the distinction between
cross-examination and extrinsic evidence by characterizing the
cases as recognizing a broad right to present “evidence bearing on
[a witness’] credibility.” 688 F. 3d, at 1099. By framing our
precedents at such a high level of generality, a lower federal
court could transform even the most imaginative extension of
existing case law into “clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court.” 28 U. S. C.
§2254(d)(1). In thus collapsing the distinction between “an
unreasonable application of federal law” and what a lower
court believes to be “an
incorrect or
erroneous
application of federal law,”
Williams v.
Taylor,
529 U.S.
362, 412 (2000), the Ninth Circuit’s approach would defeat the
substantial deference that AEDPA requires.
The petition for a writ of certiorari and
respondent’s motion to proceed
in forma pauperis are
granted. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.