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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 20–826
_________________
MIKE BROWN, ACTING WARDEN, PETITIONER
v. ERVINE DAVENPORT
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[April 21, 2022]
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the
Court.
After a state court determines that an error at
trial did not prejudice a criminal defendant, may a federal court
grant habeas relief based solely on its independent assessment of
the error’s prejudicial effect under
Brecht v.
Abrahamson,
507 U.S.
619 (1993)? Or must a federal court also evaluate the state
court’s decision under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)? The Sixth Circuit ruled that an
individual who satisfies
Brecht alone is entitled to habeas
relief. This was mistaken. When a state court has ruled on the
merits of a state prisoner’s claim, a federal court cannot grant
relief without first applying both the test this Court outlined in
Brecht and the one Congress prescribed in AEDPA.
I
A
One evening in 2007, Annette White attended a
gathering with Ervine Davenport. On the drive home, Mr. Davenport
killed Ms. White. At trial, the only questions concerned why and
how. Mr. Davenport claimed self-defense and testified to that
effect. On his account, Ms. White grew angry during the trip and
tried to grab the steering wheel from him while he was driving.
Then she pulled out a box cutter and cut his arm. Mr. Davenport
responded by extending one arm and pinning Ms. White against the
passenger side of the car, with his hand under her chin.
Eventually, she stopped struggling. On discovering that Ms. White
was no longer breathing, Mr. Davenport panicked and left her body
in a field.
The prosecution offered a very different version
of events. It stressed that Ms. White was 5’2” tall, 103 pounds,
and had a broken wrist, while Mr. Davenport was 6’5” tall and
weighed nearly 300 pounds. The prosecution presented evidence that
Mr. Davenport had bragged to others before the killing that, if he
had a problem with someone, he would choke the person. Days before
Ms. White’s death, Mr. Davenport had done just that—strangling
another woman until she lost consciousness and urinated on herself.
Nor, on the prosecution’s account, were Mr. Davenport’s actions
after Ms. White’s death consistent with his claim of self-defense.
Instead of contacting the police, he not only abandoned his
victim’s body. He also fled the scene and later visited Ms. White’s
home where he stole electronics and food. He told a witness, too,
that he “had to off ” Ms. White.
The prosecution offered additional proof. When
police questioned Mr. Davenport, he gave differing accounts and
initially denied any involvement in Ms. White’s death. While
authorities did locate a box cutter in the car, they did not find
it inside the cab of the vehicle but in the trunk and untainted by
blood. Also, a forensic pathologist testified that Ms. White died
of manual strangulation. The pathologist explained that a victim of
strangulation may lose consciousness after 30 seconds, but that
death does not occur until the victim is without air for at least
four to five minutes. After Mr. Davenport testified that he merely
extended his arm across Ms. White’s neck to keep her from cutting
him, the forensic pathologist offered his view that this account
was not plausible. Ms. White’s injuries, found on both sides of her
neck, were consistent with strangulation—but inconsistent with the
application of broad force across the front of her neck.
After a 7-day trial, a jury convicted Mr.
Davenport of first-degree murder.
B
On direct appeal in state court, Mr. Davenport
sought to have his conviction set aside in light of
Deck v.
Missouri,
544 U.S.
622 (2005). In
Deck, this Court held that the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Due Process Clause generally forbids shackling a
criminal defendant at trial absent “a special need.”
Id., at
626. Mr. Davenport noted that during his trial (but not his
testimony) officials shackled one of his hands, his waist, and his
ankles. Those shackles may not have been visible to many in the
courtroom because of a “privacy screen” around the table where Mr.
Davenport sat. But the trial court did not articulate on the record
any special need for its security measures.
Ultimately, the Michigan Supreme Court agreed
that the trial court’s actions violated
Deck. At the same
time, the court sought to apply
Chapman v.
California,
386 U.S.
18 (1967). In
Chapman, this Court held that a preserved
claim of constitutional error identified on direct appeal does not
require reversal of a conviction if the prosecution can establish
that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Id.,
at 24. To answer
Chapman’s question, the Michigan Supreme
Court remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to
determine whether “the jury saw the defendant’s shackles” and, if
so, “whether the prosecution can demonstrate beyond a reasonable
doubt that the shackling error did not contribute to the verdict
against the defendant.”
People v.
Davenport, 488
Mich. 1054, 794 N.W.2d 616 (2011).
On remand, the trial court conducted an
evidentiary hearing in which it heard from all 12 jurors. Five
remembered seeing Mr. Davenport’s restraints; the remaining seven
did not. All 12 testified that Mr. Davenport’s shackles did not
enter into their deliberations or influence their unanimous
verdict. Based on this evidence, the trial court found that the
State had carried its burden to show harmlessness beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Again, Mr. Davenport appealed. This time,
Michigan’s appellate courts declined to disturb the judgment. For
its part, the Michigan Court of Appeals held that “the prosecution
proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the shackling error did not
affect the verdict.”
People v.
Davenport, 2012 WL
6217134, *3 (Dec. 13, 2012) (
per curiam). In doing so,
the court relied on both the jurors’ testimony and that “the
evidence at trial overwhelmingly established defendant’s guilt and
belied his contention that he killed the 103-pound victim in
self-defense, a theory that was explicitly disputed by expert
medical testimony.”
Id., at *2, n. 2. The Michigan
Supreme Court denied Mr. Davenport’s request for discretionary
review.
People v.
Davenport, 494 Mich. 875, 832
N.W.2d 389, 390 (2013).
C
Mr. Davenport next sought relief in federal
district court, filing a habeas petition in the Western District of
Michigan. Under AEDPA, however, a federal court may disturb a final
state-court conviction in only narrow circumstances. As relevant
here, the statute provides that, when a state court has already
ruled on the merits of the habeas petitioner’s claim, he must show
that decision was either (1) “contrary to” or an “unreasonable
application of ” clearly established federal law, as
determined by the decisions of this Court, or (2) based on an
“unreasonable determination of the facts” presented in the
state-court proceeding. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d).
The District Court found relief unwarranted
under this standard. The Michigan state courts had ruled on the
merits of Mr. Davenport’s claim of error. In doing so, they
correctly identified this Court’s controlling harmless-error rule
from
Chapman. And their conclusions involved neither an
unreasonable application of
Chapman nor an unreasonable
determination of the facts. To the contrary, the District Court
agreed with a Magistrate Judge’s assessment that the state-court
record contained no evidence “that the jurors were influenced” by
his restraints and “overwhelming evidence of [Mr. Davenport’s]
guilt.”
Davenport v.
MacLaren, 2016 WL 11262506, *4
(WD Mich., Nov. 7, 2016); see also
Davenport v.
MacLaren, 2017 WL 4296808, *1–*2 (WD Mich., Sept. 26, 2017)
(citing 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1)).
D
After that loss, Mr. Davenport appealed to the
Sixth Circuit, where a divided panel reversed.
Davenport v.
MacLaren, 964 F.3d 448 (2020).
Unlike the District Court, the Sixth Circuit
declined to analyze the case under AEDPA. Instead, it held, only
this Court’s decision in
Brecht v.
Abrahamson
governed its review. Handed down before Congress adopted AEDPA,
Brecht sought to adapt
Chapman’s harmless-error rule,
developed for cases on direct appellate review, for use in federal
habeas proceedings.
Brecht, 507 U. S., at 633–635.
Citing the need to afford appropriate respect to final state-court
decisions that have already endured direct appeal, including
potential review in this Court,
Brecht effectively inverted
Chapman’s burden. 507 U. S., at 635. Rather than
require the prosecution to prove that a constitutional trial error
is harmless,
Brecht held that a state prisoner seeking to
challenge his conviction in collateral federal proceedings must
show that the error had a “ ‘substantial and injurious effect
or influence’ ” on the outcome of his trial.
Id., at
637. Persuaded that Mr. Davenport could satisfy his burden under
Brecht, the panel majority ordered Michigan to retry or
release him promptly. 964 F. 3d, at 464–468.
Judge Readler dissented. He argued that
Brecht and AEDPA set forth independent tests, and that both
must be satisfied before habeas relief becomes permissible. In
Judge Readler’s view, too, the District Court correctly rejected
Mr. Davenport’s petition under AEDPA because the state courts
hearing his case had not acted contrary to, or unreasonably
applied, this Court’s decisions. 964 F. 3d, at 469, 478.
The Sixth Circuit denied rehearing en banc by a
vote of 8 to 7.
Davenport v.
MacLaren, 975 F.3d 537
(2020). Judges Griffin and Thapar issued dissenting opinions. They
expressed agreement with Judge Readler and observed that the panel
majority’s decision conflicted with those of other circuits where
petitioners are required to satisfy both
Brecht and AEDPA
before becoming eligible for habeas relief. 975 F. 3d, at 552
(Thapar, J., dissenting) (citing decisions from the Third, Seventh,
Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits). We granted Michigan’s petition for
certiorari to resolve the conflict in the federal courts of appeals
about the proper interaction between these two tests. 593
U. S. ___ (2021).
II
When Congress supplies a constitutionally
valid rule of decision, federal courts must follow it. In AEDPA,
Congress announced such a rule. It instructed that a federal court
“
shall not . . .
gran[
t]” relief
with respect to a claim that has been adjudicated on the merits in
state court “
unless” the state court’s decision was (1)
“contrary to” or an “unreasonable application of ” clearly
established federal law, as determined by the decisions of this
Court, or (2) based on an “unreasonable determination of the facts”
presented in the state-court proceeding. § 2254(d) (emphasis
added).
The upshot of these directions for our case is
straightforward. No one questions that a state court’s
harmless-error determination qualifies as an adjudication on the
merits under AEDPA. See
Davis v.
Ayala, 576 U.S. 257,
269 (2015);
Fry v.
Pliler,
551
U.S. 112, 119 (2007);
Early v.
Packer,
537 U.S.
3, 10–11 (2002) (
per curiam). No one disputes that such
a decision exists here. Nor does Mr. Davenport pursue any claim to
relief under § 2254(d)(2). From this, it follows that he must
satisfy § 2254(d)(1) to secure federal habeas relief. To be
sure, where
Brecht is implicated a federal court must also
ensure a habeas petitioner has carried his burden under its terms
before granting relief. But in cases like ours satisfying
Brecht is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition to
relief. AEDPA too must be satisfied. The Sixth Circuit erred in
holding otherwise.
A
Some background helps explain this
arrangement. From the founding, Congress authorized federal courts
to issue habeas writs to federal custodians. § 14, 1Stat.
81–82. After the Civil War, Congress extended this authority,
allowing federal courts to issue habeas writs to state custodians
as well. See Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, § 1, 14Stat. 385.
But these statutes used permissive rather than mandatory language;
federal courts had the “power to” grant writs of habeas corpus in
certain circumstances. That same structure lives on in contemporary
statutes, which provide that federal courts “may” grant habeas
relief “as law and justice require.” 28 U. S. C.
§§ 2241, 2243;
Wright v.
West,
505 U.S.
277, 285 (1992) (plurality opinion).
Over the centuries, a number of writs of habeas
corpus evolved at common law to serve a number of different
functions. See
Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 97–98
(1807); 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
129–131 (1768). But the most notable among these writs was that of
habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, often called the “Great
Writ.”
Id., at 131. When English monarchs jailed their
subjects summarily and indefinitely, common-law courts employed the
writ as a way to compel the crown to explain its actions—and, if
necessary, ensure adequate process, such as a trial, before
allowing any further detention. See Petition of Right, 3 Car. 1,
ch.1, ¶¶ 5, 8 (1628). The Great Writ was, in this way, no less than
“the instrument by which due process could be insisted upon.”
Hamdi v.
Rumsfeld,
542 U.S.
507, 555 (2004) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
At the same time, even this writ had its limits.
Usually, a prisoner could not use it to challenge a final judgment
of conviction issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. See,
e.g.,
Opinion on the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Wilm. 77,
88, 97 Eng. Rep. 29, 36 (K. B. 1758). If the point of the writ
was to ensure due process attended an individual’s confinement, a
trial was generally considered proof he had received just that.
See,
e.g.,
Bushell’s Case, Vaugh. 135, 142–143, 124
Eng. Rep. 1006, 1009–1010 (C. P. 1670).
This traditional understanding extended from
England to this country and persisted through much of our history.
Asked to apply the Nation’s first habeas statute to a duly
convicted prisoner, Chief Justice Marshall invoked the common-law
rule that a judgment of conviction after trial was “conclusive on
all the world.”
Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202–203
(1830). Acknowledging that Congress had authorized the Court to
“inquire into the sufficiency of ” the cause of the
petitioner’s detention, Marshall asked rhetorically, “is not that
judgment in
itself sufficient cause?”
Id., at 202
(emphasis added); see also
Ex parte Parks,
93 U.S.
18, 21–22 (1876); P. Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and
Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv. L. Rev.
441, 465–469 (1963) (Bator).
If the answer was nearly always yes, an
important exception existed in both English and American law: A
habeas court could grant relief if the court of conviction lacked
jurisdiction over the defendant or his offense. See
Watkins,
3 Pet., at 202–203; Bator 471–472. A perceived “error in the
judgment or proceedings, under and by virtue of which the party is
imprisoned, constitute[d] no ground for” relief.
Ex parte
Siebold,
100
U.S. 371, 375 (1880). Instead, a habeas court could “examin[e]
only the power and authority of the court to act, not the
correctness of its conclusions.”
Harlan v.
McGourin,
218 U.S.
442, 448 (1910). To be sure, the line between mere errors and
jurisdictional defects was not always a “luminous beacon” and it
evolved over time. Bator 470;
Edwards v.
Vannoy, 593
U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (slip op., at
5). But this Court generally sought to police the doctrine’s
boundaries in cases involving federal and state prisoners
alike.[
1]
By 1953, however, federal habeas practice began
to take on a very different shape. That year in
Brown v.
Allen this Court held that a state-court judgment “is not
res judicata” in federal habeas proceedings with respect to
a petitioner’s federal constitutional claims.
344 U.S.
443, 458 (1953). A state court may reject the petitioner’s
claims after a fair hearing. No appellate court, including this
one, may see fit to reverse that final judgment. Yet still,
Brown suggested, a federal district court approaching the
same case years later should be free to decide
de novo
whether the state-court proceedings “resulted in a satisfactory
conclusion” and to issue habeas relief if that conclusion is found
wanting.
Id., at 463; see also
Wright, 505
U. S., at 287–288 (plurality opinion). The traditional
distinction between jurisdictional defects and mere errors in
adjudication no longer restrained federal habeas courts. Full-blown
constitutional error correction became the order of the day.
This shift did not go unnoticed. Concurring only
in the result, Justice Jackson contended that the Court’s decision
“trivializ[ed] . . . the writ” and was inconsistent with
the presumption of finality that traditionally attached to criminal
convictions.
Brown, 344 U. S., at 536, 543. He warned,
too, that the Court’s ruling threatened “haystack[s]” of new habeas
petitions—and that federal courts would struggle to identify the
meritorious “needle[s]” among them.
Id., at 537. Over the
ensuing years, that prediction proved prescient: Federal courts
struggled with an exploding caseload of habeas petitions from state
prisoners. See,
e.g.,
Schneckloth v.
Bustamonte,
412 U.S.
218, 274, n. 37 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring) (“In 1971
. . . state prisoners alone filed 7,949 petitions for
habeas in federal district courts, over 14 times the number filed
when Mr. Justice Jackson voiced his misgivings”); B. Garrett
& L. Kovarsky, Federal Habeas Corpus 135–136 (2013)
(documenting the rise of habeas filings by state
prisoners).[
2]
B
Eventually, this Court responded to the
post-
Brown habeas boom by devising new rules aimed at
separating the meritorious needles from the growing haystack. The
habeas statutes themselves provided the starting place for these
efforts. Recall that Congress invested federal courts with
discretion when it comes to supplying habeas relief—providing that
they “may” (not must) grant writs of habeas corpus, and that they
should do so only as “law and justice require.”
28 U. S. C. §§ 2241, 2243. This language, the
Court recognized, serves as “authorization to adjust the scope of
the writ in accordance with equitable and prudential
considerations.”
Danforth v.
Minnesota,
552 U.S.
264, 278 (2008); see also
Withrow v.
Williams,
507 U.S.
680, 716 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part). Foremost among those considerations is the States’
“powerful and legitimate interest in punishing the guilty.”
Calderon v.
Thompson,
523 U.S.
538, 556 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). Granting
habeas relief to a state prisoner “intrudes on state sovereignty to
a degree matched by few exercises of federal judicial authority.”
Harrington v.
Richter,
562 U.S.
86, 103 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Exercising its equitable discretion, and
informed by these concerns, the Court began to develop doctrines
“aimed at returning the Great Writ closer to its historic office.”
Edwards, 593 U. S., at ___ (Gorsuch, J., concurring)
(slip op., at 8). The Court established procedural-default
standards to prevent petitioners from evading independent and
adequate state-law grounds sustaining their convictions.
Wainwright v.
Sykes,
433 U.S.
72, 86–87 (1977). The Court held that some claims are not
cognizable in federal habeas if state courts provide a mechanism
for review.
Stone v.
Powell,
428
U.S. 465, 494–495 (1976). The Court also applied new rules to
prevent cycles of repetitive filings.
McCleskey v.
Zant,
499 U.S.
467, 486–493 (1991).
Brecht was part of this effort. In
Chapman, this Court held that, when a defendant demonstrates
on direct appeal that a constitutional error occurred at his trial,
his conviction cannot stand unless the government proves the
error’s harmlessness “beyond a reasonable doubt.” 386 U. S.,
at 24. In
Brecht, the Court resolved that this same standard
was inappropriate for use in federal habeas review of final
state-court judgments. 507 U. S., at 633–634. Instead, the
Court reasoned, a state prisoner should not receive federal “habeas
relief based on trial error unless” he can show the error had a
“substantial and injurious effect or influence” on the verdict.
Id., at 637 (internal quotation marks omitted). In reaching
its judgment, the Court stressed that undoing a final state-court
judgment is an “extraordinary remedy,” reserved for only
“ ‘extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice
system’ ” and different in kind from providing relief on
direct appeal.
Id., at 633–634. To allow a federal habeas
court to set aside a conviction based on nothing more than
“speculation that the defendant was prejudiced by trial error”
would be to give short shrift to the State’s “sovereign interes[t]”
in its final judgment.
Calderon v.
Coleman, 525 U.S.
141, 146 (1998) (
per curiam). Much as the Court had “filled
the gaps of the habeas statute with respect to other matters,” it
found it “necessary to do so” again, in a by-now familiar exercise
of its equitable discretion.
Brecht, 507 U. S., at
633.
C
Three years after
Brecht, and
apparently finding the Court’s equitable doctrines insufficient,
Congress introduced its own reforms in AEDPA.
In many ways, the statute represented a sea
change in federal habeas law. As we have seen, Congress instructed
that, if a state court has adjudicated the petitioner’s claim on
the merits, a federal court “shall not” grant habeas relief
“unless” certain conditions are satisfied. § 2254(d). Some of
these conditions were new to the law at the time of their adoption;
all are demanding. See
Richter, 562 U. S., at 102.
Still, Congress did not wash away everything
that came before. While AEDPA announced certain new conditions to
relief, it did not guarantee relief upon their satisfaction.
Instead, Congress left intact the equitable discretion
traditionally invested in federal courts by preexisting habeas
statutes. So even a petitioner who prevails under AEDPA must still
today persuade a federal habeas court that “law and justice
require” relief. § 2243. See
Fry, 551 U. S., at
119;
Horn v.
Banks,
536 U.S.
266, 272 (2002) (
per curiam). And whatever else those
inquiries involve, they continue to require federal habeas courts
to apply this Court’s precedents governing the appropriate exercise
of equitable discretion—including
Brecht. See
Banks,
536 U. S., at 272;
Johnson v.
Acevedo, 572 F.3d
398, 404 (CA7 2009); see also
Edwards, 593 U. S., at
___, n. 5 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9,
n. 5).
Today, then, a federal court must
deny
relief to a state habeas petitioner who fails to satisfy either
this Court’s equitable precedents or AEDPA. But to
grant
relief, a court must find that the petitioner has cleared both
tests. The Sixth Circuit erred when it held Mr. Davenport to just
one of these burdens. It granted relief after finding for him on
Brecht. But it failed to ask the further question whether he
satisfied AEDPA. In doing so, the court disregarded Congress’s
instruction that habeas relief “shall not be granted” unless
AEDPA’s terms are satisfied. § 2254(d).
III
Mr. Davenport advances two arguments—one
logical, one doctrinal—in defense of the Sixth Circuit’s decision.
We consider them in turn.
A
Mr. Davenport first suggests the Sixth
Circuit’s failure to discuss AEDPA amounted to no more than a
forgivable peccadillo. On his account, the AEDPA inquiry represents
a logical subset of the
Brecht test. So even though the
Sixth Circuit did not formally find that he satisfied AEDPA, it
implicitly did so when it found his case cleared
Brecht.
This theory is mistaken. Proof of prejudice
under
Brecht does not equate to a successful showing under
AEDPA. Instead, the inquiries are “entirely different in kind.” J.
Greabe, The Riddle of Harmless Error Revisited, 54 Houston L. Rev.
59, 113, n. 297 (2016) (emphasis deleted). They pose courts
with different questions to resolve and require courts to answer
those questions based on different legal materials.
Take the questions the two tests pose. When a
state court has applied
Chapman, § 2254(d)(1) requires
a habeas petitioner to prove that the state court’s decision was
unreasonable.
Cullen v.
Pinholster,
563 U.S.
170, 181 (2011);
Fry, 551 U. S., at 119. To
accomplish that, a petitioner must persuade a federal court that no
“fairminded juris[t]” could reach the state court’s conclusion
under this Court’s precedents.
Ayala, 576 U. S., at 269
(internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, if a petitioner
alleges the state court’s decision “was based on an unreasonable
determination of the facts” under § 2254(d)(2), it is not
enough to show that “reasonable minds reviewing the record might
disagree about the finding in question.”
Brumfield v.
Cain, 576 U.S. 305, 314 (2015) (internal quotation marks and
alteration omitted). By contrast, under
Brecht a petitioner
may prevail by persuading a federal court that it alone should
harbor “grave doubt”—not absolute certainty—about whether the trial
error affected the verdict’s outcome.
O’Neal v.
McAninch,
513 U.S.
432, 435 (1995). In sum, where AEDPA asks whether
every
fairminded jurist would agree that an error was prejudicial,
Brecht asks only whether a federal habeas court
itself harbors grave doubt about the petitioner’s
verdict.
Next, consider the legal materials a court may
consult when applying the two tests. Section 2254(d)(1) limits
habeas relief to cases where a state-court decision contravenes or
unreasonably applies “clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” It is not
enough that the state-court decision offends lower federal court
precedents. See,
e.g.,
Glebe v.
Frost,
574 U.S.
21, 24 (2014) (
per curiam). This Court’s dicta cannot
supply a ground for relief. See,
e.g.,
White v.
Woodall,
572 U.S.
415, 419 (2014). Nor can holdings that speak only at a high
level of generality. See,
e.g.,
Lopez v.
Smith,
574 U.S.
1, 6 (2014) (
per curiam);
Yarborough v.
Alvarado,
541 U.S.
652, 664 (2004). Under AEDPA too, “[s]tate-court decisions are
measured against this Court’s precedents as of ‘the time the state
court renders its decision’ ” and cannot be held unreasonable
only in light of later decided cases.
Pinholster, 563
U. S., at 182 (quoting
Lockyer v.
Andrade,
538 U.S.
63, 71–72 (2003)). None of these restrictions applies under
Brecht. There, a federal habeas court may consult and draw
on the whole body of law. So, for example, a petitioner might be
able to prevail under
Brecht thanks to favorable circuit
case law but still lose under AEDPA because no comparable holding
exists in this Court’s precedents.
Today’s case illustrates how these differences
matter. The Sixth Circuit granted relief to Mr. Davenport after
concluding that it harbored grave doubts about the jury’s verdict.
It did not claim that every reasonable jurist would share its
doubts. Nor did it purport to hold that the Michigan state courts
had acted contrary to or unreasonably applied a decision of this
Court. Instead, the Sixth Circuit said only that the state-court
decisions in this case could not be reconciled with a roughly
analogous precedent from the Ninth Circuit. 964 F. 3d, at 467.
Even assuming the Sixth Circuit’s analysis was enough to permit
relief under
Brecht, none of its reasoning was enough to
warrant relief under AEDPA. Nor can any of this come as a surprise.
As we have seen, if AEDPA makes winning habeas relief more
difficult, it is because Congress adopted the law to do just
that.[
3]
B
Failing in his first argument, Mr. Davenport
offers an alternative. Even if all we have said is true as a matter
of logic, he suggests, we should rule for him anyway as a matter of
precedent thanks to
Fry v.
Pliler,
551 U.S.
112, and
Davis v.
Ayala, 576 U.S. 257.
Here, too, we cannot agree. Start with
Fry. Because no state court had ruled on the merits of the
petitioner’s
Chapman claim, everyone in
Fry agreed
that AEDPA did not apply to his federal habeas petition. Seeking to
leverage that fact to his further advantage, the petitioner argued
that Congress implicitly swept away this Court’s equitable habeas
precedents when it adopted AEDPA. 551 U. S., at 119. The
upshot? On the petitioner’s view, this meant a federal habeas court
had to apply
Chapman (not
Brecht or AEDPA) to his
case. Ultimately, the Court rejected this argument, confirming
instead that our equitable precedents remain applicable “whether or
not” AEDPA applies. 551 U. S., at 121.
None of this answers the question we face today.
Where the petitioner in
Fry sought to suggest that AEDPA
rendered
Brecht a dead letter, the petitioner here argues
nearly the opposite. And the Court’s ruling in
Fry is, if
anything, affirmatively unhelpful to Mr. Davenport. Not only did
Fry hold that this Court’s equitable precedents like
Brecht coexist side-by-side with AEDPA, it expressly
recognized that AEDPA “sets forth a precondition to the grant of
habeas relief . . . not an entitlement to it.” 551
U. S., at 119–120. Rather than suggest
Brecht
duplicates AEDPA or vice versa,
Fry thus stands as a
reminder that the two tests impose analytically distinct
preconditions to relief.
Mr. Davenport offers no persuasive reply.
Instead, he invites us to overlook all of this and train our
attention to a brief passage at the end of
Fry’s relevant
analysis. There, he notes, the Court said this: “[I]t certainly
makes no sense to require formal application of
both tests
(AEDPA/
Chapman and
Brecht) when the latter obviously
subsumes the former.” 551 U. S., at 120. On Mr. Davenport’s
telling, whatever else
Fry did or said, this language means
it adopted his theory that a court applying
Brecht
necessarily applies AEDPA along the way.
We do not see how we might read so much into so
little. Doubtless, there are some cases “when”
Brecht does
“subsum[e]” AEDPA, just as
Fry says. 551 U. S., at 120.
As we have seen, and as was the case in
Fry, if a state
court has not adjudicated the petitioner’s claim on the merits,
AEDPA falls away. Likewise, if a federal court determines that a
habeas petition fails because of
Brecht, there is no need to
prolong the matter by “formal[ly] appl[ying]” AEDPA as well. 551
U. S., at 120. But none of this means, and
Fry never
said, that a
Brecht inquiry
always subsumes an AEDPA
inquiry. Nor did
Fry even have reason to consider the
relationship between
Brecht and AEDPA in cases like
ours—where a state court has issued a decision on the merits of the
petitioner’s claim and AEDPA does apply. To the extent
Fry
had anything to say about
that scenario, all it said was
consistent with what we say today: In such cases, the Court
recognized, relief “may not be granted unless the state court’s
adjudication” was “unreasonable” under AEDPA. 551 U. S., at
119.[
4]
That leaves
Davis v.
Ayala, where
a similar story unfolds. There, the California Supreme Court did
rule on the merits of the petitioner’s claim: It determined that
any federal constitutional errors in his trial-court proceedings
were harmless under
Chapman.
Ayala, 576 U. S.,
at 263–264. In later federal habeas proceedings, the Ninth Circuit
applied
Brecht, found prejudice, and granted relief without
pausing to consider AEDPA directly.
Ayala v.
Wong,
756 F.3d 656, 674 (CA9 2014). Instead, it asserted, much as Mr.
Davenport does, that a favorable finding for a petitioner under
Brecht necessarily answers AEDPA’s distinct inquiry. 756 F.
3d, at 674, n. 13. In the end, however, this Court reversed.
We held that the Ninth Circuit misapplied
Brecht and that a
proper
Brecht analysis precluded relief. Along the way, we
indicated that the petitioner could not prove eligibility for
relief under AEDPA’s demanding standard either.
With nothing in this holding to help him, Mr.
Davenport again asks us to focus on a carefully curated snippet.
Borrowing language from
Fry,
Ayala observed that “a
prisoner who seeks federal habeas corpus relief must satisfy
Brecht, and if the state court adjudicated his claim on the
merits, the
Brecht test subsumes the limitations imposed by
AEDPA.”
Ayala, 576 U. S., at 270 (citing
Fry,
551 U. S., at 119–120). Again, though, it is hard to see how
this much might carry the day. When a federal court determines, as
we did in
Ayala, that a petitioner has
failed to
carry his burden under
Brecht, that conclusion subsumes (or
perhaps more precisely, obviates the need for) a separate AEDPA
inquiry; relief must be denied. But none of this resolves the
distinct question we face today—whether a petitioner who
can
satisfy
Brecht also necessarily secures a victory under
AEDPA. The
Ayala Court had no occasion to address that
question. And to the extent it spoke to it, it spoke much as
Fry had, taking pains to reject any suggestion “that
Brecht somehow abrogates the limitation on federal habeas
relief that § 2254(d) plainly sets out.”
Ayala, 576
U. S., at 268.[
5]
In the end, Mr. Davenport’s appeals to
Fry and
Ayala (echoed by the dissent) rest on a
misunderstanding of
stare decisis. At its best, that
doctrine is a call for judicial humility. It is a reminder to
afford careful consideration to the work of our forbearers, their
experience, and their wisdom. But respect for past judgments also
means respecting their limits. This Court has long stressed that
“the language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we
were dealing with [the] language of a statute.”
Reiter v.
Sonotone Corp.,
442 U.S.
330, 341 (1979). Yet that is exactly what Mr. Davenport and the
dissent ask of us. They would have us override a lawful
congressional command—that no federal habeas relief should issue
“unless” AEDPA’s applicable conditions are satisfied.
§ 2254(d). And they would have us do so on the basis of a
handful of sentences extracted from decisions that had no reason to
pass on the argument Mr. Davenport presents today. We neither
expect nor hope that our successors will comb these pages for stray
comments and stretch them beyond their context—all to justify an
outcome inconsistent with this Court’s reasoning and judgments and
with Congress’s instructions. Such an exalted view of this Court’s
every passing remark would turn
stare decisis from a tool of
judicial humility into one of judicial hubris.
IV
Having concluded that the Sixth Circuit erred
by failing to apply AEDPA before granting habeas relief, one
question remains: Assuming Mr. Davenport can satisfy
Brecht
as the Sixth Circuit held, can he satisfy AEDPA? The answer helps
illustrate how the two inquiries are distinct and why a federal
court must answer both before overturning a state-court
conviction.
Under the statute’s terms, we assess the
reasonableness of the “last state-court adjudication on the merits
of ” the petitioner’s claim.
Greene v.
Fisher,
565 U.S.
34, 40 (2011). In this case, that is the decision of the
Michigan Court of Appeals. To be sure, after that intermediate
court ruled against Mr. Davenport he sought discretionary review in
the Michigan Supreme Court, which denied his request. See 494
Mich., at 875, 832 N. W. 2d, at 390. But a discretionary
denial of leave to appeal does not typically entail an
“adjudication” of the underlying claim’s “merits” under AEDPA’s
terms. Instead, it usually represents “a decision by the state
supreme court not to hear the appeal—that is, not to decide at
all.”
Greene, 565 U. S., at 40; cf.
Ylst v.
Nunnemaker,
501 U.S.
797, 805–806 (1991) (“[T]he discretionary denial of review on
direct appeal by the California Supreme Court is not even a
‘judgment’ ”).
In this respect, the Michigan Supreme Court
follows a familiar practice. “The denial of a writ of certiorari”
in this Court “imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of
the case.”
United States v.
Carver,
260 U.S.
482,
490
(1923). And the Michigan Supreme Court has long described its
denials of applications for leave to appeal in the same terms. See,
e.g.,
Malooly v.
York Heating & Ventilating
Corp., 270 Mich. 240, 246–247, 258 N.W. 622, 624 (1935); see
also Mich. Ct. Rules 7.303(B)(1), 7.305(B)(1)–(3) (2021). In the
past, too, this Court has treated lower Michigan court decisions as
the relevant AEDPA adjudication despite discretionary denials of
review by the State Supreme Court.
Woods v.
Donald,
575 U.S. 312, 314–315, 317 (2015) (
per curiam);
Burt
v.
Titlow,
571 U.S.
12, 20 (2013);
Lafler v.
Cooper,
566 U.S.
156, 161, 173 (2012).
Turning to the decision of the Michigan Court of
Appeals, Mr. Davenport principally argues that it was contrary to
or an unreasonable application of this Court’s decision in
Holbrook v.
Flynn,
475 U.S.
560 (1986). But it is hard to see how that could be the case.
For one thing,
Holbrook was a decision about whether a
constitutional trial error occurred at all, not whether the alleged
error was prejudicial. For another,
Holbrook rejected the
defendant’s claim that he “was denied his constitutional right to a
fair trial whe[n] . . . the customary courtroom security
force was supplemented by four uniformed state troopers sitting in
the first row of the spectator’s section.”
Id., at 562.
Nothing in that analysis is inconsistent with the Michigan Court of
Appeals’ disposition of Mr. Davenport’s shackling claim.
Unable to make use of
Holbrook’s holding,
Mr. Davenport once more asks us to turn our attention elsewhere. In
particular, he notes that the trial court in
Holbrook asked
potential jurors at the outset of trial whether the presence of
state troopers would affect their ability to consider fairly the
defendant’s case; they said no. This Court indicated that such
questions and answers cannot alone “dispositive[ly]” resolve the
question whether security measures prejudice a defendant’s right to
a fair trial.
Id., at 570. Instead, the Court reasoned that
“jurors will not necessarily be fully conscious of the effect [such
measures] will have on their attitude toward the accused. This will
be especially true when jurors are questioned at the very beginning
of the proceedings; at that point, they can only speculate on how
they will feel after being exposed to a practice daily over the
course of a long trial.”
Ibid. Mr. Davenport highlights that
the Court in
Deck favorably quoted some of these passages
too. 544 U. S., at 635.
Even bearing all this in mind, however, we
cannot see how the Michigan Court of Appeals acted contrary to or
unreasonably applied clearly established federal law. The Michigan
court found the shackling in Mr. Davenport’s case harmless for two
reasons—both because of the “overwhelmin[g]” evidence against him,
and because jurors testified that his shackling did not affect
their verdict. 2012 WL 6217134, at *1–*2, and n. 2.
Holbrook does not compel a different ruling on the first
score. It addressed a different evidentiary record and affirmed the
defendant’s conviction.
Nor does the decision compel a different ruling
on the second score.
Holbrook cast doubt only on attempts to
assess prejudice based on testimony from prospective jurors
speculating about how the security measures might affect their
perceptions over the course of an upcoming trial. Nothing in the
decision purported to forbid courts from considering post-trial
testimony about how trial security measures
actually
affected juror deliberations. Nor may this or any federal court use
an AEDPA case as an opportunity to pass on the wisdom of extending
old precedents in new ways. AEDPA permits relief only when a state
court acts contrary to or unreasonably applies this Court’s
preexisting and clearly established rules. See,
e.g.,
Marshall v.
Rodgers,
569 U.S.
58, 64 (2013) (
per curiam);
Woodall, 572
U. S., at 424–426;
Lopez, 574 U. S., at 6.
As a backup, Mr. Davenport suggests that the
Michigan Court of Appeals committed an independent error by
unreasonably applying
Chapman. But
Chapman merely
announced the default burden of proof for evaluating constitutional
errors on direct appeal: The prosecution must prove harmlessness
beyond a reasonable doubt. 386 U. S., at 24. And this Court
has repeatedly explained that, when it comes to AEDPA, “the more
general the [federal] rule[,] . . . the more leeway
[state] courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case
determinations” before their decisions can be fairly labeled
unreasonable.
Renico v.
Lett,
559
U.S. 766, 776 (2010) (internal quotation marks and alteration
omitted).
The case before us does not come close to
exceeding that leeway. The Michigan Court of Appeals properly
identified the controlling standard. 2012 WL 6217134, at *1.
It then proceeded to find that the prosecution had established Mr.
Davenport’s shackling was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in
light of the jurors’ testimony and the “overwhelmin[g]” evidence
that “established defendant’s guilt and belied his contention that
he killed the 103 pound victim in self-defense, a theory that was
explicitly disputed by expert medical testimony.”
Id., at
*1–*2, and n. 2. Even if
some fairminded jurist
applying
Chapman could reach a different conclusion, we
cannot say that
every fairminded jurist must.
Finally, in a variation on his
Chapman
argument, Mr. Davenport faults the Michigan Court of Appeals for
unreasonably focusing on a “false choice between first-degree
murder and self-defense.” Brief for Respondent 45. In his view, the
state court improperly ignored the possibility that Mr. Davenport’s
shackling might have influenced the jury toward a conviction for
first-degree murder rather than second-degree murder. But Mr.
Davenport never presented this theory to the Michigan Court of
Appeals. See Brief for Appellant in
People v.
Davenport, No. 306868, pp. 22–24 (arguing only that Mr.
Davenport’s shackling influenced jurors’ receptiveness to his
self-defense theory). Nor does it directly respond to what the
state court called the “overwhelmin[g]” record evidence he
committed murder in the first degree. In these circumstances we
cannot say that every fairminded court would have both identified
and adopted Mr. Davenport’s forfeited theory.
*
Even assuming Mr. Davenport met his burden
under
Brecht, he cannot do so under AEDPA. And a federal
court cannot grant habeas relief unless a state prisoner like Mr.
Davenport satisfies both this Court’s equitable precedents and
Congress’s statute. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.