Cullen v. Pinholster

Supreme Court of the United States
563 U. S. ____ (2011) (2011)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A federal court's review of a state court decision under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the factual record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. A federal court may not consider new evidence introduced for the first time in a federal evidentiary hearing when determining whether the state court's decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.

Facts:

On January 8, 1982, Scott Pinholster, Art Corona, and Paul David Brown broke into the home of a drug dealer, Michael Kumar, with the intent to rob him.
The three men, all armed with buck knives, began ransacking the home but found Kumar was not there.
Two of Kumar's friends, Thomas Johnson and Robert Beckett, arrived at the house and interrupted the burglary.
Pinholster and his accomplices attacked the two men. Brown stabbed Johnson, while Pinholster repeatedly stabbed Beckett.
Both Johnson and Beckett died from their wounds.
The perpetrators stole the victims' wallets, which contained $23 and a quarter-ounce of marijuana.
Two weeks later, Corona turned himself in to the police and became the primary witness against Pinholster.
Pinholster was arrested and subsequently threatened Corona's life to keep him from talking.

Procedural Posture:

Scott Pinholster was convicted of first-degree murder in a California trial court and sentenced to death.
The California Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on direct appeal.
Pinholster filed a state habeas petition in the California Supreme Court, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) at the penalty phase, which the court denied on the merits.
Pinholster filed a federal habeas petition in the U.S. District Court, which was stayed to allow him to exhaust claims based on new evidence in state court.
Pinholster filed a second state habeas petition with the new evidence, which the California Supreme Court again denied on the merits.
The U.S. District Court held an evidentiary hearing, considered the new evidence, and granted Pinholster's habeas petition, finding his counsel's performance was deficient.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court's decision.
The Ninth Circuit, rehearing the case en banc, vacated the panel opinion and affirmed the District Court's grant of habeas relief.
The State, represented by Warden Cullen, petitioned for and was granted a writ of certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Issue:

Does a federal court's review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) permit consideration of evidence that was not presented to the state court but was introduced for the first time in a federal evidentiary hearing?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Thomas

No. Review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. The text of § 2254(d)(1) is "backward-looking," referring to a state court adjudication that "resulted in" or "involved" a certain outcome, which requires an examination of the state court's decision at the time it was made, based on the record it had. Allowing a petitioner to introduce new evidence in a federal court to overcome an adverse state court decision would undermine AEDPA's statutory scheme, which prioritizes exhaustion of state remedies and channels claims to state courts first. It would be illogical to assess whether a state court unreasonably applied federal law to facts that were not before it. The court also held that, based only on the state-court record, the California Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply Strickland, as counsel's decision to limit the mitigation case could be seen as a reasonable strategic choice given Pinholster's unsympathetic nature, and the aggravating evidence was so strong that any additional mitigating evidence was unlikely to have changed the outcome.

Dissenting - Justice Sotomayor

Yes. A federal court should be permitted to consider new evidence when reviewing a state court's decision under § 2254(d)(1), especially when a petitioner diligently tried to develop the facts in state court but was unable to. The text of the statute supports this view, as § 2254(d)(2) explicitly limits review to the state-court record, while § 2254(d)(1) contains no such limiting language, an omission that should be presumed intentional. The majority's holding gives an unnaturally cramped reading to § 2254(e)(2), which permits federal evidentiary hearings, and risks foreclosing relief for diligent petitioners with meritorious claims. Furthermore, even limited to the state-court record, the California Supreme Court's decision was an unreasonable application of Strickland because counsel's failure to investigate and present powerful mitigating evidence was professionally deficient and clearly prejudicial.

Concurring - Justice Alito

No, on these facts, but the majority's legal reasoning is flawed. I agree with the dissent that when an evidentiary hearing is properly held in federal court, the evidence from that hearing must be considered in the § 2254(d)(1) analysis. However, the hearing in this case should never have been held because Pinholster was not diligent in presenting his new evidence to the California courts as required by § 2254(e)(2). Because the hearing was improper, I concur in the judgment and agree with the majority's conclusion that, based on the state-court record alone, the state court's decision was a reasonable application of federal law.

Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Breyer

I agree with the majority's holding that review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the state-court record. However, I would not proceed to apply that new rule to the facts of this case. Instead, the case should be remanded to the Court of Appeals to apply the correct legal standard in the first instance. An evidentiary hearing under § 2254(e) may still be necessary in some cases, for instance, after a federal court finds the state court's legal conclusion was unreasonable under § 2254(d) and then needs to determine the truth of the petitioner's factual allegations.

Analysis:

This decision significantly restricts the power of federal courts in habeas corpus proceedings and reinforces the principles of finality and comity underlying the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). By limiting § 2254(d)(1) review to the state-court record, the Court makes it exceptionally difficult for petitioners to succeed on claims adjudicated on the merits in state court if they discover new supporting evidence later. The ruling places a very high premium on developing a complete factual record during state post-conviction proceedings, effectively making the state process the 'main event' for factual development. This has a profound impact on death penalty litigation and ineffective assistance of counsel claims, where the development of mitigating evidence is often the central issue.

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