Summary
U.S. Supreme Court case involving the standard of review federal habeas courts must apply when reviewing a state court’s determination of harmless error. Ervine Lee Davenport was partially shackled during his trial for first-degree murder. On direct appeal, the state appellate courts found that his partial shackling was unconstitutional, but was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under the standard announced in Chapman v. California. Davenport subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Because Davenport’s partial shackling claim had been addressed by the state appellate courts, the federal habeas judge analyzed his petition pursuant to the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The District Court judge denied habeas relief after finding that the state court’s harmless error determination was neither contrary to nor involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law (applying 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)). A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the District Court applied the incorrect standard for addressing harmless error. The majority found that Brecht v. Abrahamson, not AEDPA, supplies the correct standard, and based on Brecht alone, the shackling error was not harmless.
CJLF joined the case to argue that AEDPA requires federal courts to give great deference to a state court’s resolution of federal law, which includes a finding of harmless error. Because AEDPA was enacted to reduce delay, and is a prerequisite to habeas relief, a federal habeas court must review the state court’s harmless error determination for reasonableness under its provisions first. If a habeas petitioner satisfies the demands of AEDPA, then Brecht is applied. CJLF’s brief argues that if a federal habeas court is going to grant habeas relief, both AEDPA and Brecht must be addressed, and the “Brecht-only” approach taken by the Sixth Circuit was erroneous. The Supreme Court agreed and held that when a state court has ruled on the merits of a state prisoner's claim, a federal habeas court must apply both tests when granting habeas relief.
