Farley v. Lafler

193 F. App'x 543
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 24, 2006
DocketNo. 05-2528
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 193 F. App'x 543 (Farley v. Lafler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farley v. Lafler, 193 F. App'x 543 (6th Cir. 2006).

Opinion

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

David Keith Farley was convicted of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in violation of Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.520b(l)(f) following a jury trial in Allegan County Circuit Court, and was sentenced to twenty to forty years of imprisonment. He sought and was denied a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Farley now appeals the district court’s denial of habeas relief.

I.

Farley’s conviction arose out of a late-night roadside incident, following a party. Farley and the victim had left the party together in his vehicle, which he was driving, and which ultimately ended up in a ditch by the side of the road. According to the prosecution, Farley then forced himself on the victim, and committed five separate sexual assaults, which supported five separate charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct under Michigan law. The jury convicted Farley of three of the five charges. On appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Farley’s conviction. The Supreme Court of Michigan denied Farley’s application for leave to appeal.

Farley subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in which he asserted three grounds for habeas relief. First, Farley claimed that the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation when it limited the cross examination of two government witnesses pursuant to the state’s objections. The first witness was the victim, who testified that she was on probation after pleading guilty to retail fraud for shoplifting. Farley sought to ask the victim whether drinking underage would have violated the terms of her probation, and the question was disallowed after the state’s objection. The second witness was the victim’s friend, Callan [545]*545Bell. Farley attempted to impeach the victim’s testimony by questioning Bell about statements made to her by the victim, and this line of questioning was also excluded.

Farley’s second ground for habeas relief was that the evidence at trial was insufficient to convict him for first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He was convicted of three counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct under Michigan law, one involving digital penetration and two based on penile penetration. First-degree criminal sexual conduct requires a showing of an intrusion into the genital or anal opening of another person involving one of several possible statutorily enumerated circumstances—in this case, those circumstances involved the use of force or coercion with personal injury resulting. See Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.520b(f).

Finally, Farley claimed that his due process right to a fair trial was violated when the trial court failed to give specific unanimity instructions to the jury for each charge. While informing the jury that it had to unanimously find Farley guilty to return a guilty verdict as to any of the several counts against him, the trial court did not repeat this instruction as it instructed the jury specifically on each count. Additionally, in giving the jury instructions for the five counts, the trial court erroneously identified both count three and count four as “count three.” Although both charges involved the same type of prohibited conduct and were thus otherwise identical, Farley claims that the misnumbering of the charges caused the jury confusion and created or added to the due process problem.

The district court dismissed Farley’s petition for habeas relief with prejudice, and later issued a certificate of appealability for all of Farley’s claims. Farley now appeals the district court’s denial of habeas relief to this Court.

II.

We review a district court’s decision regarding a writ of habeas corpus de novo. Wolfe v. Brigano, 232 F.3d 499, 501 (6th Cir.2000). Factual findings made by the district court are reviewed for clear error unless they are made based on state court documents. Mackey v. Russell, 148 Fed.Appx. 355, 359 (6th Cir.2005). In such cases, the factual findings are reviewed de novo. Id.

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), a federal court may not grant habeas relief unless the state court’s adjudication of the claim either:

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or
(2) resulted in a decision that was based upon an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Under the “contrary to” provision, a federal habeas court should grant the writ “if the state court arrived at a conclusion ‘opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.’ ” Wolfe, 232 F.3d at 501 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)). This Court should issue the writ under the “unreasonable application” clause where “ ‘the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme] Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.’ ” Id.

[546]*546III.

A. Confrontation

1. Limited Cross-Examination of the victim

The district court found that Farley’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him had not been violated by the limits placed on his cross-examination of the victim, reasoning that the victim’s underage drinking in violation of her probation was only remotely relevant to her motive to fabricate the allegations, and that given the other areas where trial counsel was allowed to ask about credibility and motive to lie, any possible error was harmless. The district court was correct in concluding that the state court’s decision did not unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent.

The Supreme Court has stated that while the Sixth Amendment guarantees a right to cross-examine witnesses regarding their motive to testify, “trial judges retain wide latitude insofar as the Confrontation Clause is concerned to impose reasonable limits on such cross-examination based on concerns about, among other things, harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues, the witness’s safety, or interrogation that is repetitive or only marginally relevant.” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986). Although the trial court did not specify the basis for preventing the line of cross-examination here, it is apparent that the questioning was only marginally relevant, if it was even relevant at all.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Jones v. Adams
E.D. Michigan, 2024
Burns v. Tanner
E.D. Michigan, 2024
Moore v. Howard
E.D. Michigan, 2024
Saylor v. Cargor
E.D. Michigan, 2024
Hawkins v. Horton
E.D. Michigan, 2024
Cole v. Rewerts
E.D. Michigan, 2023
Marshall v. Winn
E.D. Michigan, 2023
Smith v. Douglas
E.D. Michigan, 2023
Harris v. Stephenson
E.D. Michigan, 2023
Jackson v. Miniard
E.D. Michigan, 2022
Jenkins v. Skipper
E.D. Michigan, 2022
Horton v. Morrison
E.D. Michigan, 2022
Taylor v. Campbell
E.D. Michigan, 2022
United States v. Michael Clark
24 F.4th 565 (Sixth Circuit, 2022)
Neuman v. Jackson
E.D. Michigan, 2021
Gladney v. Howard
E.D. Michigan, 2021
Alzubaidy v. Stewart
E.D. Michigan, 2020
Simms v. Bauman
E.D. Michigan, 2019
Kainte Hickey v. Bonita Hoffner
701 F. App'x 422 (Sixth Circuit, 2017)
Jordan v. WARDEN, LEBANON CORRECTIONAL INST.
675 F.3d 586 (Sixth Circuit, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
193 F. App'x 543, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farley-v-lafler-ca6-2006.