Supreme Court of the United States
McDaniel v. Brown
January 11, 2010558 U.S. 120
Summary
The Supreme Court, per curiam, reversed the Ninth Circuit's affirmance of a federal habeas grant to Troy Brown, holding that a Jackson v. Virginia sufficiency-of-the-evidence review must consider all of the evidence admitted at trial and may not exclude DNA testimony based on a post-trial expert report, and that the Nevada Supreme Court's rejection of the insufficiency claim was neither contrary to nor an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d)(1). The Court also refused to entertain Brown's alternative 'DNA due process' claim under Manson v. Brathwaite because he raised it for the first time in his merits brief, and it remanded for proceedings on ineffective-assistance claims the Ninth Circuit had not considered. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, concurred in the result but objected to the Court's extensive discussion of the post-trial Mueller Report as unnecessary dicta.
Holding
- Scope of a Jackson v. Virginia sufficiency review on federal habeas: may a reviewing court exclude trial evidence as unreliable based on post-trial evidence?. No. A reviewing court conducting a Jackson analysis must consider all of the evidence admitted by the trial court, regardless whether that evidence was admitted erroneously; post-trial evidence such as the Mueller Report provides no warrant for excluding the DNA evidence or Romero's testimony from the analysis.
- Whether the Nevada Supreme Court's rejection of the insufficiency claim was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Jackson under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d)(1). It was neither. Even assuming the Court of Appeals could have considered the Mueller Report, the report provided no warrant for excluding the DNA evidence: it did not contest that the DNA matched Brown, expert disagreement does not show unreliability, and even under Mueller's odds a rational jury could deem the DNA powerful evidence of guilt. The Court of Appeals' recitation of evidentiary inconsistencies likewise departed from the deferential review Jackson and Sec. 2254(d)(1) demand.
- Whether Brown could obtain affirmance on an alternative 'DNA due process' claim under Manson v. Brathwaite. No. The claim was forfeited because Brown advanced it for the first time in his brief on the merits in this Court; he had not presented it in his federal habeas petition, presented only his Jackson claim in the Ninth Circuit, and it is at least unclear whether he presented it in state courts. He cannot rewrite his federal habeas petition at this late stage.
Docket 08-559