Picard v. Connor

Supreme Court of the United States · 1971 · Federal Courts

Federal CourtsFederal Habeas CorpusExhaustion of State Remedies28 U.S.C. § 2254exhaustionfair presentationfederal habeassame claim requirement

Facts

Connor was prosecuted in Massachusetts after a murder indictment against another person and 'John Doe' was amended under a fictitious-name statute to substitute Connor's name for 'John Doe.' In the Massachusetts courts, Connor repeatedly challenged the legality of the indictment procedure under state law and also suggested that the Fifth Amendment grand jury requirement should be reconsidered as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court examined the pretrial, trial, and appellate papers and found no indication that Connor had argued that the procedure violated the Equal Protection Clause. The equal protection theory was introduced only by the court of appeals.

Issue

Whether a state prisoner has exhausted state remedies under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 when he presented the underlying facts to the state courts, but did not fairly present the federal equal protection claim later relied on in federal habeas proceedings.

Rule

Exhaustion under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 requires that the substance of the same federal habeas claim be fairly presented to the state courts. It is not enough that the prisoner has been through the state courts or that the state courts were presented with the facts; the state courts must have had the first opportunity to hear and correct the particular federal claim later urged in federal court.

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In Ohio, Devin Cole was convicted after the trial court admitted a recorded statement. On direct appeal, Devin argued only that the statement was inadmissible under an Ohio evidence statute and that the judge misread the statute's exception. After losing in the Ohio courts, he filed a federal habeas petition alleging for the first time that admission of the statement violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.

Has Devin satisfied 28 U.S.C. § 2254's exhaustion requirement as to the Confrontation Clause claim?

Explanation. Exhaustion requires that the same federal claim, in substance, be fairly presented to the state courts. It is not enough that the petitioner challenged the same ruling or presented the same facts. A state-law attack on admissibility is not the substantial equivalent of a Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause claim, so the state courts were not given the first opportunity to address that federal theory.