## Facts

- On July 26, 2002, Jimmy Byrd violently assaulted his domestic partner, Jill Johnson, after an argument about Johnson’s failure to clean a dirty jar.
- Byrd prevented Johnson from obtaining medical care immediately after the assault.
- On July 31, 2002, Johnson’s pain became severe; she took a taxi to the hospital without Byrd’s knowledge.
- Doctors determined Johnson had suffered serious injuries requiring emergency surgery; she remained hospitalized to recover.
- While Johnson was in the hospital, New York authorities investigated and pursued assault charges against Byrd.
- Johnson cooperated at that time and gave testimony for a grand jury from the hospital.
- After Johnson was released from the hospital, she stopped cooperating with the prosecution.
- Anticipating that Johnson might refuse to testify at trial, the prosecution requested a hearing (a Sirois-type proceeding) to determine whether Byrd had engaged in wrongdoing that caused Johnson’s prospective unavailability.
- The prosecution introduced evidence that, while detained pretrial, Byrd called Johnson roughly 450 times in violation of a protective order, and also presented evidence of prior abuse and control.
- The prosecution also offered testimony from a battered-woman-syndrome witness to explain why an abuse victim may refuse to testify against an abuser.
- The trial court initially deferred a final ruling until trial to see whether Johnson would testify.
- At trial, Johnson appeared but refused to answer questions; the trial court found, by clear and convincing evidence, that Byrd’s wrongdoing caused her refusal and admitted her grand-jury testimony.
- The trial court allowed battered-woman-syndrome testimony with a limiting instruction that the jury could consider it only to explain a victim’s lack of cooperation, not as proof that Byrd committed the charged crimes.
- Byrd was convicted of multiple assault counts, including first-degree and second-degree assault; the Appellate Division affirmed and the New York Court of Appeals denied leave.
- Byrd filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A magistrate judge recommended denial, and the district judge adopted that recommendation and dismissed the petition.

## Issues

1. Whether admitting Johnson’s grand-jury testimony after she refused to testify at trial violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause, or was permitted because Byrd forfeited confrontation by wrongdoing.
2. Whether admitting battered-woman-syndrome testimony (and related evidence) denied Byrd due process by making the trial fundamentally unfair.
3. Whether remarks in the prosecutor’s summation deprived Byrd of a fair trial under the Due Process Clause.
4. Whether the evidence was constitutionally sufficient to support Byrd’s first-degree assault conviction.

## Decision

- The district court denied habeas relief under AEDPA and dismissed the § 2254 petition.
- The court held that the state courts reasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court law in finding forfeiture by wrongdoing and in admitting Johnson’s grand-jury testimony after her refusal to answer questions at trial.
- The court held that the battered-woman-syndrome testimony, admitted for the limited purpose of explaining victim noncooperation and accompanied by a limiting instruction, did not render the trial fundamentally unfair.
- The court held that the challenged summation comments, viewed in context and alongside curative instructions and the strength of the evidence, did not amount to a due-process violation.
- The court held that the evidence was sufficient under Jackson v. Virginia for a rational jury to find the elements of first-degree assault beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability.

## Legal Principles

- Federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) is available only if the state-court adjudication was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court precedent, or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.
- A defendant may forfeit Confrontation Clause protection by wrongdoing that causes a witness’s unavailability or refusal to testify, permitting admission of the witness’s prior testimony.
- State evidentiary rulings support habeas relief only when they violate due process by making the trial fundamentally unfair.
- Prosecutorial-misconduct claims warrant relief only when the conduct, in the full context of the record and instructions, so infected the trial with unfairness that the conviction violates due process.
- Under Jackson v. Virginia, evidence is constitutionally sufficient if, viewing the proof in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

## Conclusion

The federal court dismissed Byrd’s § 2254 petition, concluding that the state courts’ forfeiture-by-wrongdoing ruling justified admission of the victim’s grand-jury testimony, that the battered-woman-syndrome testimony (with a limiting instruction) did not make the trial fundamentally unfair, that the summation did not deny due process, and that the evidence supported the first-degree assault conviction under the deferential AEDPA and Jackson standards.


Byrd v. Brown, 2010 WL 6764702 (2010)