## Facts

- Robert E. Fortini III was convicted in Massachusetts state court of second-degree murder for shooting and killing Ceasar Monterio.
- Fortini asserted self-defense and sought to introduce evidence that, earlier the same night, Monterio allegedly assaulted several people at a nearby basketball court to support Fortini’s account of Monterio’s aggressiveness.
- The trial judge excluded the basketball-court evidence under state evidentiary rules.
- The Massachusetts Appeals Court assumed exclusion may have been erroneous but held any error harmless and affirmed the conviction.
- Fortini filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that exclusion of the evidence violated due process by preventing him from presenting a meaningful defense.
- The federal district court dismissed the petition for failure to exhaust, concluding Fortini had not fairly presented the federal constitutional claim to the state courts.

## Issues

1. Whether Fortini fairly presented his federal due process claim to the state courts, satisfying § 2254(b) exhaustion.
2. Whether, under AEDPA, the state court’s harmless-error disposition of the exclusionary ruling was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law governing due process limits on evidentiary exclusions.
3. Whether any constitutional error had a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict under the Brecht harmless-error standard.

## Decision

- The First Circuit held that Fortini satisfied the exhaustion requirement because his state-court submissions sufficiently alerted the state courts to the federal due process substance of his claim.
- On the merits, the court denied habeas relief, concluding the exclusion did not amount to the type of extraordinary defense-impairing restriction that violates due process under clearly established Supreme Court precedent.
- The court further held that, even assuming constitutional error, Fortini did not show prejudice under Brecht because the excluded evidence was indirect and unlikely to change the jury’s assessment of guilt.
- The dismissal of the habeas petition was affirmed on the merits rather than on non-exhaustion grounds.

## Legal Principles

- A habeas petitioner exhausts state remedies when the federal constitutional substance of the claim is fairly presented to the state courts; explicit citation to federal authority is not required if the constitutional nature of the claim is clear.
- Under AEDPA, federal habeas relief is unavailable unless the state court’s adjudication was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court law, or rested on an unreasonable factual determination.
- Due process limits evidentiary exclusions only in rare circumstances where the exclusion, in context, effectively prevents a defendant from presenting critical, reliable exculpatory evidence; ordinary evidentiary error is not enough.
- Even where constitutional error is assumed, habeas relief requires a showing that the error had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict under Brecht.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit concluded that Fortini had properly exhausted his federal due process claim, but it affirmed denial of § 2254 relief because the excluded evidence about the victim’s earlier conduct was not constitutionally required to be admitted under clearly established Supreme Court law and, in any event, did not materially affect the verdict under Brecht.


Fortini v. Murphy, 257 F.3d 39 (1st Cir. 2001)