## Facts

- After 1:00 a.m. on October 27, 2010, David Chandler was shot in a parked car in Cincinnati after a man demanded money and fired into the vehicle, leaving Chandler paralyzed.
- Chandler was hospitalized in intensive care on life support; once conscious, he could communicate only through prearranged eye-blink patterns to answer yes/no questions.
- On November 1, 2010, Chandler requested and received last rites.
- On November 2, 2010, police showed Chandler a photo array and questioned him using the blink system; Chandler identified Ricardo Woods as the shooter by blinking affirmatively to questions about Woods.
- Chandler suffered strokes on November 4 and died on November 12, 2010, from the gunshot-related injuries.
- Ohio prosecuted Woods for murder and related offenses; the trial court admitted Chandler’s blink-based identification as a dying declaration.
- A jury convicted Woods of first-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon; Ohio appellate courts affirmed.
- Woods sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing (1) Confrontation Clause error from admitting the identification and (2) Batson error in handling a peremptory strike of a Black juror; the district court denied relief.

## Issues

1. Whether, under AEDPA, the state court unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court law by admitting Chandler’s blink-based identification as a dying declaration over a Confrontation Clause objection.
2. Whether, under AEDPA, the state court unreasonably applied Batson and its progeny in resolving Woods’s challenge to the prosecution’s peremptory strike of a Black juror, including the timing of requiring a race-neutral explanation.
3. Whether asserted transcript or record irregularities amounted to a constitutional violation warranting habeas relief.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of Woods’s § 2254 petition.
- The court held that the Supreme Court has not clearly established that admitting dying declarations violates the Confrontation Clause, and the state court’s ruling was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.
- The court concluded the state court did not unreasonably find Chandler spoke under a sense of impending death, relying on evidence including Chandler’s critical condition and receipt of last rites.
- The court held the state court’s Batson adjudication was not an unreasonable application of clearly established law, despite an initial delay in soliciting the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason, because the trial court later obtained an explanation and credited it.
- The court rejected transcript/record claims because state courts addressed corrections and Woods did not show a remaining constitutional defect cognizable on habeas review.

## Legal Principles

- Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), habeas relief is available only if the state-court decision is contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court law, or rests on an unreasonable determination of facts.
- In the absence of a Supreme Court holding forbidding admission of dying declarations under the Confrontation Clause, a state court’s admission of such statements generally cannot be deemed an unreasonable application of clearly established law for AEDPA purposes.
- A dying declaration determination may turn on whether the declarant spoke under a sense of impending death, and AEDPA requires deference to reasonable state fact-finding on that point.
- Batson claims apply a three-step framework (prima facie showing, race-neutral explanation, determination of purposeful discrimination); on habeas review, state credibility findings regarding a prosecutor’s explanation receive substantial deference.
- Transcript or record problems warrant habeas relief only if they produce a constitutional violation affecting the fairness of the proceedings, not merely because irregularities exist.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that AEDPA deference foreclosed habeas relief because the state court’s admission of a blink-communicated dying declaration and its Batson ruling were not unreasonable applications of clearly established Supreme Court law, and asserted record errors did not rise to a constitutional violation.


Woods v. Cook, 960 F.3d 295 (6th Cir. 2020)