A Criminal Defendant’s First Bite at the Constitutional Apple: The Eleventh Circuit’s Excessively Deferential Conception of “Adjudication on the Merits” in Childers v. Floyd

Abstract

On November 13, 2013, in Childers v. Floyd, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that Wyon Childers had failed to rebut the presumption that his Confrontation Clause claim was adjudicated on the merits. In this case, and a previous decision that led to it, the court conducted its habeas corpus review using a highly-deferential and vague conception of the threshold “adjudicated on the merits” inquiry. This Comment argues that the Eleventh Circuit and other circuits should reexamine their standards for determining whether federal claims have been adjudicated on the merits by state courts in order to align themselves with U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence and to provide a more accurate and just standard to the federal district courts.