Habeas corpus; Whether the state trial court’s rulings prevented petitioner from establishing a complete defense; Washington v Texas; Chambers v Mississippi; Ungar v Sarafite; Ferensic v Birkett; Whether the state court unreasonably applied “clearly established” law; Application of the Antiterrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act standard; Whether the errors were “prejudicial”; Brecht v Abrahamson

[This appeal was from the WD-MI. In an order after a majority of judges voted for rehearing en banc, the court vacated the prior opinion in this case (see eJournal # 83057 in the 1/28/25 edition), stayed the mandate, and returned the case to the original panel for entry of an amended opinion.] In an amended opinion, the court again held that the Michigan trial court deprived petitioner-Chandler of his “right to present a complete defense” and the Michigan Court of Appeals “unreasonably applied the Supreme Court’s governing principles to [his] case and improperly denied his constitutional claim.” Thus, it again reversed the district court’s denial of habeas relief and granted Chandler a conditional writ of habeas corpus. He was convicted of CSC I, based primarily on the testimony of one of his foster children (A.C.). In its amended opinion, the court removed a paragraph discussing a court decision issued in 2019. It noted the relevant case law – Washington, Chambers, Ungar, and Ferensic – set “a very high bar” for establishing that a “trial is ‘fundamentally unfair’ under the Due Process Clause” but it concluded this was “the extraordinary case in which that threshold is met.” It again found that “the decisive issue at trial was the reliability of A.C.’s testimony, and specifically whether she had a reason to fabricate allegations against Chandler.” He wanted “to (1) call . . . A.C.’s prior foster parents, who would have testified that ‘shortly after [they] advised [her] that [they] were going to adopt her,’ A.C. falsely ‘alleg[ed] physical abuse,’ including that they ‘pulled her by her hair and spun her around,’ and that A.C. admitted it was ‘fun to lie,’ . . . ; (2) call an expert witness, who would have testified that it is a ‘red flag’ when a child adds new details to a story years later, and a sign that she may have ‘been coached’ or have ‘confabulat[ed]’ the allegations, . . . and (3) introduce records from a proceeding before . . . a family court judge, who had concluded that A.C. makes ‘false accusations’ against foster parents to ‘manipulate the system’ and ‘make her way back to [her] birth parents[.]’” However, the “jury did not hear this evidence. When A.C. denied ever having made false allegations on cross-examination, the trial court told Chandler he was ‘stuck’ with her answers and could not challenge them with evidence of his own. . . . The lack of evidence of bias became the lynchpin of the State’s case for” his guilt. His attorney “tried to present Chandler’s side of the story through cross-examination—by suggesting that A.C. had a history of false allegations and had a motive to accuse Chandler of abuse. But at every step, the trial court prevented Chandler from producing any evidentiary support for his position, making his defense appear unsubstantiated and perhaps even manufactured.”