Habeas corpus; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Strickland v Washington; The Antiterrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA); Requirements for state prisoners; 28 USC §§ 2254(d)(1) or (2); Whether AEDPA’s standard of review violates Article III of the Constitution; Loper Bright Enters v Raimondo; Whether the state court’s decisions unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent or turned on an unreasonable determination of the facts; Defense based on challenging whether oxycodone was a “substantial factor” in the victim’s death; Failure to investigate an alternative defense; Failure to call an expert at trial to support the defense; The deficient performance & prejudice prongs of Strickland

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held that AEDPA’s standard of review does not violate Article III. It also held that petitioner-DeBruyn was not entitled to a writ of habeas corpus where he failed to show that the state court’s rulings rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claims “unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent or turned on an unreasonable determination of the facts.” A state court jury in Michigan convicted DeBruyn of delivering oxycodone to his friend (G), resulting in her death. His motion for a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel was denied, and the appellate courts rejected his claims on the merits. He argued the same claims in his habeas petition—his attorneys were ineffective for failing to (1) investigate an acetaminophen-based defense before trial and (2) call an expert witness. The district court denied his petition. On appeal, the court first rejected his argument that AEDPA’s standard of review violates Article III. It held that “Loper Bright nor DeBruyn’s argument about transferring federal judicial power to state courts prohibit Congress from setting standards for when federal courts may issue the writ of habeas corpus to state prisoners.” As to the merits, it found that “a fairminded jurist could conclude that DeBruyn’s lawyers chose to pursue a reasonable defense strategy that made any investigation into an acetaminophen-based defense unnecessary.” Given the strong evidence that G “took Percocet, a fairminded jurist could conclude that DeBruyn’s lawyers ‘ma[de] a reasonable decision’ about how to defend their client. [They] challenged the second premise of the State’s case—that oxycodone was a substantial factor in [G’s] death.” The court concluded he could not “show that the state court’s performance ruling amounted to an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent.” As to the failure to call an expert, this claim failed “twice over. First, a fairminded jurist could conclude that at least one competent lawyer would have chosen to present DeBruyn’s defense through cross examination of the State’s experts.” Secondly, the court found “a fairminded jurist could conclude that DeBruyn’s lawyers did not perform deficiently in presenting their defense through cross-examination of the State’s experts.” Thus, the state court “reasonably determined that [they] performed competently in” doing so. The court also held as to both claims that he could not satisfy the prejudice requirement. Affirmed.