Nassau County District Attorney’s Office v. Orlando

Issues: (1) Whether the court of appeals violated the deferential review requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) by setting aside a state murder conviction based on its de novo analysis of a confrontation claim without fulfilling its obligation to consider the arguments supporting the state court’s denial of the claim or whether fair-minded jurists could agree with the state court’s conclusions; (2) whether the court of appeals misapplied the Supreme Court’s holdings in Bruton v. United States and Tennessee v. Street, and violated Teague v. Lane, by granting habeas relief based on a new rule of law, when it held that the constitutional guarantee of confrontation precludes the admission of inculpatory accomplice statements—even if not admitted for their truth and accompanied by limiting instructions—unless the defendant has testified and the state refrains from referencing the accomplice statements in any manner or expressly disavows the truth of the statements; and (3) whether the court of appeals erred in determining that the state court’s failure to follow its new confrontation rule constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, when the Supreme Court has never promulgated the new confrontation rule announced by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.