Steven Jaffe v. Matthew Kramer

MEMORANDUM

Steven Jaffe appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. He claims that the admission of a police officer’s preliminary hearing testimony at his trial violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Jaffe also claims that his state-appointed trial counsel was ineffective in violation of the Sixth Amendment because he failed to object to the prosecutor’s misstatement of the law during the prosecutor’s rebuttal argument at Jaffe’s trial.

The district court rejected all of Jaffe’s claims and denied his habeas petition in full. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 (a). We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

We first address Jaffe’s Confrontation Clause claim. Jaffe argues that he did not have an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Officer David Miller at the preliminary hearing because Jaffe did not know at that time that Miller was under investigation on federal charges of official corruption. Thus, Jaffe claims, the admission of Miller’s preliminary hearing testimony at trial violated the Confrontation Clause.

While we are exceedingly troubled by Confrontation…