Whether a Court of Appeals' denial of a certificate of appealability conflicts with this Court's rulings in Vasquez v. Hillery and Miller-El v. Cockrell, where the district court determined in a murder case that an ineffective assistance of counsel claim was exhausted even though the state postconviction claim did not, but the federal claim did assert an expert cause-of-death opinion materially different from that of the State's expert

QUESTION PRESENTED Mr. Coon claimed through counsel in state postconviction proceedings challenging his murder conviction that trial counsel had been ineffective in failing to adequately investigate the victim’s cause of death. State postconviction counsel neither alleged nor otherwise proffered any expert opinion that differed from that of the State’s expert (“probable traumatic asphyxiation”). In federal habeas proceedings Mr. Coon proffered an expert opinion materially different from that of the State’s expert—that the cause of death was at least as likely an asthma attack as traumatic asphyxiation—which would have supported a defense to the charge of intentional murder. Despite this critical difference between the claims, the District Court rejected Mr. Coon’s argument that the state postconviction claim did not exhaust his federal habeas claim, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a Certificate of Appealability. The question presented is: Whether a Court of Appeals’ denial of a certificate of appealability conflicts with this Court’s rulings in Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 260 (1986), and Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003), where the district court determined in a murder case that an ineffective assistance of counsel claim was exhausted even though the state postconviction claim did not, but the federal claim did assert an expert cause-of-death opinion materially different from that of the State’s expert. i