Whether the exclusion of defense evidence that could have cast doubt on the defendant's false confession violated the defendant's clearly established right to present a complete defense

QUESTION PRESENTED Melissa Lucio’s culpability in the death of her two-year-old daughter turned on whether Mariah fell down a flight of stairs, as Lucio told medics and police, or was beaten, something Lucio took responsibility for at the end of a five-hour interrogation. The Texas Ranger who interrogated Lucio testified that her demeanor showed she was “hiding the truth,” but was “beat” and “giving up” before she took responsibility. The defense tried to present a social worker and psychologist who concluded Lucio’s flat affect and acquiescence reflected her lifetime of being used by abusive men. Records showing abuse by Lucio’s older children, but not her, and Lucio’s mental condition indicated she took responsibility for failing to prevent abuse by her older children. The trial court excluded the social worker as unqualified and the psychologist as irrelevant. Lucio claimed those rulings violated her right to present a complete defense because they “disabled [her] from answering the one question every rational juror needs answered: If the defendant is innocent, why did [she] previously admit [her] guilt?” Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 689 (1986). In a fractured en banc decision, ten of seventeen judges on the Fifth Circuit agreed the exclusion of the psychologist was “the key evidentiary ruling” at Lucio’s trial because the testimony “might have cast doubt on her confession.” App. 37a-38a (Southwick, J., concurring). The decisive three-judge concurrence held this Court’s cases had not “established with sufficient clarity” a rule that permitted “justice to a defendant” such as Lucio. App. 40a. That ruling gives rise to the following question: i 1. Whether, as the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held, this Court’s cases clearly establish a complete-defense right that can be violated by the arbitrary and disproportionate application of a general evidentiary standard when it infringes a weighty interest of the accused such as explaining why she falsely confessed, or as the Fifth Circuit held in this case, there is no clearly established federal law applicable to such a ruling. ii