Whether a federal habeas court can redefine a state court claim to conclude it was not properly exhausted

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Principles of federalism and comity embodied in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, require deference to state court factfinding and procedures in connection with federal habeas proceedings. Here, a Florida state court determined that Petitioner had exhausted state procedures on the relevant claims. With that as background, the federal district court granted a writ of habeas corpus to Petitioner because the State had unlawfully failed to disclose exculpatory evidence— the prosecutor’s notes reflecting material observations and conclusions of the responding officers—as required by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The Eleventh Circuit reversed, effectively overruling determinations of both fact and of the state’s own procedures made by the state court, thereby adopting an approach that stands in stark contrast to the approach set out by this Court and applied in other Circuits. The following questions are presented: 1. Where Petitioner’s state high court brief articulated the federal constitutional guarantee relied upon and the facts supporting that claim, and a state trial court determined that Petitioner’s Brady claim had been presented to that court and “appealfed] to the Supreme Court of Florida,” is it proper for a federal habeas court on appeal to redefine the claim presented to the state high court, to make it “coincide” with a claim presented in state trial court pleadings, to conclude that the habeas claim was not properly exhausted in the state courts? 2. Does it violate the presumption of correctness of state court factual determinations for a federal ii habeas court on appeal to overturn a state court factual determination—that what was revealed in the wrongfully withheld evidence was “far different” from what had otherwise been revealed to the defense— without first overcoming the presumption that the state-court determination was correct? 3. Where the State withheld the prosecutor’s notes reflecting that the first officers on the scene identified the sole eyewitness, whose testimony was the basis for Petitioner’s conviction, as the likely perpetrator and reported their reasons for that belief to the prosecutor, is it reasonable to end a Brady analysis by concluding that the withheld evidence would have been inadmissible, where disclosure of that evidence would likely have led to the development of admissible evidence favorable to the defense?