Daniel Barletta v. Kevin McCarthy, Superintendent, Elmira Correctional Facility

Whether the Second Circuit, in this murder case, clearly misapplied the standard set by this Court for allowing a Certificate of Appealability when it used a purely merits-based standard to deny review of (1) a categorical denial of the Right to Present a Defense, (2) a fundamental misconception and misapplication of the “independent and adequate state bar” doctrine, and (3) the unconstitutional denial of de novo review by the Article III judge of a Magistrate Judge’s recommendation – when all of these rulings were more than, as described in Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. 100 (2017), “reasonably debatable.”