U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 2014

Gregg Ebeling v. Greg Smith

Gregg Ebeling v. Greg Smith
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · Decided September 17, 2014 · Bea, Ikuta, Hurwitz
584 F. App'x 814

Gregg Ebeling v. Greg Smith

Opinion

MEMORANDUM **

Gregg Ebeling appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). The Nevada Supreme Court’s denial of Ebeling’s claim that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated by the trial court’s limitations on the cross-examination of the child witnesses, and by the exclusion of expert testimony regarding the child witnesses, was not contrary *815 to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Cf. Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400, 411, 108 S.Ct. 646, 98 L.Ed.2d 798 (1988); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302-08, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). The trial court did not prohibit Ebeling “from engaging in otherwise appropriate cross-examination,” see Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679-80, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986), and there is no Supreme Court case addressing the exclusion of expert testimony, Moses v. Payne, 555 F.3d 742, 757-59 (9th Cir. 2008). Although Ebeling failed to exhaust his due process claim based on prosecutorial misconduct, we deny it on the merits, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(2), because the prosecutor’s comments did not make the trial fundamentally unfair. See Donnelly v. De-Christoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974).

AFFIRMED.

**

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.