McClain v. Thornell

── McClain v. Thornell ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: June 02, 2026 Category: General NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 2 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT KRIS RAYMON MCCLAIN, No. 24-797 D.C. No. Petitioner - Appellant, 3:23-cv-08056-SPL v. RYAN THORNELL, Director of the MEMORANDUM* Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation; KRIS MAYES; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA, Respondents - Appellees, ---------------------------------------- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Intervenor. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Steven Paul Logan, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 24, 2025 Submission Withdrawn October 27, 2025 Resubmitted June 2, 2026 Phoenix, Arizona * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Before: GRABER and BADE, Circuit Judges, and NAVARRO, District Judge. ** Kris McClain appeals the district court’s denial of his habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), and we affirm. 1. McClain first argues that, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), federal courts cannot apply the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act’s (“AEDPA”) highly deferential standard when reviewing state court decisions. This argument is foreclosed by Bradford v. Vang, No. 23-99005, 2026 WL 1340217 (9th Cir. May 14, 2026), which was decided after briefing. See id. at *17 (“AEDPA’s requirement that a federal habeas court must apply a ‘highly deferential standard’ in reviewing a state court’s resolution of a federal constitutional claim raises no constitutional concerns under Loper Bright or otherwise.”). We review de novo the district court’s denial of habeas relief. Ybarra v. McDaniel, 656 F.3d 984, 989 (9th Cir. 2011). Under AEDPA, we may grant relief only if the state court’s adjudication on the merits was (1) “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by ** The Honorable Gloria M. Navarro, United States District Judge for the District of Nevada, sitting by designation. 2 No. 24-797 the Supreme Court of the United States,” or (2) “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 2. The Arizona Court of Appeals concluded that McClain was not in custody for the purposes of Miranda before he was placed under arrest at the hospital. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444–45 (1966). The state court’s determination that McClain was not in custody was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. Contrary to McClain’s argument that the state court took a piecemeal approach, the Arizona Court of Appeals identified the correct totality-of-the-circumstances test, see Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322 (1994) (per curiam), and reasonably applied it to McClain’s case, see Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 520–21 (2003) (explaining that overcoming AEDPA deference requires the application of precedent be “objectively unreasonable,” not just “erroneous” (citation omitted)). 3.