Edward Kendrick, III v. Mike Parris, 989 F.3d 459

In 1994 Edward Kendrick shot his wife outside a Chattanooga gas station; Kendrick testified the Remington Model 7400 discharged accidentally while he moved it; the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life.
A police officer, Sgt. Steve Miller, later accidentally shot himself with the same rifle while handling it in custody and (in pretrial reports) reportedly said the rifle "just went off;" at trial Miller recanted or claimed lack of memory, diminishing the expected impeachment value of his prior statements.
The State’s firearms expert (Kelly Fite) testified the rifle would only fire if the trigger were pulled; at postconviction hearings defense expert Henry Belk testified the model could fire without trigger pull and that testing could destroy evidence of such a condition.
On state postconviction review Kendrick alleged 77 claims including two ineffective-assistance-of-counsel (IAC) claims: (1) counsel failed to admit Miller’s prior statements as excited utterances, and (2) counsel failed to locate/call a firearms expert to rebut Fite; the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals granted relief on those two claims but the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously reversed.
Kendrick sought federal habeas relief; the district court denied most claims and refused relief on the two IAC claims; the Sixth Circuit granted COA limited to those two claims and affirms, holding the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Strickland-based rulings were not unreasonable under AEDPA.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether counsel was ineffective for failing to admit Sgt. Miller’s prior statements as excited utterances	Kendrick: Miller’s pretrial statements that the rifle “just went off” were admissible excited utterances and counsel’s failure to offer them was deficient and prejudicial	State: counsel vigorously impeached and cross-examined Miller, sought to admit reports, and reasonably relied on other impeachment routes; omitting the excited-utterance label was tactical, not constitutionally deficient	Held: Denied — state court reasonably concluded counsel’s overall advocacy was competent and omission was not objectively unreasonable under Strickland/AEDPA
Whether counsel was ineffective for failing to locate or call a firearms expert to rebut State expert Fite	Kendrick: Expert testimony was necessary to show the Model 7400 could fire without trigger pull; counsel’s failure was deficient and prejudicial	State: counsel reasonably built strategy around Miller’s mishap and cross-examination of Fite; no clear proof a competent expert was reasonably available in 1994; hiring an expert was not clearly required	Held: Denied — state court reasonably found strategy to forgo an expert defensible and Kendrick failed to rebut factual finding (expert availability) by clear and convincing evidence

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-part standard for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (2011) (deference to state-court Strickland rulings under AEDPA)
Hinton v. Alabama, 571 U.S. 263 (2014) (recognition that some defenses require expert assistance)
Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12 (2013) (AEDPA limits on federal habeas relief)
Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002) (Strickland/AEDPA interplay; counsel need not be perfect)
Yarborough v. Gentry, 540 U.S. 1 (2003) (limits on hindsight in evaluating counsel performance)
Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111 (2009) (doubly deferential standard for Strickland claims on habeas)
Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170 (2011) (review limited to record before the state court)
Shinn v. Kayer, 141 S. Ct. 517 (2020) (AEDPA deference; importance of fairminded disagreement)
Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. 312 (2015) (AEDPA’s high bar for relief)