Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Flint.
No. 4:17-cv-13506—Matthew F. Leitman, District Judge.
Argued: July 21, 2022
Decided and Filed: December 12, 2022
Before: BATCHELDER, WHITE, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
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OPINION
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MURPHY, Circuit Judge. In Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (1985), the Supreme Court
held that the Due Process Clause requires states to provide psychiatric experts to indigent
defendants who have a credible insanity defense. Id. at 74. Lisa Bergman relies on Ake to claim
that she should have been provided an expert toxicologist at her criminal trial. The trial evidence
showed that Bergman drove into an oncoming truck and killed its occupants. Scientists testified
that she had prescription drugs in her system at the time of this crash (and at the time of several
prior accidents), and the state’s expert opined that these drugs impaired her driving. A state
court held that Ake did not require the state to provide Bergman with a defense toxicologist
because she failed to show a sufficient need for one notwithstanding the state’s expert evidence.
Bergman now argues that the state court misread Ake and misunderstood the record. In this
federal case, however, she must meet the stringent standards for relief in the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Given the Supreme Court’s lack of
clarity over Ake’s scope, she has not done so. We affirm. |