043160P.pdf   07/06/2006  John Middleton  v.  Al Luebbers
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  04-3160
   Western District of Missouri   
   [PUBLISHED] [Riley, Author, with Loken, Chief Judge, and Wollman,
   Circuit Judge]
   Prisoner case - habeas. District court did not err in denying Middleton's
   claims of ineffective assistance of counsel as the state court's conclusions
   on the claims were not unreasonable applications of federal law; Missouri
   Supreme Court's finding that Middleton's absence at three pretrial
   motions hearings did not violate his due process rights was not an
   unreasonable application of federal law; Missouri Supreme Court's
   finding that Middleton failed to show that there was any agreement
   between the prosecutor and two witnesses was a reasonable interpretation
   of the evidence; court lacked authority to review the state court's decision
   that hearsay testimony was admissible under the state law doctrine of
   curative admissibility; analyzing the claim as Confrontation Clause issue,
   the district court erred in determining the claim was procedurally barred
   as Middleton presented the issue to the state courts, which ignored it;
   under a Crawford analysis, the statements in question were not
   testimonial and did not fall under the exclusion rule set out in Crawford;
   even if the statements did violate the Confrontation Clause, any error in
   admitting the statements was harmless; prosecutor's closing arguments
   did not violate Caldwell v. Mississippi.