081970P.pdf   04/30/2009  Johnny Rucker, Jr.  v.  Larry Norris
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  08-1970
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Pine Bluff   
   [PUBLISHED] [Loken, Author, with Beam and Arnold, Circuit Judges]
   Prisoner case - habeas. Under Arkansas law, the voluntariness of a
   confession is a matter decided by the court and not the jury, and trial
   court's refusal to give a jury instruction on voluntariness was not a
   violation of Rucker's rights; claim regarding the exclusion of inmate
   testimony as to whether Rucker was under the influence of crack when he
   confessed was not procedurally barred, but the state court decision that
   any error in excluding the testimony was harmless was not an
   unreasonable application of Rucker's constitutional rights as construed in
   Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683 (1986), as the evidence was cumulative;
   claim that state courts violated his rights to due process and to present a
   complete defense by denying his postconviction petition to require
   additional fingerprint testing on a weapon pursuant to a new state habeas
   cause of action enacted by the Arkansas Legislature in 2001, was
   procedurally barred; in any event, there is no Supreme Court decision
   clearly establishing that the right to present a complete defense applies to
   postconviction cases or that due process includes the right to 
   postconviction testing using new technologies.