UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

______________

No. 20-1977 ______________

JOSEPH D. MARCY, Appellant

v.

SUPERINTENDENT PHOENIX SCI; THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE COUNTY OF LUZERNE; THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 3-17-cv-00411) District Judge: Honorable Robert D. Mariani

Argued January 17, 2024

Before: HARDIMAN, MATEY, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: July 30, 2024) Tadhg Dooley David R. Roth [ARGUED] Wiggin & Dana One Century Tower 265 Church Street New Haven, CT 06510 Erik Fredericksen Adela Lilollari Thaddeus Talbot Yale Law School 127 Wall Street New Haven, CT 06511

Counsel for Plaintiff-Appellant Ronald Eisenberg Office of Attorney General of Pennsylvania 1600 Arch Street Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19103 James L. McMonagle, Jr. [ARGUED] Luzerne County Office of District Attorney 200 N River Street Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711

Counsel for Defendant-Appellees

2 OPINION OF THE COURT MATEY, Circuit Judge.

Thirteen years ago, a Pennsylvania jury convicted Joseph Marcy of raping his five-year-old daughter, D.M. Years after testifying against her father, D.M. recanted some of her testimony in a state postconviction relief hearing. Marcy now petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that due process demands his release. But no matter how Marcy frames his claim, Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), bars its application here. So we will affirm the District Court’s order dismissing his petition.

I.

A.

D.M. lived with Marcy’s mother, Michele Pardini. In June 2009, Pardini discovered D.M., then five years old, “touching herself inappropriately and behaving in sexual manners.” App. 287. “[C]oncerned,” she called the Luzerne County Children and Youth Services, and caseworker Holly Jones responded the same day. App. 287. Jones spoke with D.M. and asked the child how she learned that “touching her private parts felt good.” App. 287. D.M. responded, “[b]ecause daddy likes to do it. . . . Daddy likes to touch my private parts.” App. 287. D.M. told Jones of “various sexual acts her father made her perform including oral sex and vaginal sex. She went on to describe him using his hands and his mouth in these sex acts” and how she was “forced to perform oral sex on her

3 father.” App. 287–88. 1 Alarmed, Jones arranged for D.M. to speak with Debbie Guziejka, an investigator with the County’s Children and Youth Services, and D.M. repeated the same story: that her father “would touch her on different parts of her body.” App. 384. She detailed specific acts, and she discussed times where “she told daddy no, but he wouldn’t stop.” App. 385.

The caseworkers at Luzerne County took D.M. to the Children’s Advocacy Center of Northeast Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization staffing clinicians and investigators. During her visit to the Center, D.M. spoke with Kristen Fetcho, a child forensic investigator, and told her the same details she shared with the County caseworkers. D.M. then met with Dr. Michael Rogan, a board-certified family practice physician. His examination revealed signs of chronic irritation, evidence of “more than an acute event such as like a diaper rash” and consistent with the conclusion “that the child had been sexually assaulted.” App. 335.

When D.M. testified at trial nearly two years later, her story stayed the same. She detailed repeated sexual assaults and told the jury—just as she had told Jones, Guziejka, and Fetcho—that she asked her father to stop, an