United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-2880 RODNEY L. LASS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. JASON WELLS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 2:21-cv-00578-WED — William E. Duffin, Magistrate Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MAY 13, 2024 — DECIDED JUNE 26, 2024 ____________________

Before SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. After Rodney Lass’s state court trial on charges of misdemeanor domestic abuse ended in a mistrial, prosecutors recharged the case and, the second time around, added multiple felony counts. The second case ended in a guilty verdict on all but one charge, leaving Lass to pur- sue relief on direct appeal, in state post-conviction proceed- ings, and then in federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. All along his primary contention has been that the second set of 2 No. 23-2880 charges were the product of an unconstitutional vindictive prosecution. The district court denied relief, and we affirm. Even on the generous assumption that Lass has not forfeited contentions he now presses on appeal, we see no way to read the state court’s denial of post-conviction relief as reflecting any unreasonable application of law or determination of fact. I A The facts come from the record compiled in the Wisconsin state court proceedings. Rodney Lass faced misdemeanor domestic abuse-related charges in Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County Circuit Court in the summer of 2012. This first case ended in a mistrial when the alleged victim, Lass’s former girlfriend, disregarded a court order and made irrelevant and unduly prejudicial state- ments to the jury. About a year later Assistant District Attor- ney Jennifer Williams, who second chaired the first case but did not make the misdemeanor charging decision, brought a second round of charges, including nine felonies and two mis- demeanors. These eleven counts incorporated the conduct underpinning the original misdemeanor charges and also in- cluded new allegations of misconduct dating back to 2008. Lass saw the new case as vindictive—as violating his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause—and asked the trial court to dismiss it. He contended that the prosecutors leveled the expanded charges against him in retaliation for his seeking and receiving a mistrial in the misdemeanor case. Lass supported his motion with an af- fidavit from Robert Haney, his counsel at the first trial. Haney’s affidavit recounted statements ADA Williams made No. 23-2880 3 about what accounted for the broader charges in the second case. According to Haney, “ADA Williams stated that alt- hough her assignment within the Office of the District Attor- ney [was] changing, she was not going to allow the case against Mr. Lass to be assigned to another ADA. ADA Wil- liams stated that even if she were to leave the District Attor- ney’s Office and go into private practice, she would return under the District Attorney’s pro bono program to personally see to the prosecution of Mr. Lass.” Haney’s statement got the trial court’s attention, with the judge asking ADA Williams to explain the new wave of broader, more serious felony charges against Lass. ADA Wil- liams then appeared in open court and stated: I learned about the history of domestic violence from the victim in a face-to-face conversation at some point in my interaction with her, I know for a fact, in December, during—eithe