Velazco v. Department of Corrections, Secretary

WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether a district court erred when it denied a Florida prisoner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus without holding an eviden-tiary hearing. After a Florida court convicted Carlos Velazco of attempted second degree murder, Velazco unsuccessfully argued in a state postconviction proceeding that his trial counsel had been ineffective in offering the testimony of two witnesses. When Velazco filed a federal petition and requested an evidentiary hearing, he argued that the Florida court had unreasonably applied clearly established…