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Before Lynch, Chief Judge, Howard and Thompson, Circuit Judges.

A Massachusetts jury convicted petitioner Michael Lyons (“Lyons”) of second-degree murder in the death of his two week old son. Lyons timely filed a motion seeking to reduce the verdict to involuntary manslaughter, which the trial court granted and the Massachusetts Appeals Court (“MAC”) affirmed. However, on appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”), the court vacated the reduction and reinstated Lyons’s original conviction for second-degree murder. Thereafter, Lyons sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court claiming a violation of his constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment — specifically, that the admission of autopsy photographs had deprived him of a fair trial. The district court dismissed the petition and Lyons appealed to this court. Before us, Lyons challenges the dismissal of his habeas petition. Bound by the strictures of the standard of review set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

 
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