does not require a litigant to present an issue that the state court has already decided. Even if the exhaustion doctrine did require such an odd result, I would excuse Pursell’s failure to exhaust this claim because exhaustion would be futile. The Third Circuit has explained that “ ‘[f]utility’ exists where ... ‘a state’s highest court has ruled unfavorably on a claim involving facts and issues materially identical to those undergirding a federal habeas petition and there is no plausible reason to believe that a replay will persuade the court to reverse its field.’ ” Lines v. Larkins, 208 F.3d 153, 162 (3d Cir.2000) (quoting Allen v. Attorney General of Maine, 80 F.3d 569, 573 (1st Cir.1996)); see also Lynce v. Mathis, 519 U.S. 433, 436 n. 4, 117 S.Ct. 891, 137 L.Ed.2d 63 (1997) (<HOLDING>). Just such a situation is present in
holding new york could lawfully modify a florida custody decree because florida court had right under florida law to change the decree holding procedural error is harmless where the court would have reached the same result had the guidelines issue been decided the other way and the sentence imposed would be reasonable even if contested issue decided in defendants favor holding that exhaustion would have been futile because the florida supreme court previously rejected the same claim in other cases and counsel for the state had not suggested any reason why the florida courts would have decided petitioners case differently holding that florida courts would apply florida law to contracts insuring real property located within the state holding that where florida state court had not addressed choiceoflaw issues with regard to directors liability federal court could presume that florida court would follow the restatement second of conflict of laws based on the florida courts past reliance on the treatise