Habeas corpus; 28 USC § 2254(d); The Antiterrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act; Barker v. Yukins; Satterlee v. Wolfenbarger; Northrop v. Trippett; Jordan v. Warden, Lebanon Corr. Inst.; Yarborough v. Alvarado; Whether the district court properly granted petitioner a full evidentiary hearing; Harrington v. Richter; Cullen v. Pinholster; Keeling v. Warden, Lebanon Corr. Inst.; Brumfield v. Cain; Maples v. Stegall; Johnson v. Williams; Barton v. Warden, S. Ohio Corr. Facility; MCR 6.504(B) & (D); Guilmette v. Howe; Luberda v. Trippett; Coleman v. Thompson; Prosecutorial misconduct; Darden v. Wainwright; Parker v. Matthews; United States v. Young; Hodge v. Hurley; Berger v. United States; Washington v. Hofbauer; Donnelly v. DeChristoforo; Cauthern v. Colson; Standard of review for prosecutorial misconduct in a habeas petition; Bates v. Bell; Macias v. Makowski; United States v. Carter; United States v. Carroll; United States v. Francis; Cristini v. McKee; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Strickland v. Washington; Wiggins v. Smith; Williams v. Taylor; Woods v. Etherton; Lundgren v. Mitchell; Richey v. Bradshaw

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] Even though the district court improperly conducted an evidentiary hearing and applied an incorrect standard of review to petitioner-Stermer’s habeas petition, the court affirmed its order granting her a conditional writ of habeas corpus based on prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel. She was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of her husband. The court first concluded that the district court erred by granting Stermer a full evidentiary hearing because, applying the Richter presumption, the state court adjudicated her claims on the merits. Thus, she was not entitled to introduce new evidence. The court then reviewed her prosecutorial misconduct claim and held that the district court applied the wrong test by assessing Stermer’s claim in the context of the Sixth Circuit’s framework. The question was whether the state court reasonably applied Supreme Court precedent. Even so, on de novo review, the court held that “the prosecutor’s comments regarding Stermer’s credibility were improper, and their frequency, their context, and the weight of the evidence against Stermer all show she was denied a fair trial.” The prosecutor’s statements were not “rooted in the evidence” and “were predominantly based on the prosecutor’s own assessment that Stermer’s version of events was not credible.” Turning to Stermer’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the court agreed with the district court that trial counsel’s failure to object to the prosecutor’s statements at closing argument “significantly undercut Stermer’s defense and could not have been part of a reasonable trial strategy.” Also, while due to procedural complications the court did not ultimately rule on the merits of the claim that counsel’s failure to call a fire expert to counter the government’s expert constituted ineffective assistance, it found that, absent these procedural issues, the record suggested “counsel was ineffective for failing to call such an expert, and this failure had a meaningful chance of affecting the outcome of Stermer’s trial.”