Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-11-05707/USCOURTS-ca6-11-05707-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas L. Simpson
Appellee
Roger L. Wheeler
Appellant

Document Text:

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 17a0066p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

ROGER L. WHEELER, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

THOMAS L. SIMPSON, Warden, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

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No. 11-5707 

On Remand from the United States Supreme Court. 

No. 3:09-cv-00336—Joseph H. McKinley Jr., Chief District Judge. 

Argued: October 1, 2014 

Decided and Filed: March 23, 2017 

 Before: MERRITT, GRIFFIN, and WHITE, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: Joseph T. Flood, SHELDON, FLOOD & HAYWOOD, PLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for 

Appellant. David W. Barr, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Joseph T. Flood, SHELDON, FLOOD 

& HAYWOOD, PLC, Fairfax, Virginia, David M. Barron, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF 

PUBLIC ADVOCACY, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellant. David W. Barr, OFFICE OF THE 

KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellee. 

 GRIFFIN, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which MERRITT and WHITE, JJ., 

joined. MERRITT, J. (pg. 15), delivered a separate concurring opinion. 

 

>

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_________________ 

OPINION 

_________________ 

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge. This habeas case returns to us on remand from the Supreme 

Court. Previously, this court granted habeas relief to petitioner Roger Wheeler based on the state 

trial court’s decision to remove a juror who could not give sufficient assurance of neutrality or 

impartiality in considering whether to impose the death penalty. See Wheeler v. Simpson, 

779 F.3d 366, 374–75 (6th Cir.), rev’d sub nom. White v. Wheeler, 136 S. Ct. 456 (2015) (per 

curiam). Our majority opinion also addressed and rejected petitioner’s other claims relating to 

the guilt phase of the state trial proceedings, but left unresolved other claims relating to the 

penalty phase. See id. at 375. Both Wheeler and respondent Thomas Simpson (“Warden”) filed 

petitions for certiorari. The Supreme Court denied Wheeler’s petition, Wheeler v. White, 136 S. 

Ct. 688 (2015), but granted the Warden’s, reversing our decision to issue the writ and remanding 

for further proceedings, White, 136 S. Ct. at 462. We now address petitioner’s remaining claims 

certified for appeal. After doing so, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

I. 

 In 2001, a jury convicted petitioner of two counts of intentional murder. Petitioner’s 

victims were Nigel Malone and his girlfriend, Nairobi Warfield. The jury recommended a death 

sentence after finding one aggravating circumstance: that petitioner’s “act . . . of killing [was] 

intentional and resulted in multiple deaths[.]” Ky. Rev. Stat. § 532.025(2)(a)(6). The trial court 

followed the jury’s recommendation and imposed a death sentence for each conviction. On 

direct appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court made the following findings of fact: 

On October 2, 1997, Louisville police discovered the bodies of [Malone and 

Warfield] in the apartment the victims shared. The male victim was found in a 

hallway near the bathroom. He had suffered nine stab wounds. Two stab wounds 

to the chest were considered the fatal wounds by the medical examiner. She 

described the crime scene as having blood spatters on the floor, walls, furniture 

and appliances. The medical examiner believed that the main struggle occurred in 

the kitchen and progressed to the hallway where the body of the male victim was 

found. 

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The female victim died as a result of manual strangulation. The medical examiner 

testified that she believed the struggle between the female and her assailant 

occurred in the bedroom where she was found. The female victim had multiple 

abrasions on the left side of her neck and lacerations with a bruise on her mouth 

and several bruises on her lips. Her body was found in a seated position, leaning 

against a bedroom wall. She was covered with a blanket or quilt and a [pair of] 

scissors was protruding from her neck. The medical testimony determined that 

she had been stabbed with the scissors after she was already dead. During the 

autopsy, the medical examiner discovered that the female victim was pregnant. 

There was blood on the floors and walls in nearly every room in the apartment. 

Numerous blood samples were also collected at the scene and were subject to 

laboratory testing. No fingerprints were found on the scissors. 

Wheeler denied killing the two victims but he changed his story on several 

occasions. Originally, he denied ever being inside of the apartment on the night 

the murders occurred but then later admitted being in the apartment on that night. 

He claimed that Nigel Malone was already stabbed, but that he did not see 

Nairobi Warfield. He also asserts that the assailant was already inside the 

apartment and he and that person fought which was why he was wounded. 

Wheeler v. Commonwealth, 121 S.W.3d 173, 178 (Ky. 2003). The court affirmed petitioner’s 

convictions and sentences. Id. at 189. Following his direct appeal, petitioner sought postconviction relief in the state courts, which was denied. See Wheeler v. Commonwealth, No. 

2006-SC-000901-MR, 2008 WL 5051579, at *11 (Ky. Nov. 26, 2008) (unpublished). 

 Wheeler filed the instant petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2009. A magistrate judge 

recommended granting the Warden’s motion for summary judgment and denying the habeas 

corpus petition. The district court agreed with the magistrate judge and denied the petition. The 

district court granted a COA as to ten claims, and we later expanded the COA to include two 

additional claims. 

 Having previously decided petitioner’s guilt-phase claims, and the Supreme Court having 

denied his certiorari petition, our decision regarding those claims is law-of-the-case. See, e.g., 

Bowles v. Russell, 432 F.3d 668, 676 (6th Cir. 2005), aff’d, 551 U.S. 205 (2007) (“[O]nce an 

appellate court either expressly or by necessary implication decides an issue, the decision will be 

binding upon all subsequent proceedings in the same case.”) (citation omitted). It also goes 

without saying that we cannot revisit petitioner’s juror-bias claim, the Supreme Court having 

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reversed our holding as to that claim. We turn then to petitioner’s remaining penalty-phase 

claims. 

II. 

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 limits federal habeas review 

of state court proceedings and provides that an application for a writ of habeas corpus shall not 

be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court proceedings 

unless adjudication of the claim: 

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable 

application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme 

Court of the United States; or 

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the 

facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding. 

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

A state court adjudication is “contrary to” Supreme Court precedent under § 2254(d)(1) 

“if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a 

question of law[,]” or “if the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from 

a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at [an opposite result].” Williams v. Taylor, 

529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000). Under the “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1), habeas 

relief is available if “the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the 

Supreme Court’s] decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s 

case[.]” Harris v. Haeberlin, 526 F.3d 903, 909 (6th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted). “In order for 

a federal court to find a state court’s application of [Supreme Court] precedent ‘unreasonable,’ 

the state court’s decision must have been more than incorrect or erroneous,” but rather “must 

have been ‘objectively unreasonable.’” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 520–21 (2003) 

(citations omitted). That means 

even clear error will not suffice. Rather, as a condition for obtaining habeas 

corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling 

on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that 

there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any 

possibility for fairminded disagreement.

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White v. Woodall, ––– U.S. –––, 134 S. Ct. 1697, 1702 (2014) (emphasis added, citations, 

quotation marks, and alterations omitted). In short, the standard for obtaining federal habeas 

relief is “difficult to meet.” Id. (citation omitted). 

 On appeal, we review “de novo a district court’s legal conclusions and mixed questions 

of law and fact and review[] its factual findings for clear error.” Moore v. Mitchell, 708 F.3d 

760, 774 (6th Cir. 2013). 

III. 

Petitioner first argues that the trial court improperly admitted evidence as to the 

availability of prison furloughs in the future. Specifically, petitioner asserts that, through this 

evidence, the jury was led to believe that “unless [it] imposed a sentence of death, [petitioner] 

might one day be released into the community on furloughs,” which petitioner argues was 

“irrelevant speculation that unfairly tilted the evidence in favor of a death sentence in violation 

of [his] constitutional right to a reliable capital sentencing determination.” 

This claim is procedurally defaulted. 

A habeas petitioner procedurally defaults a claim if: (1) the petitioner fails to 

comply with a state procedural rule; (2) the state courts enforce the rule; (3) the 

state procedural rule is an adequate and independent state ground for denying 

review of a federal constitutional claim; and (4) the petitioner cannot show cause 

and prejudice excusing the default. 

Guilmette v. Howes, 624 F.3d 286, 290 (6th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted). 

Petitioner acknowledges that he failed to raise this claim on direct appeal, asserting it for 

the first time in his state post-conviction proceeding. Thus, petitioner “fail[ed] to comply with 

[Kentucky’s] procedural rule[,]” id., namely that a post-conviction proceeding is not the place for 

a “convicted defendant to retry issues which could and should have been raised in the original 

proceeding, nor those that were raised in the trial court and upon an appeal considered by [the 

Kentucky Supreme Court].” Thacker v. Commonwealth, 476 S.W.2d 838, 839 (Ky. 1972). 

Consistent with this rule, the Kentucky Supreme Court declined to review the merits of this 

claim in petitioner’s post-conviction appeal. Wheeler, 2008 WL 5051579, at *9 (“If Appellant 

wanted to challenge the [furlough] evidence presented at trial, he should have done so in his 

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direct appeal, not by means of a [post-conviction collateral proceeding].”). This is an 

independent and adequate state ground for denying review. See Lucas v. O’Dea, 179 F.3d 412, 

418 (6th Cir. 1999). 

Nor has petitioner demonstrated cause and prejudice to excuse this default. In the district 

court, he asserted that his direct appeal counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to raise 

this issue, and that this ineffective assistance amounted to cause and prejudice, but he does not 

do so in this court. Petitioner has therefore abandoned any argument regarding cause and 

prejudice. See Post v. Bradshaw, 621 F.3d 406, 427 (6th Cir. 2010). In this court, he argues that 

the claim should not be regarded as defaulted because the state court addressed the merits of the 

issue in addressing his post-conviction ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. However, 

assuming we accept this argument, and assuming that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s discussion 

can be read as a determination that the trial court properly admitted the evidence, Wheeler still 

has not shown that the admission of the evidence rendered the sentencing process uncertain and 

unreliable in violation of the Eighth Amendment. His reliance on Woodson v. North Carolina, 

428 U.S. 280, 305 (1976) is misplaced. 

IV. 

Petitioner raises another claim related to evidence of furloughs. Specifically, he claims 

that his trial counsel was ineffective for introducing testimony that he had received furloughs 

during his previous incarceration. Petitioner argues that this testimony “suggest[ed] to the jury, 

. . . [that] the defendant could receive a furlough during which he could commit another violent 

crime” and “opened the door for the prosecution to utilize the furlough evidence to prejudice the 

jury, to play up [petitioner’s] violent criminal history and failure to learn a lesson in prison, and 

to let the jury know it was possible [petitioner] could receive a furlough if sentenced to less than 

death.” In its post-conviction decision, the Kentucky Supreme Court found trial counsel’s 

introduction of this evidence was a strategic attempt to show that petitioner had previously been 

such a model prisoner that he received two furloughs, and was not ineffective assistance of 

counsel. Wheeler, 2008 WL 5051579, at *10. 

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The general standards governing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel are set forth 

in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). To demonstrate ineffective assistance of 

counsel, “[a] petitioner must show that counsel’s performance was deficient, and that the 

deficiency prejudiced the defense.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 521 (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 

687). 

In the context of a death sentence, the question of prejudice turns on “whether 

there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer—including 

an appellate court, to the extent it independently reweighs the evidence—would 

conclude that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not 

warrant death.” 

Hill v. Mitchell, 400 F.3d 308, 314 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695). “When 

§ 2254(d) applies, the question is not whether counsel’s actions were reasonable. The question is 

whether there is any reasonable argument that counsel satisfied Strickland’s deferential 

standard.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 105 (2011). We conclude that petitioner has not 

shown that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s conclusion that trial counsel was pursuing a 

reasonable strategy with regard to the furlough testimony was contrary to, or an unreasonable 

application of, Strickland. 

At the penalty phase, petitioner’s counsel introduced a variety of evidence intended to 

establish that petitioner had been a model prisoner during previous incarcerations, including 

evidence of furloughs. For example, petitioner’s trial counsel introduced the testimony of 

Michael Cooper, an employee at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex where petitioner had 

served a prior term of incarceration. Cooper testified that petitioner worked for him as a janitor 

in the Property Room and exhibited a “good work ethic” and required “very, very little 

supervision.” Cooper testified he was not aware of any disciplinary action ever being taken 

against petitioner. According to Cooper, petitioner received two furloughs while incarcerated. 

Cooper added that he did not know whether prisons still offered furloughs, but believed that none 

had been granted “for several years,” noting that such a grant was “extremely rare.” 

Petitioner’s counsel also introduced the testimony of Robin Rawlings, who had recently 

worked as a Classification and Treatment Officer with the Department of Corrections and as a 

Probation and Parole Officer with the Commonwealth’s Department of Justice. Rawlings 

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testified that, as an inmate, petitioner worked as a janitor in the administration building, which 

included the offices for the prison warden and the deputy warden. Rawlings indicated that she 

spoke with petitioner every day, and she was not aware of any complaints, conflicts, or problems 

from either the staff or other inmates regarding him. Rawlings also worked with petitioner 

within a small group setting to assist inmates with their chemical dependency issues. Prison life 

is “very regulated and dictated by rules[,]” according to Rawlings, and petitioner was a “model 

inmate.” 

Rawlings was also queried about furloughs. To that end, Rawlings testified that, based 

on the policy in place at the time she was employed at the prison, she was “positive” that 

petitioner would not be eligible for a furlough given his two murder convictions. On crossexamination, the prosecutor also asked Rawlings about furloughs: 

[PROSECUTOR]: Um, Ms. Rawlings, uh, as far as furloughs are concerned, 

there was a time when individuals who were convicted of murder were granted 

furloughs, is that correct? 

ROBIN RAWLINGS: Yes, sir, that’s true. 

[PROSECUTOR]: Okay, and they changed the policy at some point, right? 

ROBIN RAWLINGS: Yes, they did. 

[PROSECUTOR]: Okay, and you can’t, uh, tell this jury what the policy is going 

to be in the future, 20, 30 years? You don’t know that, do you? 

ROBIN RAWLINGS: That’s true, sir. 

[PROSECUTOR]: Okay, policies change? 

ROBIN RAWLINGS: Yes, they do. 

The record indicates that, when introducing testimony about petitioner’s prior furloughs, 

petitioner’s trial counsel was attempting to obtain a sentence other than death for petitioner. For 

example, during closing arguments, petitioner’s trial counsel stated: 

We’re not saying that these people did not suffer or that their families do not 

continue to suffer. We are telling you that the death penalty is not your only 

option. If you find the mitigation, if you find any redeeming qualities, and there 

are some there, you should give him his life. 

Testimony by Cooper and Rawlings showed that Wheeler worked well within the structured 

environment of prison during the time of his previous incarceration. Wheeler had already 

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admitted to being a convicted felon during his guilt-phase testimony. At the penalty phase, the 

prosecution introduced evidence that petitioner pleaded guilty to ten counts of robbery on 

November 20, 1991, for which he was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment, and that, later, 

on August 13, 1998, petitioner was convicted for illegal possession of a controlled substance 

(cocaine), for which he received a sentence of one year. 

In the context of this record, petitioner’s counsel argued that petitioner suffered from a 

drug addiction but could otherwise thrive within the structured environment of prison life: 

When you think of these offenses, I would think of someone who’s been in 

trouble all their lives, who’s never been responsible, who’s never been stable, 

who could never hold a job, who could never find someone to love him or care 

about him. But that’s not what we found here in the case of Roger Wheeler. We 

have found someone who has been, at one time, responsible and capable and 

stable and able to work and able to contribute, and I think he can still contribute in 

the penitentiary. 

Based on this record, we conclude that petitioner is not entitled to relief on his 

ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. A petitioner has a constitutional right to present 

testimony during the penalty phase about his good behavior while incarcerated. See Skipper v. 

South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 4 (1986). That is what petitioner’s trial counsel did. The furlough 

evidence took two forms: the model-prisoner mitigation testimony (e.g., Cooper’s direct 

examination) and the furloughs-for-murderers testimony (e.g., Rawlings’ cross-examination). 

Although the Kentucky Supreme Court cited the more positive furlough testimony as one of the 

reasons for affirming the admissibility of Rawlings’ negative testimony, that does not negate the 

fact that the furloughs showed the trust petitioner had earned with prison officials, and that trial 

counsel had a reasonable strategy for introducing it. In Campbell v. Bradshaw, 674 F.3d 578, 

588 (6th Cir. 2012), this court concluded that trial counsel was not ineffective for introducing the 

petitioner’s entire incarceration record (including bad conduct while in custody) during the 

penalty phase of trial because it was “part of a strategic effort to be candid with the jury about 

Campbell’s past in an effort to gain credibility and, ultimately, obtain a life sentence for 

Campbell.” No prejudice resulted in that case because a mental health expert addressed the same 

information and the jury heard much of the negative information from other sources. Id. at 589. 

The same occurred here, and thus, the same result is warranted. Notwithstanding the furlough 

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testimony, the jury was aware that petitioner had served only a fraction of his twenty-year 

sentence from his prior convictions. 

V. 

Petitioner raises another ineffective assistance of counsel claim related to the furlough 

testimony. Specifically, petitioner argues that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective for 

failing to object when the prosecutor cross-examined Rawlings about the potential availability of 

future furloughs and when the prosecutor raised the furlough issue in closing arguments. We 

disagree. 

Initially, as for his claim regarding his counsel’s failure to object at oral argument, this 

claim is procedurally defaulted. Petitioner did not raise this claim in state court, and 

consequently the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision was silent on the issue. See Wheeler, 2008 

WL 5051579. Under Kentucky’s rules of criminal procedure, petitioner had three years “after 

the judgment [became] final” to raise this issue. Roach v. Commonwealth, 384 S.W.3d 131, 135 

(Ky. 2012) (explaining Ky. R. Cr. 11.42(10)). That time has now passed. Accordingly, 

petitioner has procedurally defaulted this claim. See Lovins v. Parker, 712 F.3d 283, 295 (6th 

Cir. 2013) (“[A] claim is procedurally defaulted where the petitioner failed to exhaust state court 

remedies, and the remedies are no longer available at the time the federal petition is filed because 

of a state procedural rule.”). 

Nor is habeas relief appropriate on petitioner’s claim regarding his counsel’s failure to 

object during Rawlings’ cross-examination. This claim is not procedurally defaulted because 

petitioner raised it in his state post-conviction relief proceedings. However, petitioner cannot 

show deficient performance or prejudice arising from his trial counsel’s failure to object to the 

prosecution’s cross-examination of Rawlings. The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected the claim, 

observing that the information contained within Rawlings’ testimony was accurate and not 

misleading, and trial counsel was accordingly not ineffective for failing to object to it. Wheeler, 

2008 WL 5051579, at *10. The court further found that because petitioner introduced the 

furlough evidence in mitigation, the prosecutor was allowed to challenge it. Id. Petitioner’s 

concern about the speculative nature of Rawlings’ testimony is also unavailing. In California v. 

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Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 1004 (1983), the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument—that a jury 

should not be instructed that a governor has the power to commute a sentence of life without 

parole as speculative and misleading—because the instruction in question “gives the jury 

accurate information of which both the defendant and his counsel are aware, and it does not 

preclude the defendant from offering any evidence or argument regarding the Governor’s power 

to commute a life sentence.” (footnote omitted). The same is true here. 

VI. 

Petitioner also challenges the penalty-phase jury instructions, alleging that they violated 

Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988), by improperly instructing jurors that they were required 

to be unanimous regarding the presence of mitigating factors. This issue was raised on direct 

appeal, and the Kentucky Supreme Court found no constitutional error. Wheeler, 121 S.W.3d at 

188–89. 

“The Constitution forbids imposition of the death penalty if the sentencing judge or jury 

is ‘precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or 

record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a 

sentence less than death.’” Henness v. Bagley, 644 F.3d 308, 328 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting Smith 

v. Spisak, 558 U.S. 139, 144 (2010)). “A challenge to a jury instruction is not to be viewed in 

‘artificial isolation,’ but rather must be considered within the context of the overall instructions 

and trial record as a whole.” Hanna v. Ishee, 694 F.3d 596, 620–21 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting 

Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 72 (1991)). “To warrant habeas relief, ‘jury instructions must 

not only have been erroneous, but also, taken as a whole, so infirm that they rendered the entire 

trial fundamentally unfair. The burden is even greater than that required to demonstrate plain 

error on appeal.’” Buell v. Mitchell, 274 F.3d 337, 355 (6th Cir. 2001) (quoting Scott v. Mitchell, 

209 F.3d 854, 882 (6th Cir. 2000)). 

Petitioner’s claim lacks merit. Essentially, petitioner’s argument is that because the trial 

court instructed the jurors that their verdict had to be unanimous, but was silent in instructing 

them about unanimity as applied to mitigating factors, the jurors must have inferred that their 

mitigating-factor determinations must also be unanimous. However, “failing to expressly state 

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that mitigating factors need not be unanimously found does not improperly imply that mitigating 

factors must be unanimously found.” Williams v. Anderson, 460 F.3d 789, 808 n.5 (6th Cir. 

2006). Here, the trial court used the word “unanimous” only once, to explain that the verdict 

must be so: “The verdict of the jury must be in writing, must be unanimous, and must be signed 

by one of you as Foreperson.” The verdict form required only that the jury find an aggravating 

circumstance to recommend the death sentence. Requiring a unanimous verdict as to the 

sentence is not unconstitutional. See Moore, 708 F.3d at 794. Accordingly, although the 

Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision did not refer to Mills, its finding of no constitutional error 

was not contrary to, nor would it have been an unreasonable application of, Mills. See Slagle v. 

Bagley, 457 F.3d 501, 513–14 (6th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted) (holding that a state court in its 

decision need not cite or be aware of relevant Supreme Court cases so long as its reasoning and 

result are consistent with them). 

VII. 

 Next, petitioner claims that several statements by the prosecutor during the penalty phase 

amounted to misconduct. Specifically, petitioner claims that the prosecutor made 

constitutionally impermissible statements when referring to petitioner’s evidence of his struggles 

with substance abuse as “excuses” and when allegedly offering his personal opinion about the 

case and petitioner’s decision to present mitigation testimony from his thirteen-year-old son. He 

alleges that these statements denied him a fundamentally fair trial in violation of his 

constitutional due process rights. We disagree. 

 A petitioner faces a high bar when bringing claims of prosecutorial misconduct. “For the 

prosecutor’s misconduct to violate the defendant’s due process rights, it ‘is not enough that the 

prosecutor’s remarks were undesirable or even universally condemned’; instead those comments 

must ‘so infect[] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due 

process.’” Beuke v. Houk, 537 F.3d 618, 646 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Darden v. Wainwright, 

477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986)). Indeed, “[t]he prosecution . . . has ‘wide latitude’ during closing 

argument to respond to the defense’s strategies, evidence and arguments.” Bedford v. Collins, 

567 F.3d 225, 233 (6th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Henry, 545 F.3d 367, 377 (6th Cir. 

2008)). 

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 Petitioner is not entitled to relief on these claims. The wide latitude afforded to 

prosecutors was properly exercised here. The prosecution did not tell the jury not to consider 

Wheeler’s mitigation testimony, but rather questioned the weight to be given to it. To the extent 

that either comment approached the bounds of permissible closing argument, the Kentucky 

Supreme Court’s decision that they did not cross the line into a constitutional violation was not 

contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. Wheeler, 121 

S.W.3d at 189; 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Beuke, 537 F.3d at 646. 

VIII. 

Petitioner also claims that Kentucky’s proportionality review violates the Eighth 

Amendment and denied him due process. Specifically, petitioner argues that Kentucky’s 

proportionality review is unconstitutional because it only incorporates cases in which the death 

sentence was imposed and thus results in an arbitrary application of death sentences. 

We disagree. As this court previously explained in Bowling v. Parker: 

The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does require proportionality 

review, but that it only requires proportionality between the punishment and the 

crime, not between the punishment in this case and that exacted in other cases. 

See Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 50 (1984). Although “[t]here is no federal 

constitutional requirement that a state appellate court conduct a comparative 

proportionality review,” McQueen v. Scroggy, 99 F.3d 1302, 1333–34 (6th Cir. 

1996), cert. denied, 521 U.S. 1130 (1997), Kentucky law does require the 

Kentucky Supreme Court to engage in comparative proportionality review. See

Ky. Rev. Code Ann. § 532.075(3)(c). Although claimed violations of state law 

are generally not cognizable on habeas, the Supreme Court has left room for the 

argument that a state-law error could, potentially, “be sufficiently egregious to 

amount to a denial of equal protection or of due process of law guaranteed by the 

Fourteenth Amendment.” Harris, 465 U.S. at 41. 

344 F.3d 487, 521 (6th Cir. 2003) (parallel citations omitted). The Bowling court expressed 

skepticism over whether § 532.075(3)(c) created a due process interest, noting that “the statute 

only explains what the Kentucky Supreme Court needs to consider—similar cases, the crime, 

and the defendant—it does not tell that court how to make this decision. This suggests . . . that 

no due-process right exists” pursuant to § 532.075(3)(c). Id. at 521–22. 

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Petitioner attempts to distinguish this case from Bowling, arguing that it “considered only 

a due process argument and merely noted that proportionality review is not required in light of 

Harris” but did not address what petitioner calls “threshold” statutes. According to petitioner, 

“Gregg [v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976),] and [Zant v.] Stephens, [462 U.S. 862 (1983),] 

require jurisdictions with ‘threshold’ statutes to consider in proportionality review cases where 

the death penalty was not imposed.” Petitioner defines “threshold statutes” as akin to “Georgia’s 

and Kentucky’s statutes that permit juries to impose death as long as an aggravator is found and 

mitigation considered.” The Supreme Court in Harris, however, saw things differently: 

While emphasizing the importance of mandatory appellate review under the 

Georgia statute, [Stephens], 103 S. Ct., at 2742, we did not hold that without 

comparative proportionality review the statute would be unconstitutional. To the 

contrary, we relied on the jury’s finding of aggravating circumstances, not the 

State Supreme Court’s finding of proportionality, as rationalizing the sentence. 

Thus, the emphasis was on the constitutionally necessary narrowing function of 

statutory aggravating circumstances. Proportionality review was considered to be 

an additional safeguard against arbitrarily imposed death sentences, but we 

certainly did not hold that comparative review was constitutionally required. 

There is thus no basis in our cases for holding that comparative proportionality 

review by an appellate court is required in every case in which the death penalty 

is imposed and the defendant requests it. Indeed, to so hold would effectively 

overrule Jurek [v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976),] and would substantially depart 

from the sense of Gregg and Proffitt [v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976)]. We are 

not persuaded that the Eighth Amendment requires us to take that course. 

465 U.S. at 50–51 (footnote omitted). Because petitioner offers no Supreme Court precedent 

supporting his notion that the Kentucky Supreme Court should have compared his case to cases 

in which the death penalty was not imposed, we conclude he is not entitled to relief on this claim. 

IX. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that petitioner is not entitled to habeas relief on 

any of his claims. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court. 

 

 Case: 11-5707 Document: 176-2 Filed: 03/23/2017 Page: 14
No. 11-5707 Wheeler v. Simpson Page 15

_________________ 

CONCURRENCE 

_________________ 

MERRITT, Circuit Judge, concurring. I continue to believe that the Ohio acquittal-first 

jury instructions in this case and many others are highly confusing. It could easily lead one or 

more jurors to believe that they may not excuse the defendant from the death penalty and impose 

life imprisonment unless they first acquit the defendant when weighing aggravators and 

mitigators. I have set this argument out in detail several times, most recently in a majority 

opinion, Mitts v. Bagley, 620 F.3d 650, 656-58 (6th Cir. 2010), rev’d sub nom. Bobby v. Mitts, 

563 U.S. 395 (2011); but as this citation indicates, the Supreme Court did not agree. Of course, I 

am now bound to follow the Supreme Court holding even though I believe its result and its 

reasoning are wrong. 

 Case: 11-5707 Document: 176-2 Filed: 03/23/2017 Page: 15