FILED

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

JUNE 22, 2010

JOHN LEY

CLERK

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 06-16503

________________________

D. C. Docket No. 03-00991-CV-ORL-28JGG

DUSTY RAY SPENCER,

Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,

Respondents-Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

_________________________

(June 22, 2010)

Before EDMONDSON, MARCUS and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

In this capital case, Dusty Ray Spencer, a Florida prisoner convicted of first

degree murder, aggravated assault, attempted second-degree murder, and

aggravated battery, appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of

habeas corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. We granted Spencer a

Certificate of Appealability on his claim that the state court erroneously denied him

relief because of prosecutorial misconduct. Spencer alleges seven instances of

misconduct. Five of them are procedurally barred, the sixth one was not included

in the Certificate of Appealability (“COA”) granted by this Court, and the seventh

claim is without merit. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court

and deny the petition.

I.

Spencer was convicted of murdering his wife, Karen Spencer, who was also

his partner in a painting business. The essential facts of the murder, as elicited from

the trial testimony, and not disputed here, are these.

In early December 1991, Karen asked Spencer to move out of their home.

On December 10, 1991, Spencer and Karen had an argument about money Spencer

claimed that Karen had withdrawn from the bank account of their painting

business. During the argument, Spencer choked Karen, hit Karen, and then

2
threatened to kill her. Karen reported this incident to the police, which resulted in

Spencer’s arrest. According to another report Karen filed with the police, Spencer

called her from jail the day after his arrest and threatened to kill her as soon as he

was released.

Karen asked Spencer to return to their home, where her teenage son and

Spencer’s step-son Timothy Johnson also resided, during the December holidays

for four or five days. However, she asked him to leave again, which he did, a few

days after Christmas. Spencer went out drinking with his friends on New Year’s

day, and he told one of them that he should take Karen out on their boat and throw

her overboard. Two days later Spencer spoke again with his friend. This time

Spencer told him that Karen refused to go out on the boat with him.

In the early morning of January 4, 1992, Spencer again returned to Karen’s

home, and he began arguing with her and physically beating her in her bedroom.

Timothy was awakened by his mother’s screams, and, when he ran to his mother’s

bedroom, he saw Spencer holding Karen down on the bed and punching her in the

face with his fist. When Timothy attempted to help his mother, Spencer grabbed a

clothes iron and struck Timothy in the head with it repeatedly. Spencer told

Timothy, “You’re next; I don’t want any witnesses.” Timothy fled to his bedroom

and attempted to call the police, but Spencer followed him into the room and

3
yanked the telephone out of the wall. Spencer continued to strike Timothy in the

face with the clothes iron despite Timothy’s pleas for him to stop. Spencer added

that he was going to ruin his mother’s life the way she had ruined his. Spencer

then fled the house.

During the altercation between Spencer and Timothy, Karen was able to

escape and took refuge in a neighbor’s home. Timothy and Karen were taken to

the hospital, where they were treated for their injuries. While there, Karen told her

treating physician that Spencer had hit her with a clothes iron, and, at Spencer’s

trial, the physician testified that Karen’s wounds were consistent with strikes from

a clothes iron. Karen and Timothy also filed statements with the police on the day

of their attack.

In the early morning of January 18, 1992, Spencer returned still again to

Karen’s home. Timothy was again awakened by his mother’s screams. Timothy

ran out of his room, and, after not finding his mother in her bedroom, he grabbed

the rifle she kept there and ran out the front door and around the side of the house.

Once he turned the corner of the house, he saw Karen in the backyard laying on the

ground, as Spencer kneeled on top of her and repeatedly hit her in the head with a

brick while she screamed. Timothy saw his mother’s face covered in blood.

Timothy tried to shoot Spencer with the rifle, but it misfired, and, instead, ran at

4
him and hit Spencer in the head with the plastic butt of the rifle, which shattered on

impact. Spencer then stood up, lifted Karen’s nightgown, told her to “show your

boy your pussy,” and then slapped her head against the concrete wall of the house,

as she begged Spencer to stop. Timothy attempted to pick up his mother and carry

her away, but Spencer threatened him with a knife. Timothy set his mother down,

grabbed the rifle, and ran to the neighbor’s house for help while yelling for

someone to call 911.

When the police arrived at the scene, Karen was dead. In addition to

suffering blunt force trauma to the back of her head, she had been cut on the face,

the hand, and the arms, and had been stabbed four or five times in the chest with a

knife. A medical examiner testified that her death was caused by blood loss from

two stab wounds to the heart and to the lung, and that the cuts on her hand and arm

were defensive wounds. The medical examiner also testified that all of the wounds

occurred while Karen was alive and that she had probably lived for ten to fifteen

minutes after being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. According to the medical

examiner, Karen sustained three impacts to the back of her head consistent with her

head having been hit against a concrete wall.

Spencer was charged with four counts: first-degree premeditated murder and

aggravated assault for the January 18th attack of Karen and Timothy, and

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attempted murder and aggravated battery for the January 4th attack on Karen and

Timothy. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, the

lesser-included offense of attempted second-degree murder, and aggravated

battery. It recommended that Spencer receive the death sentence for the firstdegree murder conviction by a vote of seven-to-five. The trial judge followed the

jury’s recommendation and imposed the death penalty. In addition, Spencer was

sentenced to five years for aggravated assault, fifteen years for attempted seconddegree murder, and fifteen years for aggravated battery, all to run consecutively.

Spencer’s conviction was affirmed on direct appeal. Spencer v. State, 645

So.2d 377, 385 (Fla. 1994). Most notably for our purposes, the Florida Supreme

Court rejected Spencer’s claim that the trial court erred when it denied a motion for

mistrial because the prosecutor referenced a fact not admitted into evidence in her

closing argument. Id. at 383. The non-admitted fact at the center of the claim was

the prosecutor’s statement that “Karen answered the door with the rifle in her

hand” when a friend visited her on the night before the murder. Id. at 382. During

the trial, the prosecutor had attempted to elicit evidence that Karen was carrying a

rifle around her house because she was afraid of Spencer; the trial court sustained

Spencer’s objection, finding that it was irrelevant. Id. The Florida Supreme Court

explained that this comment in closing argument did not require the reversal of

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Spencer’s conviction, because, although it was improper, a single comment about

the rifle did not deprive Spencer of a “fair and impartial trial,” did not “materially

contribute to the conviction,” was not “so harmful or fundamentally tainted as to

require a new trial,” and was not “so inflammatory that [it] might have influenced

the jury to reach a more severe verdict than that it would have otherwise.” Id. at

383. Spencer did not allege any other instance of prosecutorial misconduct on

direct appeal.

The Florida Supreme Court did, however, vacate Spencer’s capital sentence,

because the trial court improperly found an aggravating circumstance and

improperly rejected a statutory mitigating circumstance. Id. at 384-85. On

remand, the trial court conducted another hearing and found two aggravating

circumstances (Spencer’s previous conviction of another felony involving violence

based on the contemporaneous convictions, pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 921.141(5)(b);

and the especially heinous, atrocious or cruel nature of the murder, pursuant to Fla.

Stat. § 921.141(5)(h)), and three mitigating circumstances (the murder was

committed while Spencer was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance,

pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 921.141(6)(b); Spencer’s capacity to appreciate the

criminality of his conduct was substantially impaired, pursuant to pursuant to Fla.

Stat. § 921.141(6)(f); and there were a number of non-statutory mitigating factors

7
in Spencer’s background) before again imposing a capital sentence.

Spencer appealed the sentence, and the Florida Supreme Court found no

merit to that challenge. See Spencer v. State, 691 So.2d 1062 (Fla. 1996). Spencer

then filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court,

which was denied. Spencer v. Florida, 522 U.S. 884 (1997).

On September 24, 1999, Spencer filed an amended motion for postconviction relief with the state trial court pursuant to Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850, raising

fourteen claims, one of which alleged multiple instances of prosecutorial

misconduct. After conducting an evidentiary hearing in March 2000, the state trial

court denied all of them. In particular, it denied Spencer’s prosecutorial

misconduct claims as procedurally barred. In addition, the state trial court

concluded that Spencer’s prosecutorial misconduct claims were without merit.

Spencer appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which again rejected all of his

claims and, in particular, found that all of Spencer’s prosecutorial misconduct

claims were procedurally barred because they could and should have been raised

on direct appeal, but had not been. See Spencer v. State, 842 So.2d 52, 60-61 (Fla.

2003).

On October 10, 2003, Spencer commenced the instant petition for a writ of

habeas corpus, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, in the United States District Court for

8
the Middle District of Florida, arguing, inter alia, that his constitutional right to a

fair trial was denied because of multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct.

The district court denied the petition in a lengthy order rejecting Spencer’s

prosecutorial misconduct claims, along with seven others.

As for the prosecutorial misconduct claim, the district court first found, as

had the Florida Supreme Court, that five of Spencer’s misconduct claims were

procedurally barred: (1) during closing argument, the prosecutor cried while

wearing latex gloves; (2) during opening statement, the prosecutor erroneously said

that Timothy witnessed Spencer beating Karen with a clothes iron, and that

evidence would be presented that Karen was armed with a rifle the night before her

murder; (3) during the direct examinations of Karen’s son Timothy Johnson and

friend Krista Mays, the prosecutor again asked if Karen was armed with a rifle the

night before her murder; (4) during closing argument at the penalty phase, the

prosecutor erroneously claimed that Spencer told Dr. Lipman that he had stabbed

Karen before Timothy fled the scene; and, finally, (5) the prosecutor improperly

commented on Spencer’s right not to testify.

The district court explained that all of these claims were procedurally barred,

because the Florida Supreme Court’s denial of them on procedural bar grounds was

a correct application of Florida law. The district court also found that Spencer was

9
unable to overcome the procedural default bar, because he demonstrated neither

cause and prejudice nor a fundamental miscarriage of justice.

Finally, the district court rejected on the merits Spencer’s claim that

misconduct occurred when, during closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury

that Karen was armed with a rifle on the night before her murder, after the trial

court had earlier sustained Spencer’s objection to that evidence. The district court

explained that “[t]he prosecutor’s single comment about the rifle, when considered

in the context of the entire proceeding, in no way rendered the entire proceeding

unfair,” because there was overwhelming evidence of Spencer’s guilt. Spencer v.

Crosby, No. 6:03-cv-991-Orl-28JGG, slip op. at 23 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 7, 2006).

On September 1, 2009, we granted Spencer a Certificate of Appealability

concerning each of his prosecutorial misconduct claims, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §

2253(c)(2). Spencer v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., No. 06-16503, order (11th Cir. Sept.

1, 2009).

II.

Since Spencer filed his habeas petition after the 1996 effective date of the

Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2254,

our review is governed by that statute, “which establishes a highly deferential

standard for reviewing state court judgments.” Carroll v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr.,

10
574 F.3d 1354, 1364 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

According to AEDPA,

(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in

custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted

with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State

court proceedings unless the 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)(1), (2). Moreover, “we review the district court’s findings of

fact for clear error, and review de novo both questions of law and mixed questions

of law and fact.” Peoples v. Campbell, 377 F.3d 1208, 1224 (11th Cir. 2004).

Whether a particular claim is procedurally barred is reviewed de novo. Judd v.

Haley, 250 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir. 2001).

“A state court decision is contrary to clearly established federal law if it

applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in Supreme Court cases

or confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme

Court precedent and arrives at a result opposite to the Court’s.” Windom v. Sec’y,

Dep’t of Corr., 578 F.3d 1227, 1247 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks, alteration,

and citation omitted). A state court decision involves an unreasonable application

11
of federal law when “it identifies the correct legal rule from Supreme Court case

law but unreasonably applies that rule to the facts of the petitioner’s case. An

unreasonable application may also occur if a state court unreasonably extends, or

unreasonably declines to extend, a legal principle from Supreme Court case law to

a new context.” Putman v. Head, 268 F.3d 1223, 1241 (11th Cir. 2001) (citations

omitted). The statutory phrase “clearly established Federal law” “refers to the

holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme] Court’s decisions as of the time

of the relevant state-court decision.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412

(2000).

III.

Spencer’s basic claim on appeal is that the prosecutor engaged in multiple

acts of misconduct which denied him a fundamental right to a fair trial in violation

of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Specifically, he contends that the prosecutor committed misconduct in seven ways:

(1) during closing argument at the guilt phase, the prosecutor cried while wearing

latex gloves identical to those Spencer allegedly wore as he murdered Karen, while

flailing in the air the brick Spencer allegedly used to kill Karen; (2) during opening

statement, the prosecutor erroneously said that Timothy witnessed Spencer beating

Karen with a clothes iron, and stated that evidence would be presented that Karen

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was armed with a rifle on the evening before her murder; (3) during the direct

examinations of Karen’s son Timothy Johnson and friend Krista Mays, the

prosecutor asked whether Karen was armed with a rifle the night before her

murder; (4) during closing argument at the penalty phase, the prosecutor

erroneously claimed that Spencer told a defense expert that he had stabbed Karen

before Timothy fled the scene; (5) during the penalty phase, the prosecutor

improperly commented on Spencer’s right not to testify by cross-examining the

defense experts as to whether Spencer was under oath at the time they interviewed

him; (6) during the direct examination of Orange County Deputy Sheriff Sandra

Blume, the prosecutor improperly elicited testimony that Karen’s dog had to be

removed from the crime scene; and (7) during the closing argument, the prosecutor

said that Karen was armed with a rifle the night before her murder, after the trial

court had sustained Spencer’s objection to the admission of that evidence.

We are not persuaded.

A.

The first insurmountable hurdle Spencer faces is that the first five claims of

prosecutorial misconduct are procedurally barred.

It is by now abundantly clear that we cannot consider a claim where “the last

state court rendering a judgment in the case clearly and expressly state[d] that its

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judgment rests on a state procedural bar.” Parker v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 331

F.3d 764, 771 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

Accordingly, “[a] federal habeas claim may not be reviewed on the merits where a

state court determined . . . that the petitioner failed to comply with an independent

and adequate state procedural rule that is regularly followed.” Philmore v. McNeil,

575 F.3d 1251, 1260 (11th Cir. 2009); see also Judd, 250 F.3d at 1313 (“A state

prisoner seeking federal habeas relief cannot raise a federal constitutional claim in

federal court unless he first properly raised the issue in the state courts.”) (citing

Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 87 (1977)). “The doctrine of procedural default

was developed as a means of ensuring that federal habeas petitioners first seek

relief [in state court] in accordance with established state procedures.” Judd, 250

F.3d at 1313.

As the district court correctly explained, the first five claims of prosecutorial

misconduct were procedurally barred, because the Florida Supreme Court had, on

collateral review, denied them based on an independent and adequate rule of

Florida procedure. In particular, the Florida Supreme Court explained that:

Spencer claims that the prosecutor engaged in various misconduct

during both the guilt and penalty phases of trial, including improper

Golden Rule arguments, improper appeals to the jury’s emotions,

eliciting prohibited testimony, making false statements, and

improperly commenting on Spencer’s right not to testify. . . . We

conclude that Spencer’s substantive claims of prosecutorial

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misconduct could and should have been raised on direct appeal and

thus are procedurally barred from consideration in a postconviction

motion. See Smith v. State, 445 So.2d 323, 325 (Fla. 1983) (“Issues

which either were or could have been litigated at trial and upon direct

appeal are not cognizable through collateral attack.”). Each of the

alleged violations appears on the trial record and could have been

raised on direct appeal. Thus, the postconviction court properly

concluded that the claims were procedurally barred and we affirm the

denial of relief on this claim.

Spencer, 842 So.2d at 60-61.

1

There is no doubt that, under Florida law, a claim is procedurally barred

from being raised on collateral review if it could have been, but was not raised on

direct appeal. See Philmore, 575 F.3d at 1264 (“Florida law bars claims in a state

post-conviction proceeding that could have been raised on direct appeal.”); see also

Smith v. State, 445 So.2d 323, 325 (Fla. 1983) (“Issues which either were or could

have been litigated at trial and upon direct appeal are not cognizable through

collateral attack.”). Moreover, Spencer has made no claim that this rule is not

regularly followed by the Florida courts. Indeed, Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850, which

governs the collateral review process in Florida, itself clearly states “[t]his rule

 It is of no moment that the state trial court not only rejected these claims as 1

procedurally barred on collateral review, but also offered an alternative determination on the

merits. Our precedent could not be clearer that we look to “the last state court rendering a

judgment in the case,” here the Florida Supreme Court, to determine whether the claim was

resolved only on state procedural grounds. Judd, 250 F.3d at 1313. Nor could it be clearer that

the Florida Supreme Court rejected these five claims only on independent and adequate state

procedural grounds. Further, even where a court makes an alternative merits determination, we

remain bound by the application of the procedural bar. See Parker, 331 F.3d at 774-75

(explaining that “an alternative merits holding leaves the procedural bar in place”).

15
does not authorize relief on grounds that could have or should have been raised at

trial and, if properly preserved, on direct appeal of the judgment and sentence.”

See also Bates v. Dugger, 604 So.2d 457, 458 (Fla. 1992) (“Rule 3.850 does not

authorize relief based upon grounds which could have been or should have been

raised at trial and, if properly preserved, on direct appeal.”) (quotation marks and

citation omitted).

This procedural bar may be overcome -- and we may consider the merits of

these claims -- only if Spencer demonstrates both cause for the failure to raise the

claims on direct appeal and actual prejudice, or demonstrates that a “failure to

consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”

See Muhammad v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 554 F.3d 949, 957 (11th Cir. 2009)

(quotation marks and citation omitted). “To establish ‘cause’ for procedural

default, a petitioner must demonstrate that some objective factor external to the

defense impeded the effort to raise the claim properly in the state court.”

Henderson v. Campbell, 353 F.3d 880, 892 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks and

citation omitted). “To establish ‘prejudice,’ a petitioner must show that there is at

least a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been

different.” Id. (citation omitted). Finally, “[a] ‘fundamental miscarriage of justice’

occurs in an extraordinary case, where a constitutional violation has resulted in the

16
conviction of someone who is actually innocent.” Id. (citation omitted).

Spencer has not argued, however, that there is any cause or prejudice to

excuse his procedural default. In fact, all of the alleged instances of procedural

misconduct were known at the time he filed his direct appeal. Nor, finally, does he

claim that he is actually innocent. Accordingly, we cannot consider the first five

claims of misconduct.

B.

Nor can we consider the merits of the sixth claimed act of prosecutorial

misconduct -- that the prosecutor improperly elicited testimony that Karen’s dog

had to be removed from the crime scene -- because that claim was not authorized

by the COA we granted to Spencer. It is abundantly clear that “our review is

restricted to the issues specified in the certificate of appealability.” Williams v.

Allen, 598 F.3d 778, 795 (11th Cir. 2010); McClain v. Hall, 552 F.3d 1245, 1254

(11th Cir. 2008); Murray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1250-51 (11th Cir.

1998); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(3) (explaining that the COA must specifically

indicate the issues for review).

Our grant of a COA in this case was limited to “Claim 2, the prosecutorial

misconduct claim.” Spencer v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., No. 06-16503, order (11th

Cir. Sept. 1, 2009). In his Renewed Application for Certificate of Appealability,

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Spencer listed only six separate instances of prosecutorial misconduct -- the other

six acts addressed in this opinion -- and made no mention of the testimony of

Deputy Sheriff Blume about Karen’s dog. Nor is that testimony in any way

2

related to the six alleged instances of misconduct detailed in the Renewed

Application for Certificate of Appealability. Thus, to the extent that Spencer now

argues that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by questioning Blume about the

removal of Karen’s dog from the crime scene, he has not raised a cognizable claim

within the scope of the review specified in the COA. See Williams, 598 F.3d at

795.

 We can find only two mentions of this claim in the entire record of the case, both of 2

which were contained in Spencer’s state habeas claims. First, before the state trial court (the

Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit), Spencer filed an Amended Motion to Vacate

Judgements of Conviction and Sentence on September 24, 1999, which included within his claim

of prosecutorial misconduct an allegation that the prosecutor committed misconduct when she

elicited testimony from Deputy Sheriff Blume that a dog was removed from the crime scene. 

Florida v. Spencer, No. CR92-473, Slip Op. at 10-11 (Fla. Cir. Ct. April 24, 2000). The state

trial court rejected this claim as procedurally barred and otherwise without merit. Id. at 11. 

Spencer did not raise that claim in his appeal of the state trial court’s denial of his motion. 

Second, Spencer filed a state habeas corpus petition directly with the Florida Supreme Court at

the same time he sought review of certain portions of the denial of his Amended Motion for Post

Conviction Relief. In that accompanying habeas petition, Spencer alleged that his appellate

counsel was ineffective in failing to raise claims of prosecutorial misconduct, including the

failure to claim that the question about the dog amounted to misconduct. Spencer, 842 So.2d at

74. The Florida Supreme Court rejected that claim on the merits. Id. Spencer did not raise this

claim of prosecutorial misconduct again until filing his blue brief with this Court.

Notably, the misconduct claim concerning Karen’s dog was never mentioned in any way

in Spencer’s § 2254 petition, not even under the different heading of ineffective assistance of

appellate counsel. See Mills v. Singletary, 63 F.3d 999, 1008 n. 11 (11th Cir. 1995) (explaining

that we will not consider a claim that is not raised in the 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition and was not

considered by the district court).

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C.

Thus, we are left with only one claim of prosecutorial misconduct that we

may consider on the merits -- Spencer’s allegation that the prosecutor wrongfully

told the jury during closing argument at the guilt phase that Karen Spencer was

armed with a rifle on the night before her murder. In particular, the prosecutor

said:

The night before, on January 17, 1992, Krista Mays was in the house

with Karen Spencer. She told you that she was there from 8:30, that

she came at 8:30 originally, and she left at two in the morning. That

when she answered – that when Karen answered the door, that she,

Krista Mays, saw the rifle. Karen answered the door with the rifle in

her hand.

(Tr. at 1040). This comment was made after the trial court had sustained Spencer’s

objection to Krista Mays’ testimony that Karen was carrying a rifle around the

house the evening before she was murdered because she was afraid of Spencer.

The trial court also sustained Spencer’s objection to the prosecutor’s comment

during closing, but denied his motion for a mistrial. On direct appeal, the Florida

Supreme Court denied the claim on the merits, finding that, although the comment

was improper, it did not “deprive the defendant of a fair and impartial trial [or]

materially contribute to the conviction,” it was not “so harmful or fundamentally

tainted as to require a new trial,” and it was not “so inflammatory that [it] might

have influenced the jury to reach a more severe verdict than that it would have

19
otherwise.” Spencer, 645 So.2d at 383.

On collateral review, the state trial court explained that this claim was

procedurally barred because it was raised on direct review; the Florida Supreme

Court did not comment on this part of the trial court’s opinion, but did affirm the

opinion in its entirety. However, that state procedural bar is not a procedural bar

that precludes our review today. The Supreme Court recently made clear that,

[w]hen a state court declines to review the merits of a petitioner’s

claim on the ground that it has done so already, it creates no bar to

federal habeas review . . . . When a state court refuses to readjudicate

a claim on the ground that it has been previously determined, the

court’s decision does not indicate that the claim has been procedurally

defaulted. To the contrary, it provides strong evidence that the claim

has already been given full consideration by the state courts and thus

is ripe for federal adjudication.

A claim is procedurally barred when it has not been fairly presented to

the state courts for their initial consideration -- not when the claim has

been presented more than once.

Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. --, 129 S. Ct. 1769, 1781 (2009) (citation omitted); see

also Owen v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 568 F.3d 894, 914-15 (11th Cir. 2009).

This claim of prosecutorial misconduct was fairly presented to the state courts on

direct appeal and disposed of on the merits. However, this claim is without merit.

“To find prosecutorial misconduct, a two-pronged test must be met: (1) the

remarks must be improper, and (2) the remarks must prejudicially affect the

substantial rights of the defendant.” United States v. Eyster, 948 F.2d 1196, 1206

20
(11th Cir. 1991). The Supreme Court has held that a death sentence is

unconstitutional only if the prosecutor’s comments “so infected the trial with

unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Darden v.

Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986) (quotation marks and citation omitted); see

also Romine v. Head, 253 F.3d 1349, 1366 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[H]abeas relief is

due to be granted for improper prosecutorial argument at sentencing only where

there has been a violation of due process, and that occurs if, but only if, the

improper argument rendered the sentencing stage trial fundamentally unfair.”).

Indeed, the Supreme Court recognized that a defendant’s due process right to a fair

trial is not violated even if the prosecutor’s remarks are “undesirable or even

universally condemned.” Darden, 477 U.S. at 181. Thus, due process is denied

only “when there is a reasonable probability,” or “a probability sufficient to

undermine confidence in the outcome,” that, but for the offending remarks, “the

outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” Eyster, 948 F.2d at 1206-

07 (citations and internal punctuation omitted). If the misconduct fails to render

the trial fundamentally unfair, habeas relief is not available. Land v. Allen, 573

F.3d 1211, 1219 (11th Cir. 2009).

In determining whether the act of misconduct rendered the trial

fundamentally unfair, we measure the remark against the totality of the facts and

21
circumstances. Hall v. Wainwright, 733 F.2d 766, 773 (11th Cir. 1984). “In

determining whether arguments are sufficiently egregious to result in the denial of

due process,” facts such as the following may be considered: “(1) whether the

remarks were isolated, ambiguous, or unintentional; (2) whether there was a

contemporaneous objection by defense counsel; (3) the trial court’s instructions;

and (4) the weight of aggravating and mitigating factors.” Land, 573 F.3d at 1219-

20. Moreover, we consider “the degree to which the challenged remarks have a

tendency to mislead the jury and to prejudice the accused,” and “the strength of the

competent proof to establish the guilt of the accused.” Davis v. Zant, 36 F.3d

1538, 1546 (11th Cir. 1994). Thus, where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming,

an improper comment by a prosecutor usually does not render the trial

fundamentally unfair in violation of the Constitution. See Land, 573 F.3d at 1220.

Here, the single comment during closing argument that the victim possessed

a rifle during the evening before she was murdered because she feared that her

husband, who had previously been imprisoned for violently beating her, and had

recently savagely attacked her and her son in their home, might return and harm

her was not remotely enough to render Spencer’s trial fundamentally unfair. The

remark was isolated, there was a contemporaneous objection by defense counsel

that was sustained by the trial court, the remark only referenced Karen’s subjective

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fear of Spencer, not any conduct by Spencer himself, and the evidence of

Spencer’s guilt was overwhelming.

Little more than a month before Karen’s murder, Spencer choked and hit

Karen and threatened to kill her. He was arrested for this crime and, while he was

in jail the next day, Spencer called Karen and again threatened to kill her as soon

as he was released from jail. After his release from jail, Spencer told a friend that

he should take Karen out on their boat and throw her overboard; two days later he

told the same friend that Karen refused to go out on the boat with him. Less than

one month after he attacked Karen the first time, Spencer broke into her home in

the early morning and savagely beat both her and Timothy with a clothes iron.

During the attack, Spencer threatened to kill Timothy, saying “You’re next; I don’t

want any witnesses.” A few weeks later, Spencer returned to Karen’s home and

brutally murdered Karen in her backyard in front of Timothy, beating Karen in the

head with a brick, slamming her head against a concrete wall until she lost

consciousness, threatening to attack Timothy with a knife when he attempted to

rescue his blood-covered mother, and then repeatedly stabbing Karen in the chest.

Timothy fled the scene and when he returned with the police, they found that

Karen had been stabbed to death and suffered blunt force trauma to the back of her

head.

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On this record, there can be little doubt that the evidence of petitioner’s guilt

was overwhelming. Nor can there be any doubt that many of the other pieces of

independent evidence gave the jury ample reason to believe that Karen feared

Spencer would harm or kill her before he actually murdered her. Finally, Timothy

testified that his mother possessed the rifle the prosecutor referenced in the closing

argument, and testified that she kept that rifle in her bedroom -- the same rifle

Timothy attempted to use to defend his mother from Spencer’s attack.

In short, Spencer has not shown that the Florida Supreme Court’s rejection

of his prosecutorial misconduct claim was contrary to, or constituted an

unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law. The district

court did not err in denying Spencer’s § 2254 petition.

AFFIRMED.

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