Opinion ID: 2763627
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Petitioner’s Prosecutorial Misconduct Claim

Text: In addition to his Brady claim, Petitioner asserts that the admission of prior bad acts evidence through testimony and the psychiatric reports and the manner by which the evidence was used in argument constitute prosecutorial misconduct that require the grant of habeas relief.
Before the Ohio Supreme Court, Petitioner asserted that the prosecution’s argument pushing for admission of the full psychiatric reports as well as the use of material contained in those reports constituted prosecutorial misconduct. In the same section of Petitioner’s merits brief, he asserted a fair trial claim that the trial court improperly admitted Thacker and Baker’s testimony. (J.A. at 206 (“It is submitted that the lower courts [sic] admission into evidence testimony as to the Appellant’s drinking and sexual habits . . . was clearly prejudicial error.”).) In response to those assertions, the Ohio Supreme Court concluded as follows: Gumm first challenges the admissibility of testimony elicited from witnesses Phyllis Thacker and Charlotte Baker. . . . Gumm asserts that his chance for a fair trial was irretrievably lost after this testimony [sic]. . . . We note that the prosecution did not revisit these factual disclosures in its summation or emphasize them in any way thereafter. Even assuming, arguendo, that the challenged evidence should have been deemed inadmissible, we find on the basis of the record as a whole that Gumm received a fair trial . . . . No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 35 Second, Gumm asserts that the state engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in connection with the testimony of defense witness Dr. Henry Leland. . . . Gumm argues that admission of the entire packet of materials permitted the prosecution to engage in further misconduct by allowing it to focus on prior bad acts of defendant (past instances of cruelty to animals and an alleged attempt to rape a friend of his sister). This claim is without merit. Dr. Leland was called as the sole defense witness to show that Gumm’s confession to police was not reliable. In response to the prosecutor’s question whether the packet of information helped him form the basis of his opinions on Gumm, Dr. Leland stated that the packet “presented the major basis, because when I was able to compare that information with my information, it became clear what the problem was.” [Ohio Rule of Evidence] 703 provides that “[t]he facts or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by him or admitted in evidence at the hearing.” See State v. Jones, 459 N.E.2d 526 (1984), the syllabus of which provides: “Pursuant to [Ohio Rule of Evidence] 703, facts or data upon which an expert bases an opinion must be those perceived by him or admitted in evidence at the hearing.” (Emphasis added). While Gumm may have been forced to offer the Court Psychiatric Center packet into evidence to save the testimony of his only witness, the motion by the prosecutor does not constitute prosecutorial misconduct. The Rules of Evidence and relevant precedent support the propriety of the prosecution’s motion in this regard. Gumm, 653 N.E.2d at 265-67. Therefore, the Ohio Supreme Court based its prosecutorial misconduct decision solely on Petitioner’s asserted claim about the psychiatric reports, and we apply AEDPA deference to this decision. Petitioner did not argue before the Ohio Supreme Court that the prosecutor’s elicitation of and argument concerning Thacker and Baker’s testimony constituted prosecutorial misconduct denying him due process of law. Therefore, this claim has not been exhausted in state court. Under normal circumstances, this failure to present the claim to the state court would constitute a procedural default. Lovins v. Parker, 712 F.3d 283 (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.”); see also In re Abdur’Rahman, 392 F.3d 174, 186 (6th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (describing this situation as “forfeiture by failure to exhaust”), vacated on other grounds by Bell v. Abdur’Rahman, 545 U.S. 1151 (2005). However, the state has explicitly waived the procedural default defense. No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 36 In its “Return of Writ,” the state “concede[d] that Gumm has not procedurally defaulted the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct of introducing ‘other acts’ evidence” while also arguing that “Gumm is procedurally defaulted on the remaining claims.” (R. 163, Return of Writ, at 206.) As this Court has acknowledged, “[p]rocedural default is normally a defense that the State is obligated to raise and preserv[e] if it is not to lose the right to assert the defense thereafter.” Arias v. Lafler 511 F. App’x 440, 444 (6th Cir. 2013). Therefore, although Gumm failed to present his claims regarding testimony from Thacker and Baker, he has not procedurally defaulted those claims. And as the Supreme Court has explained “[a] court of appeals is not required to raise the issue of procedural default sua sponte. It is not as if the presence of a procedural default deprived the federal court of jurisdiction, for [the Supreme] Court has made clear that in the habeas context, a procedural default, that is, a critical failure to comply with state procedural law, is not a jurisdictional matter.” Trest v. Cain, 522 U.S. 87, 89 (1997). AEDPA deference is warranted only where “a federal claim was adjudicated on the merits in State court.” Johnson v. Williams, 133 S. Ct. 1088, 1097 (2013) (emphasis in original). “When the evidence leads very clearly to the conclusion that a federal claim was inadvertently overlooked in state court [or never presented to the state court], § 2254(d) entitles the prisoner to an unencumbered opportunity to make his case before a federal judge.” Id. “Consequently, where a state court has not previously ruled on the merits of a claim, we apply the de novo standard of review.” Murphy v. Ohio, 551 F.3d 485, 494 (6th Cir. 2009). Therefore, this Court applies AEDPA deference to the state court’s determination regarding the prosecutor’s motion to admit the psychiatric reports and the use of hearsay statements contained in the reports in rebuttal closing arguments, but we apply de novo review to Petitioner’s claims regarding testimony from Thacker and Baker because the state court never considered those claims.
A prosecutor “is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation . . . in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935), overruled on other grounds by Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212 (1960). To achieve this goal, the prosecutor No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 37 “may prosecute with earnestness and vigor . . . . But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.” Id. “It is fair to say that the average jury, in a greater or less degree, has confidence that these obligations, which so plainly rest upon the prosecuting attorney, will be faithfully observed. Consequently, improper suggestions, insinuations, and, especially, assertions of personal knowledge, are apt to carry much weight against the accused when they should properly carry none.” Id. In particular, statements meant to inflame the passions of the jury are often considered improper. Slagle v. Bagley, 457 F.3d 501, 518 (6th Cir. 2006). Additionally, the State may not show defendant’s prior trouble with the law, specific criminal acts, or ill name among his neighbors, even though such facts might logically be persuasive that he is by propensity a probable perpetrator of the crime. The inquiry is not rejected because character is irrelevant; on the contrary, it is said to weigh too much with the jury and to so overpersuade them as to prejudge one with a bad general record and deny him a fair opportunity to defend against a particular charge. Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 476 (1948). At the same time, this Court recognizes that our review of alleged prosecutorial misconduct is “the narrow one of due process, and not the broad exercise of supervisory power that [we] would possess in regard to [our] own trial court.” Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 642 (1974) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 221 (1982) (“Federal courts hold no supervisory authority over state judicial proceedings and may intervene only to correct wrongs of constitutional dimension.” When this Court reviews a prosecutorial misconduct claim, “it is not enough that the prosecutor’s [conduct was] undesirable or even universally condemned.” Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986). Instead, that conduct must have “so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Id. Further, the Supreme Court has noted that “the Darden standard is a very general one, leaving courts ‘more leeway . . . in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations.’” Parker v. Matthews, 132 S. Ct. 2148, 2155 (2012) (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)). No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 38 In Parker, the Supreme Court instructed that this Court may not consult its own precedent to decide under AEDPA whether a state court’s adjudication on the merits was contrary to clearly established federal law. 132 S. Ct. at 2155 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted) (“[C]ircuit precedent does not constitute clearly established Federal law . . . . It therefore cannot form the basis for habeas relief under AEDPA.”). The Court explained that its “highly generalized standard for evaluating claims of prosecutorial misconduct set forth in Darden bears scant resemblance to the elaborate, multistep test employed by [our Court].” Id. Therefore, because our review of Petitioner’s claim regarding admission and argument of hearsay statements in the psychiatric reports is subject to AEDPA deference, we must apply the “highly generalized standard for evaluating [such claims] set forth in Darden” and its progeny, not our own four-factor test. Id. In Darden, 477 U.S. at 182, the Supreme Court held that the petitioner’s due process right was not violated because “[t]he prosecutor’s argument did not manipulate or misstate the evidence, nor did it implicate other specific rights of the accused such as the right to counsel or the right to remain silent.” The Court was also convinced by the fact that many of the prosecutor’s objectionable statements were responsive to arguments initially asserted by defense counsel and the trial court properly instructed the jurors that the arguments of counsel were not evidence. The Court also found particularly compelling the fact that the “weight of the evidence against [the] petitioner was heavy.” Id. Similarly, in Donnelly, the Supreme Court found telling the fact that “[c]onflicting inferences ha[d] been drawn from the prosecutor’s statement by the courts below,” and concluded that it was “by no means clear that the jury did engage in the hypothetical analysis suggested by the majority of the Court of Appeals, or even probable that it would seize such a comment out of context and attach this particular meaning to it.” 416 U.S. at 643-44. Additionally, in Donnelly, the prosecutor emphasized that his own argument did not constitute evidence and the trial judge admonished the jury to ignore the prosecutor’s improper remark. The Court concluded that “[a]lthough some occurrences at trial may be too clearly prejudicial for such a curative instruction to mitigate their effect, the comment in this case is hardly of such character.” Id. at 644. “The consistent and repeated misrepresentation of a dramatic exhibit in evidence may profoundly impress a jury and may have a significant impact on the jury’s deliberations. Isolated passages of a prosecutor’s argument, billed in advance to the No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 39 jury as a matter of opinion not of evidence, do not reach the same proportions. . . .” Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 646-47. See also Romano v. Oklahoma, 512 U.S. 1, 13-14 (1994) (concluding that a prosecutor’s misconduct did not warrant reversal because the trial court provided clear instructions to the jurors and the nature of the evidence made it “impossible to know how [it] might have affected the jury.”).
a. Prior Bad Acts Contained in the Psychiatric Reports The Ohio Supreme Court concluded that the psychiatric reports were properly admitted into evidence and that the prosecutor did not act improperly in arguing the information contained in the reports. Even if this was proper under the Ohio Rules of Evidence, it does not mean that the prosecutor was free to use the materials contained in that packet however he wished. The manner in which he used those materials was improper in this case. The prosecutor aggressively pushed to have the reports admitted into the record as support for the defense expert’s testimony, and then turned around and argued the information contained in those hearsay statements as though it was unrebutted, reliable fact. Unlike some of the Supreme Court’s cases described above, this case does not concern unclear statements in a closing argument that can be interpreted in different ways. Additionally, this case is not one in which the trial judge clearly instructed the jurors regarding propensity evidence and the value of hearsay statements. A portion of the prosecution’s closing argument bears repeating: Charles recalls hearing a story from his wife of an incident where [Petitioner] threw a raccoon into a five-gallon bucket of paint. Charles admits that [Petitioner] was cruel to animals and would frequently kick them. On one occasion he recalls [Petitioner] planning to kick the neighbor’s dog to death before he was stopped by the dog’s owner. Begin to fit the personality? After this offense occurred, he did report an incident where [Petitioner] attempted to get one of their nephews to suck him. Begin to fit the pattern? These are from people who are not police officers, not prosecutors. They’re people, if anything, who should be in the defense. They interviewed Betty Gumm. You heard what she said. . . . Betty recalls [Petitioner] tried to rape a friend of hers; however, there was not enough evidence on this occasion to convict him. He was described as rowdy, arguing, and fighting when he was drunk. Does that fit the pattern? Betty recalls [Petitioner] as always being cruel to animals. No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 40 On one occasion, [she] recalls [Petitioner] throwing her sister Karen’s daughter’s dog into a space heater and the dog dying. On another occasion, Betty recalls [Petitioner] putting a spoon on the stove until it got hot and then putting it on their nephew’s arm. (App. at 308–09.) Although unrelated and removed in time from the crimes in this case, the prosecution put forth unreliable hearsay statements regarding cruelty to animals and bizarre sex acts to suggest that Petitioner had a propensity to commit acts like the crimes in question. This evidence was clearly meant to “inflame the passions of the jury,” Slagle, 457 F.3d at 518, and paint Petitioner as a sexual deviant and animal-killer who deserved to be removed from society. While it is clear that the statements contained in the psychiatric reports were extremely prejudicial and the prosecutor’s decision to argue the hearsay statements as fact to the jury ought to be “universally condemned,” it is difficult to find under the highly restrictive standards set forth by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of AEDPA that this misconduct rises to a level that, given the “leeway” of the Darden standard, no “fairminded jurist” could have reached the conclusion that the Ohio Supreme Court did in this case. See Richter, 131 S. Ct. at 786. The magistrate judge and district court’s contrary result rested on the application of the multi-factor prosecutorial misconduct test from this Court’s decision in Bowling v. Parker, 344 F.3d 487 (6th Cir. 2003). See Gumm. 2009 WL 7785750, at , 43. Post-Matthews, this was clearly erroneous. 132 S. Ct. at 1255-56. Further, the magistrate judge spent time analyzing the propriety of the prosecutor’s motion to admit the psychiatric reports under the Ohio Rules of Evidence. Gumm, 2009 WL 7785750, at . This was also erroneous because evaluation of a state’s decision on its evidentiary rule is “no part of a federal court’s habeas review of a state conviction.” Estelle, 502 U.S. at 67. In light of the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court (rightly or wrongly) determined that the prosecutor’s motion was proper under Ohio evidentiary rules, it is difficult to say, even considering the inflammatory items included in the report, that no reasonable jurist could agree with the Ohio court’s conclusion that the prosecutor’s conduct did not violate Petitioner’s due process rights. Therefore, this Court cannot find, subject to AEDPA deference, that Petitioner is entitled to habeas relief based solely on the prosecutor’s motion to admit hearsay statements contained in the psychiatric reports. No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 41 b. Testimony by Thacker and Baker Because Petitioner’s claims regarding testimony by Thacker and Baker were not presented to the Ohio courts, the state courts did not adjudicate those claims on the merits. As a result, we review those claims de novo. See Robinson, 663 F.3d at 822-23. Therefore, this Court must determine whether the prosecutor’s remarks and actions surrounding testimony by Thacker and Baker, “in the context of the entire trial, were sufficiently prejudicial to violate respondent’s due process rights.” Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 639. Under this standard of review, this Court has “employ[ed its own] two-part test to determine whether prosecutorial misconduct require[d] a new trial.” Cristini v. McKee, 526 F.3d 888, 899 (6th Cir. 2008). Again, “[w]e are well aware that we possess no supervisory powers over state trial proceedings and that our scope of review over allegedly prejudicial arguments by state prosecutors is narrow. Prosecutorial argument must be so egregious so as to render the entire trial fundamentally unfair.” Cook v. Bordenkircher, 602 F.2d 117, 119 (6th Cir. 1979). On de novo review, our first step is to determine whether the challenged conduct and remarks by the prosecution were improper. Boyle v. Billion, 201 F.3d 711, 717 (6th Cir. 2000); United States v. Collins, 78 F.3d 1021, 1039 (6th Cir. 1996). If we find that the prosecutor’s conduct was improper, “we then ‘look to see if [it was] flagrant and warrant[s] reversal.’” Boyle, 201 F.3d at 717 (quoting United States v. Francis, 170 F.3d 546, 549 (6th Cir. 1999)). To make such a determination, we examine four factors: “1) whether the statements tended to mislead the jury or prejudice the defendant; 2) whether the statements were isolated or among a series of improper statements; 3) whether the statements were deliberately or accidentally before the jury; and 4) the total strength of the evidence against the accused.” United States v. Francis, 170 F.3d 546, 549–50 (6th Cir. 1999). The first of these factors incorporates a consideration of “whether the trial judge gave an appropriate cautionary instruction to the jury.” United States v. Monus, 128 F.3d 376, 394 (6th Cir. 1997). And when assessing these factors, “the court must view the totality of the circumstances.” Hanna v. Price, 245 F. App’x 538, 544 (6th Cir. 2007).
In the instant case, the prosecutor’s conduct was “so deplorable as to define the term ‘prosecutorial misconduct.’” Boyle, 201 F.3d at 717. Although this Court has previously stated No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 42 that “[a] prosecutor may rely in good faith on evidentiary rulings made by the state trial judge and make arguments in reliance on those rulings,” Cristini, 526 F.3d at 900, this Court has also held on a number of occasions that “[w]hen a prosecutor dwells on a defendant’s bad character to prove that he or she committed the crime charged, we may find prosecutorial misconduct,” id. at 899. See also Walker v. Morrow, 458 F. App’x 475, 490 (6th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted) (“[T]his Court has concluded that a prosecutor commits misconduct by making an animated recitation of properly-admitted character evidence . . . and by asserting that members of the jury should be afraid to run into [the defendant] at night . . . .”). In Cook v. Bordenkircher, 602 F.2d 117, 120 (6th Cir. 1979), this Court concluded that a prosecutor’s conduct was improper where the prosecutor’s closing argument constituted a “persistent Ad hominem attack on the petitioner’s character.” The prosecutor’s attack on the petitioner’s character was particularly egregious because it “pervade[d] the closing argument” and “[t]he prosecutor continually portrayed the petitioner as a lowlife who had to be kept from society.” Id. And in Washington v. Hofbauer, 228 F.3d 689, 700 (6th Cir. 2000), we confronted a situation in which the prosecutor put forth a “bad character argument[] that the alleged criminal acts ‘fit’ the evidence of [the defendant]’s character and lifestyle.” The Court concluded that “while the evidence as to Washington’s character was admissible for certain limited purposes, the prosecutor went far beyond the bounds of permitted conduct when presenting that evidence to the jury” by “impl[ying] that the jurors should consider Washington’s unseemly character when rendering their verdict; in his rebuttal closing argument, he explicitly urged them to do so.” Id. at 699-700. Although it is not improper merely to direct a jury’s attention to properly admitted evidence, it can be improper for a prosecutor to use that evidence to suggest that a criminal defendant had a propensity to commit the charged crimes. Id. at 700 (finding that the misconduct was severe and improper because the “character attack pervaded the closing argument and rebuttal.”).7 7 On the other hand, in Flood v. Phillips, 90 F. App’x 108, 120 (6th Cir. 2004), this Court declined to find that a prosecutor’s remarks pertaining to a habeas petitioner’s alleged homosexual tendencies were improper. The Court found particularly compelling the fact that the prosecutor had qualified his statement about the petitioner’s tendencies, “conced[ing] to the jury that his remarks were speculative and that he had no evidence, thereby mitigating their harmful effect.” Id. No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 43 As the above-referenced case law demonstrates, the prosecutor’s acts and remarks in this case were improper. Although the Ohio trial court overruled defense counsel’s objections to admission of Thacker and Baker’s testimony, which was likely error in this case, the intentional and deliberate manner by which the prosecutor obtained the testimony and the ultimate propensity argument made during his rebuttal closing argument constitute improper conduct. Here, the conduct was improper because the prosecutor intentionally elicited evidence of questionable validity that is far more prejudicial than probative. The prosecutor knew what testimony he was searching for and did not stop until he obtained the exact language he sought from Thacker. Additionally, the prosecutor was aware of the questionable veracity of that testimony because he knew Petitioner had not only discussed “fucking a horse” but had also indicated that the horse was talking to him during that same conversation with Thacker. The prosecutor followed the same pattern with Baker—he pushed Baker in an attempt to get the exact statement he wanted on the record, even though Baker could not recall that statement ever having been made by Petitioner. Just as he pushed for Thacker to say “fucked the horse,” the prosecutor pushed Baker to say that Petitioner had previously stated he was “so hard up he’d do it to anyone.” However, Baker was not willing to say those words and the prosecution pushed too far. Instead, he improperly got them on the record through his leading question. The prosecutor then used this evidence to depict Petitioner as an overly-confident sexual deviant who has a propensity to have sex with little boys and commit crimes such as those in this case. In fact, the prosecutor injected an implication in his rebuttal closing argument that was inappropriate and unfounded on the record. While there was questionable evidence of Petitioner’s sex with women, men, and a horse, there was absolutely no evidence on the record that Petitioner ever had sex or was motivated to have “sex with little boys.” (J.A. at 315.) See Walker, 458 F. App’x at 490 (internal quotation marks omitted) (“[A] prosecutor’s act of misrepresenting facts in evidence is improper, since doing so may profoundly impress a jury and may have a significant impact on the jury’s deliberations.”). No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 44
Having found that the prosecutor’s remarks were improper, we move on to determine whether the remarks were so flagrant as to warrant reversal, considering the four factors set forth in Francis, supra, and Bowling, supra. The only thing given AEDPA deference in this instance is the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision that the prosecutor’s conduct with respect to the psychiatric reports does not constitute prosecutorial misconduct. What the Ohio Supreme Court did not address, however, is whether the prosecutor’s elicitation and use of Thacker’s and Baker’s testimony in isolation constitute prosecutorial misconduct or whether the cumulative effect of those statements and the prosecutor’s arguments regarding those statements amounts to prosecutorial misconduct. In fact, on de novo review, this Court’s test directs us to consider a series of statements and actions to determine the flagrancy of the prosecutor’s conduct. In this case, we are not left to guess whether the prosecutor’s egregious acts, viewed in the context of the rest of the evidence presented at trial, were flagrant and whether habeas is therefore an appropriate form of relief. In the instant case, the prosecutor relentlessly pressed the witnesses to obtain specific testimony, testimony which was highly inflammatory and unreliable. The prosecutor then used the inflammatory information contained in Thacker and Baker’s testimony in the rebuttal closing arguments to the jury to argue that Petitioner is a sexual deviant who likely committed the crimes: Sex is the motive in this particular case, and it fits the profile. . . . Darryl likes to shoot pool, and he likes to have sex. It’s probably a strange hobby, but it fits. Sex is a hobby, and he likes to have it every day: Sex with a woman; sex with a man, which he’s had on fifteen to twenty occasions according to the evidence; sex with animals, according to Phyllis Thacker; and sex with little boys. (J.A. at 315 (emphasis added).) It is clear that the prosecutor’s misconduct was flagrant and severe. Like the misconduct in Bordenkircher and Hofbauer, the prosecutor intended to mislead the jury and prejudice the defendant by using highly inflammatory and prejudicial evidence, much of which was known to be of questionable reliability, to assert that Petitioner had a propensity to commit the acts in No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 45 question. Particularly, with regard to Thacker’s testimony, the statement that Petitioner had mentioned having had sex with a horse was unreliable due to the fact that in that same conversation with Thacker, Petitioner also stated that the horse had spoken to him. The prosecutor then reminded the jury of this evidence by arguing its truth in his rebuttal closing argument, which also included reference to the subject of Baker’s testimony. The prosecutor intended to prejudice the jury against Petitioner by portraying him as a sexual deviant whose character aligned with the crimes in this case. These statements were neither isolated nor innocently placed before the jury. In Bordenkircher, although this Court found that the prosecutor’s conduct was improper, the Court concluded that the conduct was not so flagrant as to require reversal. The Court found particularly compelling the fact that the prosecutor’s improper arguments were made in response to arguments first asserted by defense counsel, “diminish[ing] the allegations made concerning a due process violation.” Bordenkircher, 602 F.2d at 121. In this case, on the other hand, the prosecutor’s elicitation of prejudicial testimony and propensity arguments were part of a series of deliberate and improper statements that were used at multiple points throughout the trial to convince the jury that Petitioner had a propensity to commit the alleged crimes. The prosecution’s propensity-driven argument was deliberate and was not made in response to defense counsel’s arguments. It was “part of a calculated effort used to evoke strong . . . emotions” against Petitioner. United States v. Payne, 2 F.3d 706, 715 (6th Cir. 1993). Thacker’s damaging testimony was one of the first things heard by the jury in this case and one of the last things argued to the jury in the prosecution’s rebuttal. It is clear from the prosecutor’s line of questioning that he had interviewed Thacker before trial and knew which stories from her interview he wished to place before the jury. From the beginning, the prosecutor intended to infect Petitioner’s trial with prejudicial and unreliable evidence. When Thacker was uncomfortable using the harsh and damaging language sought by the prosecutor, he continued to push. He pushed Thacker until she reluctantly stated to the jury that Petitioner told her that he “fucked the horse.” Although the prosecutor moved on from that subject after obtaining the language he was searching for, he pressed Baker in a similar manner, even putting words on the record that she denied ever having heard Petitioner say. The discussion of irrelevant prior bad acts did not end there, however. The prosecution’s rebuttal closing argument included an No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 46 express reference to Thacker’s testimony and indirect references to the subject of Baker’s testimony. The prosecution did not simply move on from the damaging testimony; he reminded the jurors of it through his propensity argument just before they left for deliberations. Additionally, as explained above, the other evidence against Petitioner was weak. This Court’s cases granting and denying prosecutorial misconduct claims seem to be distinguishable largely on one ground: the total strength of the evidence against the accused. In Bordenkircher, for example, this Court found particularly important the fact that “proof of guilt was overwhelming. The petitioner was effectively caught red handed.” 602 F.2d at 120. In Cristini, too, although this Court found that “some of the prosecutor’s opening and closing argument went beyond the bounds of the ruling that permitted other acts evidence to establish Defendant’s identity,” it concluded that any error in connection with the misuse of that evidence was harmless because the rest of the evidence was so strong against the defendant that “the prior bad acts evidence and the propensity arguments did not have a substantial or injurious effect on the jury’s verdict. 526 F.3d at 900. In the instant case, on the other hand, there was no physical evidence linking Petitioner to the crime. There were no eyewitnesses to the murder. In fact, the only evidence outside of the challenged improper bad acts testimony was Petitioner’s confession, non-probative statements by Petitioner’s former female housemates that he began acting strange, looked at them in awkward ways, frequently talked about sex with women, and became hateful when he drank alcohol, and the psychiatric reports argued as fact in the prosecutor’s closing argument. Although we must find under the stringent requirements of AEDPA that the prosecutor’s argument regarding the psychiatric reports did not constitute prosecutorial misconduct, that does not prevent us from viewing the hearsay statements to determine the credibility, reliability, and strength of this evidence against Petitioner under the fourth factor of our test. The evidence contained in these reports had little to no reliability due to the many layers of hearsay. For example, Charles Bray relayed a story to a social worker about Petitioner having tried to convince a relative to “suck him.” However, Bray could not provide additional information because he did not himself observe the incident and was only told about the purported behavior by another individual. Bray also recalled hearing a story from his wife about Petitioner throwing a raccoon into a bucket of No. 11-3363 Gumm v. Mitchell Page 47 paint. The report, however, does not indicate whether Bray’s wife observed the incident herself or heard about it from another party. Without more information and adequate indicia of reliability, these hearsay statements provided very little support for the prosecution’s case. Additionally, most of the information contained in the reports, such as the prejudicial stories of cruelty to animals, is unrelated to the crimes in this case. Even if the stories were accompanied by an adequate indicia of reliability, Petitioner’s cruelty to animals is unrelated to the attempted rape and murder of a ten-year-old boy. As a result, the psychiatric reports do not provide strong support for the prosecution’s case. Finally, the strongest evidence in the record supporting Petitioner’s conviction is his taped confession. However, as explained above, Petitioner’s confession is not reliable and cannot be given great weight in this case. In Berger, 295 U.S. at 89, the Supreme Court was confronted with a situation in which the conduct of the prosecuting attorney was not “slight or confined to a single instance, but one where such misconduct was pronounced and persistent, with a probable cumulative effect upon the jury which cannot be disregarded as inconsequential.” The Court concluded that “[i]f the case . . . had been strong, or . . . the evidence of his guilt overwhelming, a different conclusion might be reached.” Id. However, finding that the case against the petitioner was weak, the Court granted habeas relief. Here, unlike Cristini and Bordenkircher, the case against Petitioner was so weak and the prosecutor’s misconduct so “pronounced and persistent” that it too had a “probable cumulative effect upon the jury which cannot be disregarded as inconsequential.” Id. It is difficult for this Court not to conclude under de novo review that the prosecutor’s conduct in this case was “calculated to incite the passion and prejudices of the jurors” and “so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Broom v. Mitchell, 441 F.3d 392, 412 (6th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, habeas relief is proper on Petitioner’s prosecutorial misconduct claim. III.