Opinion ID: 4534699
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to Stermer’s Case

Text: Before addressing whether the prosecutor’s statements in this case deprived Stermer of a fair trial, the state challenges the district court’s finding that his comments were improper in the 4This does not mean that precedents from this Court are not instructive, provided they are answering the right question: whether a state court decision reasonably applied existing Supreme Court case law. Thus, published AEDPA decisions of this Court—provided they were not themselves abrogated for committing the error identified in Matthews—are binding on future panels and on the district courts within this circuit. See Ross, 549 F. App’x at 448–49 (discussing the effect of Matthews on Sixth Circuit precedent). 5While Parker v. Matthews noted that the Sixth Circuit’s two-step framework does not constitute clearly established Supreme Court case law, and so cannot support habeas relief where AEDPA deference applies, 567 U.S. at 48–49, it did not overrule that framework or otherwise question its applicability to criminal cases on direct appeal or habeas cases where AEDPA deference does not apply. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 26 first place. Applying AEDPA deference and cases like Young, 470 U.S. at 7–8, 17–19, the question here is whether the state court could reasonably have found that the prosecutor’s statements were arguments based on the evidence, as opposed to injections of personal opinion or misstatements of the facts presented at trial. Because the record shows that the prosecutor’s statements were not driven by the evidence, and instead instructed the jury on how they should view the evidence (namely, by assuming that Stermer was a liar), the state habeas court could not reasonably have found them to be proper. The state argues that the prosecutor’s comments about Stermer’s credibility were acceptable “because the prosecutor never suggested that this argument was based on his personal knowledge or opinion—rather, it was based on the evidence, and specifically the testimony that Stermer had made inconsistent statements about the fire to people after the fact.” (Resp’t’s Br. at 31); see also, e.g., West v. Bell, 550 F.3d 542, 565–66 (6th Cir. 2008) (“This Court has held that a prosecutor may assert that a defendant is lying during her closing argument when emphasizing discrepancies between the evidence and that defendant’s testimony. To avoid impropriety, however, such comments must reflect reasonable inferences from the evidence adduced at trial. Again, misconduct occurs when a jury could reasonably believe that the prosecutor was, instead, expressing a personal opinion as to the witness’s credibility.” (quoting United States v. Francis, 170 F.3d 546, 551 (6th Cir. 2008))); Cristini v. McKee, 526 F.3d 888, 902 (6th Cir. 2008) (same).6 But a look to the prosecutor’s arguments shows this was not the case: while the state says the prosecutor’s statements were rooted in the evidence, in reality they were predominantly based on the prosecutor’s own assessment that Stermer’s version of events was not credible. This runs directly afoul of Young and the Supreme Court’s other cases on prosecutorial misconduct. Young, 470 U.S. at 7–8; see also Darden, 477 U.S. at 179–180; Berger, 295 U.S. at 88. Importantly, the prosecutor began his discussion of Stermer’s statements with his lengthy “she’s a liar” speech, in which he repeatedly said “[t]here is no question but that [Stermer is] a 6While these cases use the Sixth Circuit’s own prosecutorial misconduct framework, which is unavailable within AEDPA deference, we mention them because the state uses them to show the limits of the Darden framework in arguing that a prosecutor can say a defendant is lying if that claim is rooted in the evidence. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 27 liar and will lie when it suits her.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1704.) The question is whether this statement was a preview of his argument from the evidence (in which case it might be proper, or at least not clearly improper under AEDPA deference), or whether it expressed the prosecutor’s own opinion about how the jury should view Stermer’s story. The arguments immediately following the “liar” speech help answer this question. First, the prosecutor discusses Stermer’s claim that Todd said “nobody else would ever have [her]” on the day of the fire. (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1705–07.) He begins by hypothesizing that Stermer probably discussed this statement with her attorney before telling it to the investigator. He then goes on to suggest that because Stermer claimed Todd said “nobody’s going to have you” as the fire was raging, her statement was ridiculous and the insurance investigator pointed out that it was ridiculous. (Id. at #1706–07.)7 The trouble is that the insurance investigator’s statement was about something completely different (see id. at #1711 (discussing Stermer’s actions through the day and saying “[t]his does not sound like a couple that’s separating to me”)), leaving only the prosecutor’s own view that the statement was ridiculous as his reason that it had to be a lie. Second, the prosecutor referred to the gas station testimony, and noted that Cindy DeLoach “certainly appears to be a very credible person who has recall of the incident, has no reason to make anything up.” (Id. at #1708.) This statement itself toes the line of impermissible bolstering, with the prosecutor opining that DeLoach “certainly appears to be a very credible person,” especially since the context compares DeLoach to Stermer, whom the prosecutor calls a known liar. (Id. at #1704, #1708); see also, e.g., Young, 470 U.S. at 18 (noting that “[t]he 7As a further point, this claim itself cannot fairly be drawn from Stermer’s statements. Throughout the transcript, Stermer distinguished between the “yelling” she claims Todd was directing toward her before the fire and the “screaming” he did after the fire started. (E.g., Trial Tr. vol. 2, R. 24-8 at PageID #1085.) The question the prosecutor quotes itself makes this distinction and shows that Stermer was saying this yelling occurred before the fire and before Todd’s reaction to it. (See Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1706 (“The question is: ‘Now, you said you could hear him yelling and then it turned to screaming. What was he yelling at that point? Was he just—’ Answer. . . .‘That’s when he was yelling that nobody else would ever— . . . .’”).) Furthermore, the prosecutor mischaracterized Stermer’s responsiveness to the insurance investigator. Examining a portion of her interview with the investigator, the prosecutor stated that Stermer was “not even responsive to the darn question” when she was asked, “Could you understand anything that [Todd] was saying?” (Id. at #1706–07.) In fact, Stermer did respond, saying: “He told me nobody else would ever have me.” (Id. at #1707.) No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 28 prosecutor’s vouching for the credibility of witnesses” is improper). But in any event, all this leaves is Stermer’s denial of pumping gas into a canister and DeLoach’s unclear testimony about the back window of Stermer’s truck. In this context, the prosecutor isn’t using Stermer’s statement to demonstrate her untruthfulness in support of his earlier claim that she is a liar. Rather, he is saying that Stermer’s explanation here should not be believed because she’s a liar. Similarly, the prosecutor argued it was “somewhat inconsistent” that when Stermer was interviewed by police immediately after the fire, she did not mention getting gas earlier that morning, but then admitted this to the fire investigator two days later. The prosecutor then asked the jury to extrapolate from this fact, and from the fact that she consulted with an attorney before talking to the insurance investigator, that Stermer changed her story as part of an effort to cover up her involvement in the murder. But once again, this theory is based on the prosecutor’s own speculation. Whatever inconsistency can be found between her failure to bring up the gas station trip on the day of the fire but mentioning it to another investigator two days later is not evidence that could support the prosecutor’s claim that Stermer is a known liar (and therefore guilty of murder). Third, the prosecutor focuses on Stermer’s suggestion—based on her claim that Todd said “nobody else will ever have you”—that the fire might have been a failed murder-suicide. (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1708.) Insofar as Stermer suggested a murder-suicide attempt (which itself is somewhat unclear from the record), it was in response to a request for speculation by the insurance investigator. It seems farfetched to use this to conclude that Stermer was lying when it is unclear whether she intended to place any weight behind this statement (and especially where the defense did not rely on this theory at trial). The prosecutor then went on to tear down “Stermer’s” theory by noting how illogical it would be for Todd to attempt a murder-suicide in this manner. (See, e.g., id. at #1708–09 (“If you are going to commit a murder/suicide, . . . you do the murder part first, you don’t do the suicide first because then you aren’t going to be able to do the murder. I think everybody, including Todd Stermer, understood that.”); id. at #1709 (“If you are going to commit suicide or even a murder/suicide, wouldn’t a gun make more sense?”); id. (“Arson is something that you do to cover things up, not necessarily a means of a homicide. It’s to cover up a homicide . . . .”).) But in no way does this demonstrate No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 29 through reference to the evidence that Stermer’s statement about Todd’s yelling was a lie. The prosecutor’s remaining statements about Stermer’s truthfulness are similarly based on speculation and his own opinion.8 The one concrete example where the prosecutor could have argued from the evidence that Stermer was lying is where she denied having an affair when asked by the insurance investigator. Two points on this. First, it seems obvious that someone might lie about having an affair while telling the truth about other matters. Second, the prosecutor did not actually argue that Stermer’s lies about the affair permit an inference that she was lying about everything else (likely because of the obviousness of the first point). If the prosecutor had constrained his comments to this asserted lie, the jury could have assessed this and considered its impact on the trustworthiness of Stermer’s other statements. But instead, he made a broadside attack on Stermer’s truthfulness without any real effort to tie it to the evidence. The broader context of these comments is critical. See Darden, 477 U.S. at 179 (noting that prosecutorial misconduct must be assessed by placing the challenged remarks in context). In this case, Stermer did not testify at trial. Instead, the prosecution introduced the transcripts of her interviews. Thus, the prosecutor’s statements that Stermer was a liar were not an earnest attempt to dispel her credibility and resolve some inconsistency between her trial testimony and that of another witness. Nor was the prosecutor truly pointing to inconsistencies and arguing that the explanation was Stermer covering up her role in the murder. Looking to the context of his statements, the prosecutor did not present Stermer’s interview and then argue from it that Stermer was lying. Instead he said first, “I’m going to be talking about statements that Linda Stermer made,” but 8For example, the prosecutor points to discrepancies regarding which door Stermer used to exit the house, but (1) the statements in question are highly ambiguous, making it a leap to infer from them that Stermer was lying, and (2) as the prosecutor himself said, insofar as there even was a meaningful difference, it could easily be explained by reasons other than a scheme to cover up a murder. (See Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1712–13 (“[M]aybe there are parts of this that we just don’t know. Okay. And maybe that’s the reason for her inconsistencies. . . . I don’t know that it’s so much important as to whether she went out the bottom, whether she went out the top, and certainly it could be argued that someone that wasn’t committing murder could be under the stress of the situation and they just don’t remember . . . .”).) Similarly, the prosecutor claimed that there was no physical evidence supporting her story about the vehicle getting stuck in the mud during her attempt to leave the house, but a lack of corroborating evidence does not amount to proof that her story was a lie, and therefore cannot support the prosecutor’s inference that Stermer was a known liar. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 30 that he wanted to “caution” the jury before doing so that “we know she is a liar.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1704; see also id. (“There is no question but that she’s a liar and will lie when it suits her, okay.”).) He went on to say, “what I want you folks not to do is to adopt [Stermer’s interview statements] as fact because if you do, they are going to be very difficult to reconcile maybe with other parts of it. So as you’re looking at the evidence, keep in mind anything she says is suspect. She’s a liar.” (Id.) So even before discussing her statements, the prosecutor told the jury that Stermer was a liar and should not be believed. The prosecutor’s conclusion further supports this view of his statements. He asks the jury, “Is there anything that we’ve heard other than from a liar, and even then not a real good story, that would lead us to believe that . . . Todd Stermer caused this?” (Id. at #1724.) While the state argues that the reason the prosecutor told the jury Stermer’s story was to prove she was a liar, this formulation shows that the opposite is true: the prosecutor’s view that Stermer is a liar was presented independently from the weakness of her story, and then her story was described as a lie to undercut the defense’s theory of the case. Viewed as a whole, the prosecutor’s discussion of Stermer’s statements was a strawman presentation of her theory of what happened, done in the course of arguing why her theory was wrong and why the prosecution’s theory was right.9 In undercutting this presentation before it began, the prosecutor argued that “we know [Stermer] is a liar” at the outset (id. at #1704), and then failed to support this claim by reference to lies in the evidence. He then ended his argument by calling Stermer “a diabolical, scheming, manipulative liar and a murderer.” (Id. at #1724.) The view that the prosecutor’s statements were driven by the evidence is not reasonably supported by the record, and finding otherwise would be an unreasonable application of Darden, Young, and Berger.10 9This is reflected in part by the prosecutor’s reference to her statement two days after the fire when the insurance investigator asks her if she has “an opinion, a theory about what happened.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1705, #1708–10.) The prosecutor then argues that this theory is inconsistent with the other evidence presented in the case or with his own views of arson as “something that you do to cover things up.” (Id. at #1709.) In effect, the prosecutor conflates Stermer’s answer to a request for speculation two days after the fire with the defense’s theory of the case two years later at trial, building up a strawman defense only to tear it down. 10The dissent cites Parker v. Matthews for the proposition that the statements in this case cannot support a finding of prosecutorial misconduct. But Matthews said nothing of the sort, and the statements at issue in Matthews No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 31 The district court also points to the prosecutor’s statements about whether Stermer had a cell phone in her vehicle and whether Todd’s previous two fires were arson, suggesting that both were misstatements of the evidence and therefore prosecutorial misconduct. Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 655–56. For the reasons that follow, both of these statements were improper remarks. The first statement at issue is the prosecutor’s argument about the location of Stermer’s phones: “Unfortunately, the lady who has two cell phones has neither one of them with her to call for help. The phones are in the van according to go her [sic]. Possible? Yes. Convenient? Very.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1714.) The district court construed this comment to mean that Stermer had her cell phone in the van but chose not to call for help after she fled the house from the fire, thus implying her guilt. See Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 655–56 (“The prosecutor created this significant detail out of thin air to make the argument that Petitioner consciously chose not to call for help.”). And since “the State failed to present any evidence at trial that there was a cell phone in the van when Petitioner fled the house,” id. at 656, the prosecutor’s remark was a misstatement of the evidence. On appeal, the state says that the prosecutor wasn’t arguing that Stermer should have called from the van, but rather that she claimed the phones were in the van as a convenient excuse for not calling for help from the house. As a preliminary note, while the state faults the district court for “[misunderstanding] the import of this line of reasoning” (Resp’t’s Br. at 37), this misunderstanding is excusable, as the state never made this argument in its response below, see, e.g., Scottsdale Ins. Co., 513 F.3d at 552 (noting that arguments not raised before the district court are forfeited on appeal). But even accepting the state’s interpretation, the prosecutor’s statement would still be improper. This is because the prosecutor did not just misstate whether the phones were or were not in the van, but rather incorrectly described Stermer’s own were (1) not at all like those here and (2) mitigated by other statements the prosecutor made during his closing. 567 U.S. at 45–47. And while the dissent also asserts that the prosecutor’s statements about Stermer’s propensity to lie were “record supported” (Dissent at 50), our discussion in the preceding pages should dispel any such notion. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 32 statements. The state has not pointed to any testimony where Stermer says her phones were in the van, nor did we find any through our own review of the record.11 The broader context shows that the prosecutor used this comment about what Stermer said regarding the location of her cell phones not just to show she declined to call for help, but also in support of his argument that Stermer was a liar. (See Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1714–15 (“And the point being is these things add up, these little inconsistencies, these little inconvenien[t] truths, these little circumstances, they add up to strong circumstantial evidence.”).) While it is bad enough to misstate the record, it is even worse to do so in the course of undercutting other evidence presented to the jury. Turning to the second statement, on rebuttal, the prosecutor discussed Todd Stermer’s two prior fires but said that “even by [Linda Stermer’s] own version it’s not an arson, nor was the first one. There is no evidence of that either.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1764– 65.) He concluded by saying “there is no evidence that it was arson, so it’s nonsense.” (Id. at #1765.) In defending this statement, the state largely focuses on the second portion, in which the prosecutor said there was no evidence of arson. The district court said this was wrong because a police report in the state’s possession quoted another officer as saying one of Todd’s previous house fires “was definitely an arson.” Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 656 (quoting Police Report, R. 20-13 at PageID #312). But this police report was not placed into evidence, the statement was hearsay, and it lacks any further explanation or support. While a prosecutor cannot misrepresent the facts in evidence, Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 646, neither Stermer nor the district court present a Supreme Court case that stands for the proposition they argue here: that a prosecutor with knowledge that someone suspected a fact is true cannot argue in court, based on the evidence presented, that there is no evidence of that fact. 11In fact, Stermer told investigators that her cell phone was “in the bedroom” and her purse was “in the van.” (Statement of Linda Stermer, R. 24-19 at PageID #2345.) The State’s own witness, Kate Fox, testified that Stermer had a “secret” cell phone, but that she kept it in the “Blazer” (Trial Tr. vol. 4, R. 24-10 at Page ID #1541–42)—the vehicle that Stermer’s children had taken from the house before the fire began—meaning she would not have had access to it during the incident. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 33 The first part of the prosecutor’s statement is more concerning. There, he said that “even by [Stermer’s] own version,” the previous house fires were not arsons. (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1764.) But nowhere in the state’s response below or in its briefing here does it point to any statement by Stermer that supports this claim, nor could we find one ourselves. And so, this is another example of the prosecutor misstating Stermer’s testimony to undercut the defense theory of the case. Such misstatements of the evidence are clearly improper under Supreme Court case law.12 b. Did the Prosecutor’s Statements Deprive Stermer of a Fair Trial? For the reasons discussed above, the prosecutor’s statements were improper. But before granting habeas relief, we must also find that they “so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Darden, 477 U.S. at 181 (quoting Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 643). Furthermore, because AEDPA deference applies, we must find that no fair-minded jurist could disagree with this assessment. Richter, 562 U.S. at 101. Even under the forgiving standard of Darden coupled with AEDPA deference, it was unreasonable for the state court to conclude that the fairness of Stermer’s trial was not irreparably harmed by the prosecutor’s closing. The state’s case was relatively weak, the prosecutor relied heavily on Stermer’s statements in his closing arguments, and he repeatedly called her a liar while misstating her own testimony. All these factors combine to show that Stermer was clearly denied due process. 12The district court also pointed to the prosecutor’s decision to have Chris Williams testify as further evidence of misconduct. Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 657. No matter what else occurred, it is worth clarifying that this decision, without further evidence as to the prosecutor’s motives, was not misconduct. Williams’s testimony was important to the prosecution’s theory of motive: the fact that Stermer was having an affair undoubtedly lends credence to the testimony that Todd discovered the affair and asked for a divorce the night before his death. At no point during the prosecutor’s questioning of Williams did he bring up race or the interracial nature of Williams’s relationship with Stermer, making this a far cry from the cases relied on by the district court, see, e.g., United States v. Grey, 422 F.2d 1043, 1044–46 (6th Cir. 1970) (finding prosecutorial misconduct on direct appeal when the prosecutor asked a character witness if he knew that the black, married defendant was “running around with a white go-go dancer”). And while there is always the risk that a racist juror could disregard her oath or that unconscious bias could affect the proceedings, the prosecutor was not “[a]ppeal[ing] to racial prejudice” simply by calling a black man—the most direct witness on the matter—to testify. Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 657 (quoting Grey, 422 F.2d at 1046). No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 34 Turning first to the strength of the prosecution’s case, the closing itself demonstrates the importance of the prosecutor’s comments and his teardown of Stermer’s explanations. Almost half of the prosecution’s closing argument was devoted to Stermer’s statements to investigators, making it clear that this was a core element of its case. On the other hand, the prosecution’s inperson witnesses had significant weaknesses, such as the gas station attendant (who did not actually see a container or whether Stermer was pumping gas into anything but her vehicle), Kate Fox (whose own brother called her a liar and who had been charged with assaulting Stermer), and the jailhouse informants (whose credibility was severely undermined in cross-examination). Further, the state’s expert could not conclude who started the fire. The prosecutor’s closing was filled with speculation, asking the jury to imagine potential facts in support of the state’s theory. (See, e.g., Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1701 (“We know that she purchased gas in the morning. We know that she purchased three food items, one non-foods item. We have no idea what those were and I’m not suggesting there is any evidence of that, but the nontaxable item, Bic lighter perhaps? I don’t know.”).) Given this, the closing argument shows that the prosecution was strongly relying on Stermer lying during her post-fire statements to suggest that she committed the murder. The dissent takes issue with this point and tries to reframe these facts as an open-and-shut case. For example, the dissent speculates that when driving her vehicle away from the house, Stermer must have seen her neighbors coming to help and then attempted to flee from them in her van, thereby demonstrating her guilt with respect to the fire. This is one example of a pattern seen throughout the dissent, in which the prosecutor’s version of how Todd’s death might have occurred is presented as a fact beyond all plausible dispute. Could a juror have guessed that this is what happened? Perhaps. But by conjuring up one possible conclusion and assuming it to be the truth, the dissent misunderstands our inquiry in this case. In a prosecutorial misconduct case, the point of the Supreme Court’s strength-of-theevidence question is not to determine whether any reasonable juror could have voted to convict. Rather, when the evidence is relatively weak—particularly where it requires leaps like those taken by the dissent—the odds that a constitutional error might have affected the outcome become intolerably high. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 35 This is not to suggest that the prosecution put on an impossibly weak case. Other circumstantial evidence—while possibly explained by Stermer—does point toward her guilt. (See, e.g., id. at #1700–01 (noting that Stermer bought gas the morning of the fire and told her children to leave the house).) But given the relative weakness of this evidence, the fairness of her trial was irreparably undercut by the prosecutor’s closing, in which he repeatedly opined that Stermer was untruthful and called her “a diabolical, scheming, manipulative liar.” (Id. at #1724.) Similarly, the length and repetition of the offending comments also show that Stermer was denied a fair trial. See Berger, 295 U.S. at 89 (noting that “pronounced and persistent” remarks can render a trial unfair). The prosecutor’s inappropriate comments pervaded his closing argument. He began his discussion of Stermer’s out-of-court statements with a lengthy speech calling her a liar, repeated his claim that she was a liar throughout his closing argument, concluded his principal argument by calling her “a diabolical, scheming, manipulative liar,” and then reiterated that she was a liar at the end of his rebuttal. (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1724.) Viewing the record as a whole, it would be unreasonable to conclude that these statements did not “so infect[] the trial with unfairness” as to violate Stermer’s right to due process. Darden, 477 U.S. at 181 (quoting Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 643). The state points to Darden as an example where worse conduct still resulted in the denial of a habeas petition. But while the words used by the prosecutor in Darden might seem worse in the abstract, see, e.g., 477 U.S. at 180 n.12 (“[The defendant] shouldn’t be out of his cell unless he has a leash on him and a prison guard at the other end of that leash.”), the Darden Court outlined several reasons why those statements did not make the defendant’s trial fundamentally unfair. These reasons suggest the opposite result in this case. In Darden, the Court specifically noted that “[t]he prosecutors’ argument did not manipulate or misstate the evidence,” that “[m]uch of the objectionable content was invited by or was responsive to the opening summation of the defense,” and that there was overwhelming evidence against the defendant. Id. at 181–82. The Court also noted that defense counsel had benefited from these statements by responding to them in a rebuttal, “turning much of the prosecutors’ closing argument against them by placing many of the prosecutors’ comments and No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 36 actions in a light that was more likely to engender strong disapproval than result in inflamed passions against petitioner.” Id. at 182. On each of these points, the reverse is true here. As noted above, the prosecutor presented a strawman version of Stermer’s defense, cherrypicked certain statements from the interview transcript, and even flat-out misstated her testimony, and then labeled Stermer a liar. These arguments were not invited by the defense’s own presentation, the prosecutor had the last word, and the defense did not meaningfully respond to these claims during its own closing. And most importantly, as discussed above, the evidence against Stermer is not overwhelming. Given all this, any fair reading of Darden shows that Stermer was denied a fair trial. Finally, although the state cites Darden in arguing that the trial court’s preliminary instruction—“remarks by attorneys are not evidence”—cured any ills in this case (Resp’t’s Br. at 30 (quoting Trial. Tr. vol. 1, R. 24-7 at PageID #792–93)), this generic instruction cannot overcome the weight of the prosecutor’s comments. While Darden noted that “[t]he trial court instructed the jurors several times that their decision was to be made on the basis of the evidence alone, and that the arguments of counsel were not evidence,” 477 U.S. at 182, Donnelly—upon which Darden relied—demonstrates that this principle has limits. There, the trial court “directed the jury’s attention to the [specifically challenged] remark . . . , declared it to be unsupported, and admonished the jury to ignore it.” Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 644.13 While the court found that, in light of the broader context of the comment, this instruction could help mitigate any harm, it said that even considering the specific nature of the instruction, “some occurrences at trial may be too clearly prejudicial for such a curative instruction to mitigate their effect.” Id. The completely generic instruction here, given before the start of trial, does not approach sufficiency under Donnelly and Darden. At end, while this question of prejudice may be a difficult one, it is difficult only in the sense that it is near the line of whether any fair-minded jurist could conclude Stermer’s trial was 13In the dissent’s recitation of Donnelly’s facts, it conveniently omits this curative instruction, making it seem as though these comments were acceptable even in the absence of any effort by the trial judge to limit their effect. But the Court in Donnelly expressly relied on both the ambiguous nature of the prosecution’s comments and on the “specific disapproving instructions” of the trial judge, 416 U.S. at 645, both of which were absent from this case. No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 37 fair, as opposed to none being able to. See Richter, 562 U.S. at 101. Because the facts push this case past the line of reasonable dispute, we must affirm the district court’s grant of a conditional writ. D. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel The district court also granted Stermer’s habeas petition based on two claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. First, Stermer’s counsel failed to object to the prosecutor’s statements at closing argument. This significantly undercut Stermer’s defense and could not have been part of a reasonable trial strategy, and so we affirm the district court’s grant of Stermer’s petition on this ground. Second, despite arguing to the jury that the fire may have been an accident, Stermer’s lawyer never consulted with a fire expert to rebut the state’s expert testimony. Due to procedural complications in Stermer’s state habeas proceeding, we decline to rule upon the ultimate merits of this claim. But absent those procedural issues, the record suggests that Stermer’s counsel was ineffective for failing to call such an expert, and this failure had a meaningful chance of affecting the outcome of Stermer’s trial. 1. Legal Standard The well-established federal law used for assessing Stermer’s ineffective assistance claims is the framework from Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Strickland imposes a two-part test for determining whether counsel was unconstitutionally ineffective. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 521 (2003); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 390–91 (2000). The first prong assesses counsel’s performance. Under this prong, “the defendant must show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687–88. In other words, a court assessing an ineffective assistance claim must “determine whether, in light of all the circumstances, the [challenged] acts or omissions were outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance.” Id. at 690. When making this assessment, “counsel is strongly presumed to have rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment.” Id. Second, in order to amount to a constitutional violation, the error by counsel must have been prejudicial to the defendant. Id. at 691–92. To prove prejudice, “[t]he defendant must No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 38 show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id. at 694. “[T]he question is not whether a court can be certain counsel’s performance had no effect on the outcome or whether it is possible a reasonable doubt might have been established if counsel acted differently. . . . The likelihood of a different result must be substantial, not just conceivable.” Richter, 562 U.S. at 111–12. Because the Strickland standard is general in nature, significant deference applies to state court decisions when assessing them under § 2254(d). Richter, 562 U.S. at 105. On the cause prong in particular, the Supreme Court has described this review as “doubly deferential,” because AEDPA provides deference to the state court, which in turn is expected to give considerable deference to trial counsel’s decisions. Woods v. Etherton, 136 S. Ct. 1149, 1151 (2016) (per curiam) (quoting Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 190 (majority opinion)). 2. Failure to Object During Closing Arguments The first source of ineffective assistance identified by the district court is trial counsel’s failure to object to the prosecutor’s statements during closing arguments. Stermer v. Warren, 360 F. Supp. 3d at 659–60; see also supra Part II.C (discussing the prosecutor’s statements and assessing them for misconduct). The failure to object to prosecutorial misconduct can amount to ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland. See, e.g., Hodge, 426 F.3d at 375–76. This is because “when a prosecutor does act unfairly, there is little a defendant can do other than rely on his or her attorney to lodge an appropriate and timely objection. A failure to make such an objection can have devastating consequences for an individual defendant.” Id. at 377.14 The state all but concedes that if Stermer wins on her prosecutorial misconduct claim, she also wins on her ineffective assistance claim. (See Resp’t’s Br. at 54–56 (“This claim essentially merges with the prosecutorial misconduct claim.”).) But even if the state did not concede the point, an independent analysis also supports habeas relief on this claim. 14Again, while Hodge is not itself “well-established federal law,” its application of Strickland on habeas review was not disrupted by Parker, 567 U.S. 37, and is still binding precedent in this circuit, see Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 522 (noting that cases assessing a habeas petition under AEDPA can be cited to support the court’s application of prior, well-established Supreme Court precedent). No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 39 Turning first to performance, there is no way that the attorney’s failure to object “might be considered sound trial strategy.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689 (quoting Michel v. Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91, 101 (1955)). The state habeas court’s presumed finding to the contrary was unreasonable. In this case, trial counsel stood by while the prosecutor repeatedly branded Stermer a liar, misrepresented her statements, bolstered the credibility of other witnesses, and called her a “diabolical, scheming, manipulative liar and a murderer.” (Trial Tr. vol. 5, R. 24-11 at PageID #1724.) While “any single failure to object usually cannot be said to have been error,” here defense counsel “so consistently fail[ed] to use objections, despite numerous and clear reasons for doing so, that counsel’s failure cannot reasonably have been said to have been part of a trial strategy or tactical choice.” Lundgren v. Mitchell, 440 F.3d 754, 774 (6th Cir. 2006) (applying the Strickland test for ineffective assistance). Unlike the decision to let inadmissible evidence slide into a trial without drawing the jury’s attention, “a failure to object to comments on witness credibility or derogatory statements by the prosecutor is much less susceptible to the argument that it should be considered reasonable trial strategy.” Hodge, 426 F.3d at 386. This is especially true when the objectionable conduct is essentially the core of the prosecution’s closing argument. In Hodge, the statements at issue were quite similar to those here, with the prosecutor accusing the defendant of lying, bolstering the testimony of other witnesses, and misrepresenting testimony during closing arguments. Id. And so too here, the statements “were sufficiently egregious to warrant, at a minimum, an objection at the bench following the conclusion of the prosecution’s rebuttal argument.” Id.; see also Walker v. Morrow, 458 F. App’x 475, 487 (6th Cir. 2012) (“The soundness of counsel’s strategy becomes increasingly difficult to demonstrate the more outrageous the prosecutor’s conduct.”). Counsel’s failure to object was well outside the “range of professionally competent assistance.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690; see also Hodge, 426 F.3d at 376 (“[T]rial counsel’s failure to object to any of the numerous improper statements in the prosecution’s closing argument is well outside this range.”). Regarding prejudice, as discussed above, see supra Part II.C.2.b, the prosecutor’s objectionable comments pervaded his closing argument. He made Stermer’s credibility and the No. 19-1075 Stermer v. Warren Page 40 presentation of her out-of-court statements a central focus of the case. See Hodge, 426 F.3d at 384 (noting that the offending conduct must be viewed as a whole and in context). And where the evidence against a defendant is weak, prosecutorial misconduct in closing arguments is far more likely to affect the jury’s deliberations and verdict. See, e.g., Walker, 458 F. App’x 492. Given these circumstances, had Stermer’s counsel objected, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of her trial would have been different. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. Accordingly, Stermer has shown both inadequate performance and prejudice under Strickland, and so is entitled to a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel.