Opinion ID: 705487
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Petitioner was denied the right to a fair trial and impartial jury.

Text: 28 2. Petitioner was denied a fair trial when the prosecutor improperly questioned petitioner and made improper remarks regarding petitioner's overnight consultations with his attorney. 29 3. The prosecutor committed prosecutorial misconduct and denied petitioner a fair trial when the prosecutor referred to defense counsel as a person who condones little white lies. 30 4. Insufficient evidence to support a conviction of aggravated arson. 31 5. Insufficient evidence to support a conviction of gross abuse of a corpse. 32 6. Petitioner was denied the right to effective assistance of counsel. 33 (1) Petitioner's trial counsel was ineffective when he failed to move to suppress his client's inculpatory statements on the grounds of involuntariness and Miranda and then proceeded to play the inculpatory and incriminatory tape recording of the defendant during his case-in-chief. 34 (2) Failed to object to the prosecutor's improper comments on voir dire examination wherein the prosecutor characterized the deceased as a victim and the case as one of a series of a senseless murders that have happened in our community. 35 (3) Failed to object to the prosecutor's reference to petitioner at trial as Mr. Defendant. 36 (4) Failed to object to the prosecutor's improper cross-examination of the petitioner regarding his overnight consultation with his attorney. 37 (5) Failed to object to the prosecutor's improper rebuttal concerning the defendant's overnight conference with his attorney, ridiculing petitioner for exercising his rights at the time of his initial interrogation and failed to object to the prosecutor's reference to defense counsel as someone who condones little white lies. 38 (6) Failed to provide proper notice to the prosecutor regarding an experiment which supported the petitioner's theory of the cause of the fire, furnished the petitioner's experiment in an inadmissible manner and relied on an expert witness who did not investigate the scene of the fire. 39 (7) Referred to his client during closing argument as conceptually the aggressor in a self-defense case. 40 (8) Referred to his client's actions in pouring gasoline in the apartment as a perverse thing to do when the charges are aggravated arson and abuse of a corpse. 41 (9) Referred to the death of Beth McKinnon as a homicide. 42 (10) Requested the court not to instruct on involuntary manslaughter when the defendant testified that the death was unintentional, and by requesting a charge on negligent homicide which was clearly inappropriate under Ohio law. 43 J.A. 438-40. On October 24, 1994, the district court denied petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The district court found that petitioner's first, third, and fourth claims were procedurally barred from habeas review and that petitioner's second, fifth, and sixth claims were without merit. Petitioner filed a notice of appeal on November 22, 1994, and the district court granted a certificate of probable cause to appeal on February 22, 1995.