Court Opinion

ID: 9497866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:02:07.345794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:28.112808
License: Public Domain

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in this opinion. I do not, however, concur in the opinion’s holding, citing *651DePew v. Anderson, 311 F.3d 742, 748 (6th Cir.2003), that prosecutorial misconduct during the penalty phase of the trial may violate the Eighth Amendment.
Because we analyze Bates’s claims under the standards established by Congress in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), we may not grant a writ of habeas corpus with respect to any claim of legal error adjudicated on the merits in state court unless such state adjudication “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[.]” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). As I observed in my dissent in DePew, neither Buchanan v. Angelone, 522 U.S. 269, 118 S.Ct. 757, 139 L.Ed.2d 702 (1998), cited by the lead opinion for this proposition, nor any other case out of the Supreme Court, holds that the Eighth Amendment mitigation requirement applies to the actions of prosecutors. Because we are bound to apply clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court, the majority’s reliance upon the Sixth Circuit’s opinion in DePew is improper under AEDPA.
The issue, in my view is whether the misconduct of the prosecutor amounted to a denial of due process. Here, it clearly did. I therefore concur, and would grant a writ of habeas corpus based upon prosecu-torial misconduct.