Barbara Jean Mercer was convicted in Michigan state court of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and third-degree arson following the deaths of two drug dealers, Anthony Hannah and Shemel Thomas, whose bodies were found in a burning car. The evidence showed that Mercer and her boyfriend, Ricky Janish, had a history of drug transactions with the victims, who had threatened to kill them after Mercer failed to pay for crack cocaine. Janish shot both men, and the couple subsequently burned the car to destroy evidence. During the trial, Mercer's defense argued that Janish acted to defend Mercer from imminent sexual assault by Thomas, but the trial court denied a defense-of-others jury instruction. While the district court later granted habeas relief on this specific claim, finding a due process violation, the Sixth Circuit reversed that decision. The case also involved claims of ineffective assistance of counsel regarding a mistaken duress defense theory and prosecutorial misconduct during closing arguments, all of which the district court had denied.
The Sixth Circuit began by categorizing the claim regarding the jury instruction as a mixed question of law and fact, which falls under the 'unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law' standard of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), rather than the 'unreasonable determination of facts' standard of § 2254(d)(2). The court explained that determining whether evidence is sufficient to warrant a jury instruction is a legal application, not a pure factual finding. Under this standard, the court found that the Supreme Court has never clearly established a constitutional right to a self-defense or defense-of-others jury instruction. Citing Keahey v. Marquis, the court noted that while defendants have a right to present a defense, state courts have considerable leeway in deciding whether to submit specific charges to the jury. Because no such right was clearly established, the state court's refusal to give the instruction could not be deemed an unreasonable application of federal law. Regarding the ineffective assistance claim, the court found that the state court's determination that the attorney's initial error regarding a duress defense did not prejudice the outcome was not objectively unreasonable, especially given the curative instructions provided by the judge and prosecutor. Finally, on the prosecutorial misconduct claim, the court held that the prosecutor's incorrect comments about hearsay were isolated and did not infect the trial with such unfairness as to deny due process, particularly in light of the judge's curative instructions.
The decision affirms Mercer's state conviction for second-degree murder and related offenses, denying her federal habeas relief. It reinforces the high bar for federal habeas petitioners challenging state jury instructions under AEDPA, clarifying that the absence of a Supreme Court precedent recognizing a specific defense instruction precludes relief. The ruling also limits the scope of prosecutorial misconduct claims, emphasizing that isolated errors corrected by curative instructions generally do not warrant federal intervention.
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