Cauthern v. Bell, No. 10-5759 (6th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendant, convicted of murder and rape in connection with the 1987 deaths of two officers in the Army Nurse Corps, was sentenced to death in Tennessee state court. After exhausting state remedies, he sought a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254(d). The district court denied his petition in its entirety, but granted a certificate of appealability on a claim that the state improperly excluded mitigation evidence at his resentencing hearing. The Sixth Circuit expanded the certificate to cover claims concerning alleged prosecutorial misconduct in rebuttal at resentencing; ineffective assistance of counsel at his resentencing; suppression of favorable, material evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, improper review of the exclusion of mitigation evidence at the resentencing; and unconstitutional vagueness in the Tennessee aggravating factor applied at resentencing. The court then affirmed, except with respect to the claim of prosecutorial misconduct. The court granted a conditional writ based on the prosecutor’s statements comparing defendant to two of the most widely despised criminals of the then-recent past, repeated references to defendant as “the evil one,” and reference to the Lord’s Prayer, creating an inference “that the death penalty is mandatory through their appeal to a higher authority.”
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