As the state supreme court, in affirming a denial of severance on direct review, held in the alternative that the evidence of the crimes would be cross-admissible, and this ground wan't challenged on grounds of federal law during state post-conviction proceedings, the omission of the challenge from the federal Habeas petition to the District Court waived the claim.
State court determinations that post-identification police disclosures to witnesses at photo lineup that they had arrested the suspect was not contrary to clear federal law on the question.
State court reasonably declined to infer improper suggestion when photo lineup witness identified one candidate, and the police then momentarily turned off the recording device before the witness identified the defendant.
Since the state's highest court conducted an independent review of mitigation, a federal Habeas claim against the state trial court's holding of insufficient nexus needed to identify the constitutional error in the higher court's analysis.
District court properly denied amendment of federal Habeas ineffective assistance claims subsequent to independent exhaustion in state post-conviction review after federal Habeas had commenced, since the claims did not relate to the same transactions and occurrences; no plain error in the denial of equitable tolling.
State court's determination that admission of crime scene photos was not unduly prejudicial was not an unreasonable application of federal law, since contemporaneous circuit precedent held that there was no circumstance in which admission of irrelevant or prejudicial evidence could justify the writ. Offered stipulation was not sufficient, since nothing in the Due Process Clause holds that the government can't introduce relevant evidence on an uncontested point.