Tracy Petrocelli v. Renee Baker

I agree that Petrocelli’s death sentence must be reversed. I write separately because, in my view, even if the State could show that the prosecutor’s tactics had not prejudiced the jury’s verdict, Petrocelli’s case is one of the very few in which deliberate prosecutorial misconduct and egregious trial errors warrant habeas relief. See Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638 n.9, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993) (stating that a deliberate and especially egregious trial error, or one that is combined with a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct, might warrant habeas relief, even if the…