Richard Nickleson v. William Stephens, Director

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:

Richard Nickleson was convicted of murder in 2004 and sentenced to 38 years imprisonment for shooting a man with whom he had recently been involved in a drug deal. On direct appeal, he unsuccessfully raised various state law issues including insufficiency of the evidence. He then sought state habeas relief for claims based on ineffective counsel, inadmissible, extraneous offense evidence, and a biased juror.

For the first time in federal court, he asserted that his trial was fundamentally unfair because of “cumulative errors” committed at trial. The district…