Barbara Jean Mercer was convicted in 2012 of second-degree murder, tampering with evidence, and third-degree arson after her boyfriend Richard "Ricky" Janish shot and killed two drug dealers who had threatened her over an unpaid debt. Police found Anthony Hannah and Shemel Thomas's gunshot-riddled bodies in a burning car at a Michigan waterfowl refuge. Mercer had called the victims to her home after Thomas threatened to "shoot up the house" following a botched drug deal where she gave him empty DVD cases instead of money.
Circuit Judge Joan Larsen wrote that Mercer's claim about the jury instruction fell under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's Section 2254(d)(1) standard, not the more lenient factual review standard. The court emphasized that "whether a particular set of historical facts... constitutes 'some evidence' sufficient to permit the inference of an ultimate fact... is a legal or 'mixed' question, not a purely factual one." The panel noted that Mercer herself had conceded that a 2020 Sixth Circuit decision in Keahey v. Marquis "eliminated 28 U.S.C. ยง 2254(d)(1) as a viable legal theory" for her case.
The Eastern District of Michigan had granted habeas relief in 2022, finding that the state court violated Mercer's due process rights by denying the defense-of-others instruction regarding Thomas's killing. District Judge Matthew Leitman concluded that Janish's statements about seeing Thomas try to "grab a hold of" Mercer and telling him to "get off of her" created sufficient evidence for the instruction. The district court had analyzed the claim under AEDPA's factual review standard after separating legal conclusions from factual determinations.
The reversal significantly limits defendants' ability to challenge jury instruction denials on habeas review, reinforcing that federal courts must show considerable deference to state court decisions even when they may disagree with the outcome. The Sixth Circuit also affirmed the denial of Mercer's ineffective assistance and prosecutorial misconduct claims, noting that defense counsel's mistaken reliance on an unavailable duress defense did not prejudice her case since the error was shared by the prosecutor and judge, who publicly corrected it.