Did the Ninth Circuit's refusal to accept the State's concessions of error conflict with this Court's decisions?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In 1995, a California state-court jury sentenced petitioner Gregory Demetrulias to death after finding him guilty of first-degree murder and finding true the only special circumstance prosecuted at trial, a robbery-murder special circumstance. In his direct appeal challenging his murder conviction, the State conceded that the trial court erred in three ways at Demetrulias’s guilt trial: the trial court should have instructed on Demetrulias’ s claim-of-right defense; it should also have instructed on his heat-of-passion defense; and the trial court should not have allowed the prosecution to introduce victim character evidence during its case-inchief. The California Supreme Court agreed with the State that the trial court should have instructed on Demetrulias’s claim-of-right defense and his heat-ofpassion defense. The California Supreme Court did not address the claim that the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution to introduce victim character evidence during its case-in-chief, finding waiver by trial counsel. In federal habeas, Demetrulias raised a cumulative error claim encompassing these errors. Denying this claim, the Ninth Circuit held that there were no guiltphase errors to cumulate. i This case presents two questions: QUESTION ONE: Did the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to accept the State’s concessions of error conflict with this Court’s decisions in Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 202 (2006) (noting the principle that federal courts defer to the State’s deliberate litigation choices in the context of a timeliness defense); Granberry v. Greer, 481 U.S. 129, 136 (1987) (same, except with exhaustion); Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383, 389 (1994) (same, except with non-retroactivity)? QUESTION TWO: Did the Ninth Circuit’s analysis conflict with this Court’s decisions, which require federal courts to defer to a state court’s finding of error and to address only the prejudice prong of a constitutional claim when a state court finds error? See, e.g., Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. 257, 263, 267 (2015), Bradshaw v. Richey, 546 U.S. 74, 76 (2005). ii